Questions to Ask a Client When Designing a Logo
For a designer running a logo kickoff. Twenty questions that fill out the brief: what the mark has to do, where it will appear and at what size, production limits, who signs off, trademark checks, deadlines, and which files the client needs at handover.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Tell me what the business does, in the words you'd use with a customer.
Why ask it
You want the plain version, not the mission statement. Clients who cannot describe the business in one sentence usually cannot judge a logo either, and the wobble you hear here predicts the round of revisions where the direction changes.
Who sees this most often, and where do they see it?
Why ask it
A mark seen mainly as a 40 pixel avatar has different requirements from one seen on a shopfront. Push past demographics to the actual surfaces, because that list, not the audience profile, decides how simple the mark has to be.
What's prompting this now?
Why ask it
New company, a name change, a merger, losing a pitch, or a founder who is bored: each leads somewhere different. If the reason is that someone senior dislikes the current logo, find out who and what they dislike before you draw anything.
What's it replacing, and what specifically bothers you about the old one?
Why ask it
Specific complaints are gifts: it looks dated, it disappears on the van, nobody can read it on a phone. A general answer that it just feels tired means the criteria are unstated, and you will be guessing at review.
Do you need a wordmark, a symbol, or both? And would you ever use them separately?
Why ask it
Separate use is what forces a symbol to work alone, which is a much harder brief and a bigger scope. Clients often say both without realizing they are asking for two marks that must also read as one.
Where does this need to work at its smallest?
Why ask it
App icon, favicon, embroidered polo, pen barrel, stamped bottle cap. The smallest use sets the detail budget for the whole design, and finding it out after presentation is how a favorite concept dies.
Is the name final? Any chance it changes in the next year?
Why ask it
A pending trademark objection, a domain that is not secured, or a founder still debating spelling all mean the wordmark is provisional. Better to know now than to letter-space a name that gets abandoned.
How will this get produced? Anything single-color, embroidered, engraved, or cut in vinyl?
Why ask it
Production methods rule out gradients, thin strokes, and tight counters faster than any aesthetic argument. Ask what already exists in the supply chain: uniforms, signage, packaging, vehicles.
Is there anything from the current brand that has to stay?
Why ask it
A color tied to trade dress, a typeface bought under license, a mascot customers recognize, a shape on the packaging. Constraints named at the start are useful; the same constraints revealed at round two are expensive.
Show me three brands you admire, and tell me what you like about each.
Why ask it
The reasons matter more than the examples. Someone who admires a brand for its restraint is describing a direction; someone who admires it for its market position is describing an ambition and will keep asking for something bigger.
Is there anything you'd hate?
Why ask it
Dislikes are more reliable than likes and cost nothing to collect. A named competitor they refuse to resemble, a color associated with a former partner, a style someone senior finds childish: all of it saves a wasted concept.
Who do customers compare you to?
Why ask it
Perceived competitors are often not the ones on the strategy deck. Their marks set the visual conventions of the category, which you then decide to follow or break on purpose rather than by accident.
Where will this logo sit next to other logos?
Why ask it
Retailer shelves, partner walls, sponsorship boards, conference footers. Neighboring marks determine whether yours needs weight to hold its ground or air to stand out, and it is easy to design something that only works alone.
Are there words, colors, or symbols to avoid in the markets you sell into?
Why ask it
Ask the client, who knows their markets, rather than guessing. Sector rules also live here: regulated industries restrict certain claims and imagery, and a mark that cannot be printed on the packaging is not finished.
Has anyone run a trademark search, and will a lawyer look at the final mark?
Why ask it
This is not your legal responsibility, and saying so plainly protects you. Clarify in writing that clearance is the client's, because a mark rolled out and then challenged becomes an argument about who should have checked.
Who signs this off, and does anyone else have a veto?
Why ask it
The hidden approver, a spouse, a board member, a founder abroad, is what turns two rounds into six. Ask for names and ask that they attend the presentation, since forwarded PDFs collect the worst feedback.
What's the deadline, and what happens on that date?
Why ask it
A trade show, a lease signing, or a funding announcement is a hard date with knock-on print lead times. A soft date invented for tidiness can be moved, and knowing which one you have tells you where to spend the time.
What's the budget for the identity itself, separate from anything else you're commissioning?
Why ask it
Website, packaging, and signage often share one pot, and the logo quietly funds all three. Getting the split spoken aloud early prevents the conversation where a full brand system is expected for the price of a mark.
What files do you need at the end, and who's going to be using them?
Why ask it
The list depends on the users: a printer wants vector and specified color breakdowns, an in-house team wants editable and web formats, a sign maker wants something else again. Also settle rights and ownership here rather than at invoice time.
How will you decide whether this worked?
Why ask it
Most clients have never been asked, and the answer exposes whether the judgment will be personal taste, internal consensus, or something checkable. If it is taste, agree now whose taste it is.
Running the Logo Brief
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Running the kickoff
Get the decision makers in the room once
One meeting with everyone who has an opinion is worth three with a middleman. If a founder or board member cannot attend, ask for fifteen minutes with them separately before you start drawing, not after you present.
Collect artifacts, not adjectives
Ask them to bring the current logo files, a photo of the shopfront or van, a sample of the packaging, and the uniform. Physical evidence answers half of the technical questions and tends to correct what people say about themselves.
Write the brief back to them
Send a one page summary of what they told you: usage list, smallest size, must-keeps, dislikes, approvers, dates, deliverables. Ask them to confirm it. That document is what you point at when a new requirement appears in round three.
Translating vague answers
- Make it pop usually means insufficient contrast at the size they saw it. Ask where they were looking at it.
- More professional often means quieter: fewer colors, a plainer typeface, more space around the mark.
- Modern is a moving target. Ask for two examples they consider modern and two they consider dated.
- It needs to say more is a request to add elements. Ask which single idea has to survive if only one can.
- I'll know it when I see it means the approval criteria live in one person's head. Get that person in front of you.
- Can we see more options is often discomfort with the presentation, not the work. Ask what they would show their own customer.
Protecting the scope
- State the number of concepts and revision rounds in writing, and what a round means: one consolidated set of feedback, not a stream of emails.
- Price extra marks separately. A logo plus a submark plus a stacked variant is three drawings, not one.
- Name the deliverable formats explicitly so the handover has a finish line.
- Say who owns the rejected concepts and when ownership of the chosen one transfers, which for most designers is on final payment.
- Keep trademark clearance and registration on the client's side of the line, in the same document.
What goes wrong
- Presenting on a screen when the mark will live on a sign, or on white when it will live on a photograph.
- Skipping the smallest-size question and losing a concept late because the detail vanishes at 32 pixels.
- Taking a color instruction from someone whose monitor is uncalibrated. Show a printed proof before agreeing a color.
- Designing for the founder's taste when the buyer is a procurement officer, or the reverse.
- Letting a name change land mid-project without re-opening the schedule and the fee.
- Handing over files with no guidance on minimum size and clear space, which is how a careful mark gets stretched onto a banner.