Leggo my Logo

Blarg

Client and designer relationships. In school we learn to design and make the design that fits the design brief. The first step is to figure out the target audience, design a mark (if you are designing a logo mark and not a word mark. Example: logo mark- the Target logo and a word mark-IKEA), and then find a type face that goes with the mark. (A type face is what people usually call a font. The font is actually the different styles within a face. So, a font family is all the different weights of a type face. Helvetica is a type face and Helvetica bold is a font.) In real life a client will try to rearrange the order of these elements. You can design a mark and find a face and then the client decides the face for the word is not what they want. The issue with this of course is you find a face they like and it might completely oppose the logo mark. Are you still with me?
Here is the case in point. The first logo below is the one I came up with with a face that really works with the mark. The color is blue (there is a little grey and maybe some red, but it never shows up when I save things for web. It fulfilled the mission.



This is what the client wanted b/c its younger and more hip. The client wanted the word to be bigger than the mark. This usually is not the case. Yes this logo below feels funky, and I was able to make the mark fit with the type. I am not unhappy with the clients decision, but it was not where I wanted to go. I think when you think PR you think professional.



Conclusion: You cant always get what you want, but hopefully you will get paid anyway. And remember you can put whatever you want in your portfolio not what the client chose. Also, don't be a Kinley from project runway...clients do not like to be belittled even when they have no taste and are wrong....they are the one's footing the bill.