The other way of enhancing the branding is to have a powerful logo to act as a perpetual reminder to the current and potential clients about the business. In this piece, we highlight certain fundamental tips for barbershop logo design to set your shop apart from the rest and ensure you can you have a consistent stream of clients.

Adopt a simple and clean design

Simplicity and cleanliness are must-have features for any successful logo. They will make the logo look attractive and reflect on the barbershop in an uncluttered way. By being simple and clean, the logo should have balanced graphics, proper fonts, complimentary colors and a cleverly crafted tagline to pass across the main marketing message in a clear and concise manner. To know how to come up with such a logo, take time and brainstorm on the words that you think best describe your barbershop philosophy, services, values and generally what motivates you to give your best to your clients.

Let the logo reflect your barbershop style

One effective way of branding for any business is to target a niche audience. In the beauty or hair care industry, there is a plethora of styles offered by both the salons and barbershops. Identify your specific niche or style and incorporate some of its elements into the logo. For instance, is your style more hip-urban or do you cater for a specific type of clients such as black Americans? When you are able to reflect your style in the logo, it will make it easy for people to tell what they are likely to get when visiting your shop and you will also attract quality prospects because they already know what they want and they have an idea that they might get it from your barbershop.

Intelligent use of colors

There is no logo design which will ever be discussed without reference being made to the color psychology. This owes to the immense importance of color use in logo design. People react differently when they see colors and this call for the intelligent use of colors in your logo design. With regards to designing a logo for barbershop, the choice of color could be determined by a number of factors.

For instance, you may decide to use earth tones to reflect your hair care services or if you are an urban or trendy barber, then going with simple colors such as black and white would still work. Suppose you use organic hair care products and you would want to use this as a selling point, then you may use nature colors such as green, purple or orange.

The size and format of the logo

It is important to remember that the logo will be used in a myriad of places for marketing your barbershop. Probably, you are likely to use it in the social media, in your website, on posters inside and out of your shop and on stationery amongst others. Due to these, it is imperative to consider the size and the format of the logo. Because of the diverse nature of the intended use, the logo shouldn’t lose its quality when printed on small items like stationery or on large items such as banners and poster for the shop.

The symbols or objects

The symbols should be able to let anyone know that the logo is for a barbershop. In this regard, your choice of symbol should be related to the industry. Mostly, some people will prefer to use haircut styles or tools used such as scissors. While searching for the appropriate symbol to use for the logo, don’t be too generic or copy another person’s exact same style. Instead, use them for inspiration and add your tweaks to make it original and unique.

Consider using the services of a professional designer

It is true that you can use a plethora of the online tools and free logo generators to create a logo for your barbershop. However, these options have some inherent limitations which might work against you in the long run. For instance, you won’t have the flexibility to create an entirely unique logo and besides, other people in different parts of the world are using the same tools and same resources, hence there is no originality. The antidote to this is to use the services of professional logo designers who will create for you unique and original logo for your business. You may have to part with some money, but it is worth it for the long term branding of your business.

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A good logo as your signature should be simple, professional and informative. You can effortlessly implement this on your signature without making it look dull and boring. Presented below are some of the ways to use to make your email signature cool with a logo.

Don’t include too much information

One of the most common mistakes people make with their email signature is to thing that they are mini autobiography. They end up jamming them with lots of unnecessary information and links which ultimately make them look dull and boring. When you create your signature with a logo, there is no need to include too much information.

The essence of the logo is to market your brand, and if people can take note of it, they will definitely head over to your website where they will find the rest of the information you are tempted to include in the sign. Therefore, try and keep the signature clean and to the point by not cramming it with the logo in addition with lots of other information.

Consider the color of your logo

As noted earlier, the signature will be the last thing the reader will see after reading the email. When you use a logo as the signature, it is important to consider the dominant color of your design. There are instances when the color may appear a little dull when used in the signature and in such cases, it is advisable that you tweak the colors and probably use some bright pallets to attract the reader’s attention to the logo. Obviously, when the color of the logo doesn’t contrast that of the email, then decipherability will be hampered and the logo will not be as effective as it would have been.

