An example of a logo that has been criticized and considered not to be a culturally best logo is the Blackhawk’s hockey team logo. The logo depicts American Indian tribal leader – Blackhawk. It is an Indian head wearing face paint and feathers. Many people believe that the team’s logo is no better than the Redskins. It has been criticized for a number of times for caricaturing the Native Americans. Due to all the criticisms, it is clear that the logo is not culturally appropriate as some cultures finds in a bit offensive. But how could this have been avoided so that the team can have a culturally appropriate logo that will be accepted by all cultures?

Consider the following tips to design a culturally best logo.

Wise Choice of Symbols

A bigger part of the controversy that usually mar logos considered not to be culturally appropriate usually lies in the symbols used. A culturally appropriate logo should not use or have symbols that other cultures might consider to be offensive. The Blackhawk logo that is considered culturally inappropriate. That’s because it features a head wearing feathers and face paint just like the American Indian tribal leader Blackhawk.

The choice of symbol for the logo, in this case, is very specific. It can be construed to have targeted the native Indian communities, even if it had pure and sincere intentions of doing so. It would be a good idea to use a more neutral symbol that might not appear offensive to other people. This is because the logo has been considered not to be culturally appropriate.

The Color Choice for the Best Logo

The color is always an integral part of every culture. Different countries and regions have colors to which they cherish and upon which they draw their inspirations from. To create a culturally appropriate logo, it would be prudent to choose the right colors that will be in tandem with the cultures of the target audience. Additionally, colors that might create controversy or which hold bad memories as far as the concerned culture should always be avoided at all costs.

Make use of Prominent Features

Using prominent features or landscapes in the logo design will make it appear more culturally appropriate. This contributes the proper choice of symbols in designing a culturally appropriate logo. This might include the use of geographical features such as lakes, mountains, rivers as well as native animals such as Bear, Kangaroo, etc.

When such features are used, it will be easy for the people to recognize easily. Also, it will be easy for people accept the logo because it contains features that they consider as part of their culture. An example of a logo that uses both a native animal and a natural feature is the Toblerone logo. Toblerone is a region in Switzerland, near Bern City and it is believed that this is the place where chocolate originated from.

The logo features the prominent Mount Matterhorn as well as a white bear. This is culturally appropriate since the mountain is native to the residents and nobody will ever find it to be culturally inappropriate.

Choice of Words

The choice of words is another important factor to consider when designing a culturally appropriate logo. The wording in the logo is especially important if you intend to have a tagline or name in one of the local dialects. The world is comprised of different ethnicities and dialects. Its important for you not to use wording which might be considered by another community as culturally inappropriate.

One word may make sense in one dialect but be totally offensive when seen by another community. Though such cases are rare, you should always be cautious, especially when you have to use the various dialects in the native languages in your designs.

Most logo designs in the present times will be considered culturally appropriate. But it still pays to be cautious and take the necessary precautions. This is to ensure that you don’t end up with a logo which will upset some people due to your choice of symbols, patterns, colors and wording. This is why you should take note of these four tips so that you culturally appropriate logos. This way you can also avoid being attacked for targeting a particular culture with your designs.

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A draft presentation is one of the steps that designers have to contend with during the design process. It comes early in the process because it is out of the draft presentation that the final concept of the design will be agreed upon. A draft design is the rough mock up of what the designer intends to come up with in the final design based on the project brief or the requirements of the client. The main objective of presenting a draft to the client is so that you can both agree on your intentions and also get recommendations before you go deep into the actual design. But as much as design drafts are important, how many then should you present to the client?

The number of drafts to present is very subjective and may be dictated by various factors. Before exploring the specific factors that might determine the number of drafts to show a client, it is important to understand that other than confirming to the client that you are both on the same page as far as the project requirements are concerned, you are also trying out variations and giving the client room to make a choice from the drafts you present to them. Since it is subjective, there are some designers who prefer to give one, two, three and some show up to five different drafts to the clients. Other professional designers, on the other hand, insists on showing just a single design draft for reasons which we will discuss later. Here are a few factors that might determine the total number of drafts to show to your clients.

Terms of agreement – depending on the contractual terms you agreed upon concerning the project, a specific number of drafts may be included in the contract. In such a case, the designer has no choice but to show the agreed number of drafts as per the contract.

Your mistakes – As a designer, there are certain occasions when you don’t get it right the first time, and this is a very common with the first drafts. When you meet the client with the first draft and realize that you are completely off of what they wanted, a second and maybe a third draft may be necessary.

However, this will only happen in the early stages of your design profession. As you increase in your experience, you will start to get it the first time and reduce the number of drafts you show to your clients.

Change in customer requirements – though this rarely happens, there are situations when the client might decide to change a few items once the project has commenced. As a good and a professional designer who desires to please their clients, but only to certain extent, revising the work and presenting another draft might be necessary.

What is the acceptable number – In some situations, however, when there was no clear number of drafts agreed upon on the contract, it is upon the designer and the client to agree on what is acceptable as the number of drafts to show the client. There are certain clients who might be demanding and may require several drafts before you come up with the final design. Such clients might be a bother, and they may slow you down as a designer.

The best course of action, therefore, is to remind them politely that the design needs to move on past the draft stage. But again you should not be too stingy to show at least a couple of designs to the client.

Why you should never present more than one draft to clients?

Most of the professional graphic designers hardly present more than one draft to the clients. This is due to the following reasons-:

Degrades your expertise

When you show a client many drafts, it might signify that you are not certain of what you want to do hence you are not competent enough. As the expert, you should be in a position to clearly read and understand the project brief and come up with the right draft the first time. Presenting many drafts to the client is like asking them to help you do your job.

Choice paralysis

When your habit is to present clients with a number of drafts, both you and the client risk suffering what is referred to us choice paralysis. This is when you are unable to make up your minds and pick a draft to continue working with. You might also find that the clients might choose the choices you never wanted them to pick simply because you gave them a lot of room to move around.

A lot of work on your part

Producing many drafts also mean that you will spend your time, energy and resources in working with the extra number of drafts. It, therefore, leads to more work on your part, which will eventually slow you down and affect your productivity.

How many revisions should you offer?

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