"Help me I need a logo for my business. Can you recommend someone I can afford, who can do a great logo ASAP?"
Sometimes these comments make me want to scream out loud, but I keep it in, after all it's like biting the hand off the feeder.
But is it really?
Is it ok for the designers not to educate the customer and just grab the money and run? They got what they wanted, everyone is happy now, right? I had a great graphic design professor in University. He was very immaculate, a true German master, with precision trained eyes and with an infinite bank of knowledge on typography, which he was extremely passionate about.
I still keep hearing his voice at the back of my head, everyday, when I'm working. I'm not kidding. "No no no, make it smaller, are you sure about that cut... looks like you have some kerning to do with that word..."
But, there was one thing above all that really stuck with me: The most important job of a designer is to educate the "clueless" client, as he put it.
Now, I'm not saying that any of the business owners who are looking for a logo and a website haven't done their groundwork. But it often seems that they are misled by the designers who are willing to only please the customer. Play into their fantasies that their successful business is actualized by having all the little bits of graphical elements in place and a pretty business cards in their hands.
There really isn't anything wrong with the client, it is the designers job to educate the client.
A great designer always adds that extra value. Discovers that hidden story that carries the energy, the vision and the big mission of the business.
How is that done, you may wonder?
Through becoming aware and having the passion to dig deeper. Whatever we are creating now has already been intended to be created since the beginning of times, that intention has changed shapes, forms and appearances, but it has never disappeared. Just like we have existed and actually exist in all forms of life we are perceiving. Once something has been set to motion, it doesn't stop. Or we may wonder is there movement in the timeless? But before we get lost in this infinite Universe...
The point that I want to make clear for you is that whatever we generate into the physical form is always a symbolic representation of the energetic space of being, the language, words, images, colors, forms, everything really. Nothing is solid and that what truly is, is beyond descriptions.
A logo is an amazing opportunity to capture and express the energy and the potency of our business, when it is done consciously.
But many designers take the easy way out by doing what the customer wants, which often goes something like this: "You know, I saw this beautiful font in a logo of a friend of a friend, I would love to have that in mine, and then I really love butterflies, can we make something out of those and my favorite colour is pink. What do you think, how fast can you have some mock up's for me?"
And a couple of choices later the butterfly flies with its glossy pink wings over the top of the most popular font of our times. It surely does fit in, doesn't it?
Personally, I have been very fortunate to be working with big businesses and business owners who do have the whole thing very carefully thought through and willingness to go deeper into truly knowing their business. It has made me think about the differences between small businesses and the big names. The businesses who's logos do work and why do they work?
Is it the business that is so valued, that it makes its logo memorable, or is there something in the logo itself that adds to making a difference?
What I know, is that all the big brands have spend a lot of time and effort in the design process and they all have logos that have a very special deeper meaning to them. A lot of them derive directly from ancient mythology and all of them have a very unique birth history and story to them.
In other words, they carry the meaning and the energetic mission of the business within the form, and that meaning is present in the logotype, logomark and in the combinations of them.
But what stops the small business owners from having that, creating that and being that with their logos? For what I see, a many of the present day logos just get lost in the mass of, "what is in right now" and that inner energetic magic seems to be missing from so many of them.
I do blame the designers for that, for not truly being the magic and the transformation they could be with their special gifts and talents.
Client always comes first, but a great designer always adds more value by their expertise. Now, there are always people who still choose the lotus, and there is nothing wrong with that either. There must be some magic to the lotus, since it has been around throughout human history.
The lotus symbol obviously has its own expansive path and energy in this world. We all know of "The Lotus" healing, Lotus massage, Lotus this and Lotus that, even a Lotus toilet paper. In the end it is the customer's choice. But it is our job as designers to gift them possibilities of expansion beyond what they already know, beyond what anyone yet knows.
But it seems like I have drifted further and further away from the point of this post, with my passionate views. The point of this post was to talk about why you don't need a logo. And I still very much think that you don't. At least, it shouldn't be the first thing in your mind with your business creations.
A great logo emerges from having clarity on the purpose of your business and then it is about finding the right designer who is open to knowing it, seeing it and feeling it with you.
Whatever has no deeper meaning or real value to it is unnecessary clutter in your life and in your business. So before you go into that space of panicking about needing a logo for your business fast, just relax take breath. Use a simple font to write your business name, whilst you ask: What would the true energetic space of the most potent expansion of your business be?
Then you may want to start asking who would be willing to dig deep with you and be able to put that into a form of a logo for you?
I know one person, who might be just right for that job, ;)
Be magic with your business,
Kati