Use just the right size

For proper organization and better display of the logo on the signature, the size ought to be just the right one. A large logo size will not just be boring and annoying to the reader, but it may also affect the rendition of your email and make the structure and the organization disjointed. Additionally, if the signature takes more space than the actual content of the email, you may appear as imposing your brand to the recipients and it may make them change your perception about you.

Use smaller font pallets

Too many fonts are not a disaster for your logo alone, but also for your signature. Ideally, it is advisable not to use a lot of fonts in your logo and if this is the case, you will have to do some tweaking when using the logo in your email signature. This is a nice way to keep the logo simple and clear as the name and thus making it more effective in your branding efforts.

Let the logo be in the right format for small screens as well

It goes without saying that the logo should be able to render properly in computer screens before you use in the signature. Some businesses not fond of using communications may just pick any logo format and use it as the signature. You need to ensure that the logo is in a format which can be rendered across multiple devices, and especially on small screens, without its quality being affected. This is very important given that the number of people accessing emails via mobile device keeps on increasing and if the image in the signature can’ be displayed well on mobile devices, it may be a blow to your marketing and branding efforts.

Full width email signs

For most people using emails in their signatures, they follow the conventional format of position the signature at the bottom left section at the end of the email. Whereas this is the position which has been in use since time immemorial, sometimes a little creativity is needed to stand out from the crowd. For instance, you can modify the logo size to have an extended width to make it larger and more conspicuous.

In this way, it will draw in a lot of attention from the reader, besides making the email appear aesthetically appealing. However, you should consider this approach only if the logo can adopt a landscape layout without compromising its quality and overall visual appeal.

For better results with the logo as the email signature, there are other common mistakes that people fall for when designing their email signatures. For instance, there is no need for you to put all your phone numbers and email addresses on the signature. Watch out for such mistakes and you will never get it wrong with your email signatures.

Learn more about building a logo for a beauty company here!

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However, there are certain instances when the designer can really get mad. In most cases, it happens when they get a feeling that their intelligence in graphics design has been insulted or if the client if being unnecessarily stubborn. Here are some of the ways by which a client can really annoy their graphic designers-:

Ask them to work for free

The fastest and the easiest way a client can get their designers mad is to ask them to work for free with the promise of a positive review or helping them build their portfolio. This is not just derogatory but also insulting. The designer has taken his time and resources to learn his trade with the main reason of using the skills for financial gains and here you are asking for free services! However new or inexperienced the designer might appear, their intention is to give the client value for their money, and they will always be mad if you ask for free services.

Compare them with other designers

This is a complete turn off for many designers and if you ever try to compare them to other designers, they are likely to reject your offer. It is a fact that there are millions of other designers in the world, and you need to understand that each one is unique regarding quality and pricing amongst other attributes. Before you tell a designer about others offering $5 services on the internet or producing ten logos in one day, take a moment and look at their portfolio because you annoy them with such comparisons.

Haggle Forever

It is okay for a client to haggle so that they can services at rates which they can comfortably afford. However, haggling is only allowed at the beginning of the project. Once the designer has completed your work, you should know that you will be getting what you had paid for. Certain clients are fond of haggling even when the project has commenced and the designer is already deep in the design. Understand that the design industry is a creative market and not some fish market where you can haggle and make changes as much as you want.

Ask them to edit flat files

This usually arises from the client’s ignorance of the various files formats with regards to the ones which can be edited and the ones which are not editable. Most of the flat files are not editable so don’t send them over to your designer and ask them to edit them. The way to avoid annoying your graphic designer in this manner is to send original files with the editable layers. Most of the final artworks will be saved in PDF, some of which are editable but most of them can’t be edited. JPEGS and PNG files are also not editable.

Send them low-resolution images

In most of the graphic design assignments, the graphic designer may need to scale images and it is very difficult to do so without compromising on the sharpness of the image. To avert this, it is imperative to use high-resolution images. However, most clients send their graphic designers images in word formats or ask them to download from websites on the internet.

This is annoying because the customer may to ask that the logo be made bigger, yet the image sent can’t allow for that. Due to this, the designers are usually very mad when they receive low-resolution images from you, yet you will expect high quality work from them.

