In the span of their careers, there isn’t a designer alive who hasn’t heard those heart-wrenching (and blood-pressure raising) words – “I could have done that in five minutes”. We’ve heard them a few times at the shop – usually by clients who think their logo has to look like it took fifteen hours to develop. And I suppose they’re kinda right. Some logos could be rendered (an important distinction) in a couple of minutes. If we knew exactly what the client wanted. If we were able to nail a concept down in our first attempt. If the client approved said design on first blush. And if that logo consisted of basic elements – a few shapes and some typography. Take this design for AGX Technologies – a manufacturer of high-tech fiber optics products.
An exercise in simplicity itself. A red circle. A black circle. Some Futura condensed type work. Could this logo be rendered in three minutes? I’d say it could be done in much less. What many folks may not understand is that this simple design is the result of about two days worth of design, concepts, back-and-forth with the client, doodles and general mucking about with the various elements that make up a logo. Let’s take a look at how this project fleshed out.
The client wanted a ‘rainbow’ effect to illustrate the fiber optics portion of his business (supposed to represent light). We dutifully tried to incorporate the motif into the first versions (admitedly, some of the designs ended up resembling the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album). During the first stab at the new logo, our designers created a few work-ups as per the client request, but added a suggested alternative – an elegantly simple version featuring a couple of circles and some hyper-kerned type. The designs were rejected and we received a request for even more color. And more detail. And more visual metaphors. This time, we were asked to portray light that was moving down a cable. Tah-dah…
Fair enough. We messed around with the type – made it exceptionally bold to offset the increasing complexity. Added some squiggly lines. Then, we were asked to add some numbers – 0’s and 1’s to represent data – to the cacophony of disparate graphic elements. No problem – the logos were still quite fetching and considering the tale the logo was now telling, fairly simplistic. Then came the globes…
As the design was all about the internet, and the reach of the internet is global, we were asked to toss some globes into the mix. And some data bytes. And the light. And the movement. We did what we could, the results of which are shown above. By this point, the client was getting frustrated – the project was starting to drag, and they felt our designers just weren’t “getting it”. Before the project tanked completely, we decided to revisit the bare-bones concept that we had presented in the first round of preliminary designs – the red circle version – but rather than simply presenting the design over again, we mocked up some business cards. Simple, uncluttered, business cards.
Seeing the simple logo in action convinced the client that perhaps his direction was too complicated after all. And maybe our designers were right – war-and-peace probably wasn’t going to cut it for a high-tech company. The project was saved, the logo was finalized, and we went on to create the rest of the stationery package – letterheads, business cards and envelope. Client was happy. Designer was happy. All was well in logo land.
Now, getting back to my original point – let’s take a look at the final logo again:
Could this logo have been created in three minutes flat? Absolutely. Was it? Far from it. This design is the result of about fifteen hours of production time, a lot of hair-pulling and banging-heads-on-desks. For both client and designer. At the end of the logo design process, we had arrived at a simple, elegant mark that’s quite befitting a high-tech company. It did, however, take us a helluva while to get there, all of which is factored into the worth of a logo. Accordingly, next time your client tells you “I could have designed that in five minutes” send ‘em here – I’d like to have a word.
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A great write up. I think this perfectly illustrates (literally!) why graphic design will always be needed. Might I ask a question please?
I totally agree that the final logo is better than anything before it, but there is one thing that’s bugging me about it. The X in the black circle. Why is it not centred vertically with the AG? It’s subtle, I know, but it’s noticable. It’s out by just a pixel or two. Was this intentional? Just wondering.
What a great article. I too have heard those words before and it is always very hard educating the client as to why so many hours go in to something that could be very simple. I think it is hard not to want to show the client loads of concepts (even if they are rubbish or not right for the target market) just to prove that a lot of work has gone!