Ask them to make the logo bigger

Related to the above, a graphic designer does not like hearing the clients asking them to make the logo bigger. It is important to understand that the logo is part of the artwork and the whitespace at times may be a deliberate move by the designer to give the design some breathing space. Therefore, asking the designer to make the logo bigger is like guiding them on how to do the design yet they are the professionals. They find this to be demeaning to them, and most of them will get mad.

Expect unlimited revisions

The other way to annoy your graphic designer is to expect that they will offer you unlimited revisions. Before every project, there is a brief. The designer uses the brief to quote the project and give timelines depending on how long the project would take. Once you mutually agree on the terms of the project, how then can you expect unlimited revisions, unless you want to annoy the designer?

Use these 10 tips for better logo designs!

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This goes against the ethics of design, and it is your responsibility to guide the confused design customer so that you let them understand what you intend to do and ensure that it is according to their expectations.

Presented here is a simple guide you can use to give effective guidance to a confused design client when they approach you for your services-:

What is the nature of their business?

No matter the kind of graphics design project you have in mind, your work will always be targeted towards a particular audience and this is determined by the nature of goods and services that the client is offering to their customers. The first process towards guiding a confused design client is to ask them about the nature of their business.

Explain to them that this will enable you understand the design approach to take so that you can give relevant designs suited for their kind of business. Besides, it is your duty to customize the design and come up with unique ideas that will let you set apart your confused design client’s business.

Who are the competitors?

However confused a design client might appear, they will always know who they are up against in their respective industry. While guiding them through the design process, ask them who their competitors are and if there are any particular designs the competitors have that they find intriguing.

This is so that as the designer, you will gain deeper insights into what the competitions is doing, learn the deficiencies present among the competitor so that you can exploit them to come up with superior designs that will elevate your client’s brand above the rest.

What is the preferred image of the business?

Certain confused design clients will have no idea whatsoever on the image they want for their business. Though it happens rarely, it is your obligation as the designer to help the client understand the image that their business is likely to project and advise them that you will be using the same image during the design.

You can begin by asking them what they want the customers to think about their business, the kinds of feelings they want evoked when the customers see the designs, the basis upon which they want to grow their brand, how they want the business to look like the future, etc. For such questions, the confused design client will have a mental picture of the kinds of designs that suits the business and you will also find it easy as a designer to bring out the image formed by the confused design client in the final designs.

Who are the customers?

The other important thing when guiding a confused design client is to help them paint a picture of their customers. They need to have a thorough understanding of the specific group of people they will be promoting the business to. Fundamental questions to help the confused design client in knowing their target customers include who the ideal customers are, where they are likely to be found, the demographics with regards to age likes, etc.

These questions will help the confused design client to get into the minds of their customers to know how they perceive the business. For you as a designer, such information will help you a lot when coming up with the right design that will be suitable the target audience of your confused client.

Where does the client intend to use the design?

It is also important to help the client understand the specific places where the design will be applied to. Perhaps the confused design client wants a design for various branding purposes or they want a logo for which will appear in their official communication channels and help in branding the business. You need to explain to the confused design client why this is necessary so that you both be on the same page on what particular design is required. Whether it is a brochure, a business magazine a logo, a letterhead or a poster, it should be clear to both of you.

Symbols and inspirations

Finally, most logos consist of symbols and the business name. When guiding a confused design client, you need to lead them to reveal for you the symbols that they feel are most associated with their kind of business. As a designer, you don’t want to be generic with the symbols since this is not the best way to be creative and provide a killer design for your confused design client. Discuss with them the importance of using various symbols in the design and the potential meanings that the symbols might have on the final graphics.

Use these top tips for dealing with difficult clients!

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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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It is common for design clients to ask their designer for revisions once the assignment is done. Whereas it is within the rights of the client to ask for revised work when they are not satisfied, too many revisions might have far reaching consequences on the designer as well as the final value of the work. As a professional designer, it is expected that you understand your work and in an ideal case, you should never offer any revision. But in case you have to, what would be the ideal number of design revisions to offer to clients.

Truthfully speaking, there is no definite answer to this question. It is a subjective one with a lot of factors involved. Some designers will agree to do one, two, and three or up to even five revisions whereas other will be clear right from the start and tell clients that they don’t offer any design revisions. Also from the client’s perspective, they will expect a certain number of revisions for every design work they give. Some are ridiculous to ask for an unlimited number of revisions, which most designers will never offer.

Revisions mean little confidence in your work

Too many checks will give an impression that the designer did something wrong hence there is a need to correct. Even though you may not feel confident about your experience and your levels of competency as a graphics designer, you must be careful with the kind of message you pass across to your clients when you allow too many revisions. Essentially, you are telling them that you were not confident about your work the first time hence you are willing to work on it until they are satisfied. Have in mind that nobody wants to hire a designer who won’t get it right the first time.

The question that begs, therefore, is how you limit the number of revisions you make or how you avoid them completely. Discussed below are various approaches you can use to navigate through too many design revisions from clients:

Be selective when accepting clients

The internet has made it so easy to access logo design gigs at very cheap rates. However, most of the professional designer will never offer their logo designs services cheaply. Clients who don’t understand the dynamics, as well as the importance of professional logo design, are the ones who will be quick in asking if you offer any revisions even before they order for your services.

If you consider yourself a professional designer, then you can limit the number of design revisions to offer by simply selecting whom to work for and those to turn down. Fortunately, you can gauge your future interactions with the client the very first time you start to discuss the project. If you feel that they are the “unlimited revision” type of client or they, show signs that they don’t trust your skills hence will be asking for many revisions, save yourself the trouble and drop them.

Do your research and discuss your reasoning with your client

Most clients will request for design checks if they don’t understand your reasons and why you did what you did. One subtle way of ensuring that this doesn’t happen and that you are with the client on the same page is to do a thorough research on the project and have a solid reasoning behind the design.

Additionally, before you go deep into the design, have some time with the client and discuss with them your thought process, telling them what you intend to do with elaborate explanations. This is so that the client gets a clear picture of what you are doing and incase they have any reservation or concerns about the design; they will point it early enough so that you factor it in the design to avoid design revisions once the project is over.

Formulate a revision policy

Another smart way to handle revisions before they even occur is to have a revision policy clearly stated in your website or indicated in your early discussions with your clients. As noted earlier, many clients will always expect a certain number of revisions. You can limit the revision to one or two or use the One Concept Approach, where you don’t offer revisions, and you let the clients know this beforehand.

The advantage of taking this design revisions route is that the clients will trust you right from the start because you are confident about your work, and they will be less inclined to ask for revisions once you are done with the project.

Know how to deal with revision conflicts

In instances when you get into design revision conflicts, you need to find away to resolve the situation in the most amicable and professional manner. A good method would be to revisit the project goals as well as your earlier discussion with the clients to diffuse any confusion that might arise. You can also show them the original drafts if you are certain that you have done the right thing. However, if the work parameters changed during the project, then it may no longer be a revision and a complete review of the project may be necessary.

Learn how to create a logo with universal appeal here. 

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How to help clients choose a font? Graphic designer’s job description entails a lot other than just sitting behind a computer and churning out design after design. It sometimes includes helping the clients make the right choices as far as choosing a font are concerned. Many are the times when clients make proposals that seem not to be feasible, but it is the duty of the designer to offer advice and direction in such instances to ensure the successful completion of each and every project.

How to choose a font is one such area that many designers find themselves working a lot with the clients. Knowing how to choose a font is such as an important matter in design, and it requires all the attention from both the designer and the client. The right choice will lead to a great design that will meet the goals of the project, and it will also make it easy for the designer to work faster and more efficiently.  If you don’t know how to choose a font, you will waste lot of design time since the designer has to force other design aspects to match, but with no guarantees of a stellar outcome. So how exactly can a designer help a client choose the right font?

By considering the goals of the project

The goal of the project is the first consideration on how to choose a font style. Different design projects are meant for different purposes, and they are also targeting varied audiences. With the variety of fonts available, they can be used in design to create a wide range of impressions dependent on the particular goals that the design is aiming to achieve. A client should therefore not be guided by the aesthetics of the font, but rather, the impact it will create in the final design.

Legibility of the font

Since designs are aimed at passing on particular messages, the font used should be legible enough, so as to make it easy for the target audience to read and understand the message in the design. Again, the legibility of the font will be dictated by whether or not the design is for decorative purposes or it will be used for other reasons such as in the print media.

For instance, decorative fonts will always have low legibility since they are meant to attract attention while fonts meant for newspapers and novels will usually have high legibility. As a designer, you need to work together with the client and define an overall legibility that will cut across all the design. While considering legibility on how to choose a font, the following factors are worth considering-:

• Choose fonts with conventional letterforms
• Choose fonts with generous spacing
• Choose fonts with a tall x-height

Readability

Next to legibility is the readability of the font. It is possible to use a font that is easily legible but does poorly when it comes to readability. Such factors determine the readability of a font as the style, color, tracking, size and every other property useful for overall impression. For example, if your focus for the design is to have high readability, then the client should settle for a style that will not hinder the audience’s ability to get the full meaning of the message.

It is important for the client to remember when thinking on how to choose a font that the message of the design comes first before the style. This doesn’t imply that the style is not important, but there should be a balance between the style and the effectiveness of the message being passed across.

Aspects of appropriateness

It is true that there are other fonts more suitable for design tasks compared to others. While helping the client choose a font, aspects of appropriateness will be determined by the designer’s experience of working with different fonts. It will be upon the designer to advise the client on the best fonts to use to let him have a great design at the end of the project. Aspects of appropriateness are in most cases determined by the intent of the design, the mood of the design, and the aesthetics desired for the design.

Technical Consideration

When all is said and done, the client will leave the designer to embark on the project. As much as you may consider a plethora of fonts to use in any design, you also need to consider the technicalities of using the fonts for the projects. For instance, you have to weigh other specifics of the design and evaluate if the font chosen will not be problematic at all.
Suppose the design is going to feature a lot of numbers, your ideal font should have the kind of numbers you are likely to use. A client may not have such finer details of design but as the professional, you need to bring to their attention the technical considerations involving the use of various fonts. Never ignore technical details on how to choose a font when with the client.

Use these resources to access the best free fonts online!

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Under promising and over delivering in business is a common cliché currently making rounds regarding customer satisfaction in the corporate world. The current business environment makes it difficult for companies to acquire and retain new customers. The competition is so stiff in the sense that all the businesses are competing for attention from the same clients and the winners are those who can over deliver on what they had promised.

But why would a business work hard to do this when it is construed that while over delivering in business, you will be giving more than the customer bargained for hence you will be cutting into the profitability of the business? Well, to the uneducated, there is a plethora of reasons why over delivering in business is such a powerful concept, especially in the current turbulent business environments. Presented here are a few reasons why you need to start doing this if you are not already doing it-:

Over delivering brings repeat business

Over delivering in business essentially means that you are providing more value compared to what the customers has paid for. In the eyes of the customers, they can get a better bargain when dealing with you as compared to when they get the same services from other vendors. As a result, they will always want to work with you, and in the process becoming repeat clients to your business.

Every business desires to have a big number of repeat customers since this a free source of income to the company. For instance, you need no marketing or winning strategy once you get a repeat customer. They will keep on coming, with no additional effort on your part, leading to more and more growth for your business. Therefore, if you are keen on having a huge number of repeat clients, then make over delivering a habit in your business from today.

Good Business Reputation

When over delivering in business, your clients or customers will be happy with your products and services. You are essentially giving them more value by going out of your way to make them happy. This small gesture will make them talk good about your business to their friends and family thus helping you in advertising through word of mouth. Not only this but also you will be able to establish a good reputation for your business, and you will attract a new customer base, especially from those interested in getting more than they are paying for. In all markets, good reputation always lead to increased customer numbers. Hence, you should try out over delivering in business and see if your customer and sales numbers won’t go high.

Ability to charge higher prices

For most business, higher prices are always seen as a deterrent to attracting new business. This is especially true when you are a small player in the same industry with the big guys. Due to economies of scale, the large firms will always offer low prices than the small actors.

However, when you over deliver on you products or services, you will have the ability to counter the effects of the higher prices by offering additional satisfaction that the customers could not get from the big businesses. You will thus find yourself selling at slightly higher prices and never losing any client at all.

Over delivering in business helps you create your niche

In the present times, many customers are complaining a lot about the lack of personalized services from many companies. If you are over delivering in business, like offering superior customer care services, you will set yourself apart from the competition. Customers will see that you that you truly care about them and their needs.

They will, in turn, perceive you differently as their preferred seller or provider of the various goods or services. You will eventually end up creating a niche of your own by having few but dedicated customers who are ready to do business with you at any time of the day.

Over delivering improves morale

When you are over delivering in your business, you enhance not only the moral of your customers but also that of your employees. Customers will always look forward to coming to your store due to the superior goods or services you are selling to them and with the continued flow of business, you employees will also be excited to serve the customers better. No sad employee will want to serve a happy client. This will create a conducive work environment for both parties leading to efficiency in business and ultimately adding to the growth of the enterprise.

These are just but a few of reasons you will get by over delivering in business. It is important to remember that there are a number of ways that you can use to over deliver for your clients. You don’t have to do something tedious or expensive at all. All you have to do is to provide more value to your customers, mainly by offering something extra that your competition is not offering but at the same cost. Subtle it is, but the concept of over delivering in business is very powerful.

Need help developing a brand strategy to take your company further? Check out our post on creating effective brand strategies by following the link. 

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Listen! Listen! Listen!

Listening is one of the most important elements of creating successful logo designs for your clients. In order to make sure that you can produce great work for a business it’s very important that you take the time to gather all of the information nd answers for some important questions to ask clients before logo design that you need to produce a successful logo design. Asking the right questions up front can save you countless hours of revision as well as make sure that your client gets a high converting logo that speaks directly to their target market.

Why did you create your business?

Asking a business owner why they are in business and how their organization formed can be a particularly important answer because it can help you to understand their vision and their corporate culture. Getting to the heart of what a business owner wants out of their business and why the company exists will help you to generate some quality logo ideas to help you build an image that will express why the company is in business from a visual perspective.

With your current resources what does your brand focus on?

If a business is just starting to expand it can be really difficult to create a focus for a particular brand. A good way to design a logo is to design it based off of the current specifications of a business. Organizations will often have a number of different goals for expansion but if a brand has an unfocused business direction it can lead to an extremely complicated logo that makes it difficult to showcase what the company does to fill a customer’s needs. Getting to the root of what a company owner wants their Brand to focus on can help you to identify various elements that you can focus on for the creation of the logo. To help a business owner to better communicate their needs for this question you could have them list down their top five goals and then rank each of the goals based off of the chance of achieving it with their current resources in the next year. By finding out the top goals of an utmost importance that are achievable you can focus in on the elements that will make up the current branding of the company.

What makes your company unique to your largest customers?

Large customers in any company have the option to turn to competitors in order to gain new advantages. Most companies will often have a number of large clients that keep them in business and help them to continue expanding. Thinking on the types of important strategic benefits that a company can actually provide for large clieat every designer should be asking their clients before even starting a designnts and their most loyal clients can help a company order to start understanding their target audiences and the various focal points and advantages that their service or company can offer to that target market. Answering how well an organization can meet the needs of its clients and with what resources will help you to define what makes a company unique. Understanding the unique selling point of a company can help you to add it into the branding.

Who is your target market?

Many early companies will often respond that everyone is their target market and that they are trying to target the widest possible net of people with their branding. The truth is that not everyone will love the logo that you come up with and although a company may want their branding to appeal to a wide audience it’s important that you focus in on some of the most loyal customers that the company has had thus far. By allowing the client to focus in on some of their most valuable customers and the demographics that they fall within its possible that you can start to understand the target market that you are preparing branding for. Overall, the logo and branding that you create should appeal to the target market mostly. A common rule in business that you may have heard is that 20% of a clients customers often contribute to 80% of their business. Marketing the branding to this 20% will ensure a steady stream of loyal clients through the branding that you create.

What is the big picture for your logo, branding & design?

Asking the client about some big picture concepts further logo can help you to gauge roughly the type of style that they are looking for. Think about the current business environment, their competitors, cultural trends, technology trends and new design solutions for a logo design. If you can consider all of these influences and bring them into a discussion about the big picture style for a logo or the places your client wants to use their logo you can start to picture your designs and how they will be effective for your client.

Keep these questions in mind and make sure that you avoid common logo design mistakes by reading through our Logo design mistake tips blog.

The post 5 Important Questions to Ask Clients Before Logo Design appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

If you are working in the design and development industry it’s very important to note that you will regularly face a number of very difficult clients. Difficult clients are part of owning your own business or working as a freelancer but they can also be one of the most trying aspects of any job. When it comes to satisfying a tough client there are some strategies that you can use to have a much easier time and to alleviate some of their concerns.

If you have ever had a client relationship or you simply can’t make a customer satisfied it’s important not to lose your motivation for work. Sticking to a particular strategy and using these top tips can help you deal with the most difficult people and to make sure that you can make it through any project with the potential to salvage a review and get paid the full amount. Keep these top tips in mind when trying to sort through conflicts with your toughest clients.

The power of listening:

Part of the reason your designs may continue to get rejected is because you aren’t hearing the clients needs successfully. Any designer needs to know the project indefinitely to provide a quality product. From a sales perspective you need to gather the information that you can and come across in understanding manner to your client as well. Even though it can be very tempting to yell at a difficult customer or lose your temper you have to let them express their needs. Listening builds trust and rapport and also makes sure that you can prepare to fill the needs of your client no matter how difficult.

Showcase empathy to the client:

If you are meeting with the client for a design make sure that you can demonstrate your empathy through genuine concern and eye contact. Make it clear that you understand our concerns and repeat back what they need. The same strategy can be used in e-mails by being sure to repeat some of the requirements back to your client to show that they are being listened to and understood.

Don’t be afraid to admit when you are wrong:

Often if you are able to grant an agreement to difficult customer or admit when they accuse you of wrongdoing this will lead to an unexpected openness. With a bit of agreement it’s possible that you could work towards a future of positive negotiations by showing the client that they are right. Just like any other customer service position you need to remember that the customer is always right. When you are a freelancer or working one-on-one with a client you have to remember that they are your paycheck and sometimes admitting some fault can help you to dive into some deeper issues and show the customer that you are still very much on their side rather than being defensive.

Remember that it’s not a personal matter:

Dealing with an unsatisfied customer isn’t usually because the customer doesn’t like you directly. There are many designers did take criticism as a personal attack but it is important to note that her rejected design or a client that demands constant revisions is simply looking for the best work possible. Any designer needs to stick with the facts and not take any type of feedback as a slight against their ability or themselves. While artists put a piece of themselves into everything that they do it’s important to remember that with design satisfying the client is what gets you paid! Try not to take a tough client personally and remember to approach every client differently with regards to their requirements.

When all else fails take the hit:

If there is no way that you can work with a difficult client the amount of extra time that you have to spend working on their project and satisfying them is going to end up costing you money when compared to easier projects. Don’t be afraid to cut your losses if the extra stress of dealing with a particular client greatly outweighs the revenue that it brings into your company. This is a worst-case scenario that often doesn’t happen and you should by no means use cutting a customer loose as a viable option for a first step.

Have a specific plan:

A tough client is bound to get tougher when you simply provide them with estimations rather than exact measurements. When it comes to concerns for timeline, what your design team might be doing or updates on their project you need to have some exact answers or a specific plan in mind for what you might say to a client. Brushing the client off, giving them broad generalizations for time estimates or updates or having zero time to address their concerns can only make a difficult customer more irate.

Even when addressing complaints it’s important to ask for specific examples of what the client found wrong with your service so that you can improve not only their project but for the future of your services as well. Ask them specifically which problems need to be addressed to fix their situation or their design and then establish a plan and a timeline that has facts and figures behind it rather than generalizations. With this type of planning and listening you can alleviate a client’s concerns.

Keep these top tips in mind for dealing with difficult clients!

Learn about some important questions you can ask a client to make sure they get what they want, here!

The post How To Satisfy a Tough Client? appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.