- Now, it's one thing designing a logo.
But it's another, presenting a logo to a client,
as this can make or break the success of your design.
One of the toughest things I have experienced
in my design career
is presenting to a client,
as essentially you are trying to sell
and convince someone of the merit of your design
and present a case to use it.
As a designer,
you will know exactly why you created the design.
And to you, it may make perfect sense,
but to someone seeing the logo for the first time,
they may not see or appreciate the design initially.
And of course, this is natural.
Logos by design are and should be incredibly simple.
After all, that's what a logo is supposed to be.
And when showing something so simple,
initially, you may not get the response you want.
So presenting can be tough.
And to do this well,
you will require additional skills to pull it off.
In my experience, I have done a lot of this.
And over the years,
I have developed a technique
=that has worked really well for me.
So in this final section of the course,
I'm going to demonstrate a method you can use
to present your logos to a client.
In this final section,
I'll be demonstrating what you can do
once you have created your logo design
to put together a thorough client proposal document.
So you can sell your design adequately
and to do justice to your design.
And to kick it off,
I'm going to show you what we are going to develop
over the next 10 episodes.
In this video, I'm going to show
the final client logo proposal presentation.
So you can see what we are going to be building up to
over the next 10 episodes.
So let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
So here I am with my design process checklist.
Once we have created our logo designs
and we have checked each task,
we can now move into phase 4 of the design process.
The last phase in the design process
is present logo designs,
where we will need to prepare a proposal document
and present to team members or a client.
So here I am in Illustrator,
and this is what we are going to be building up to
over the next 10 episodes.
Up to this point on the course,
I have demonstrated a process you can use
to develop and design your logos from scratch.
Now, once you have a logo in the bag,
it's time to present it to a client.
So this is a typical proposal document I will use
to present my design to a client.
Now, some of you may be wondering
why have I put so much work into this?
Is all of this really necessary?
Well, this is the difference
between a logo you get on Fiverr
and a logo design you pay a professional
thousands of pounds for.
When someone pays thousands of pounds,
they are paying for your professional experience
and a bespoke and custom creative solution
based on a careful thought process.
This proposal document
demonstrates a deep process of thought, understanding,
and a professional design approach
catered exactly to the client.
I have used this technique many times in my career,
to sell my design to great effect
in which I have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds
in my career as a freelancer.
If you want to take a closer look at this document,
you can find it in the downloadable course folder.
The course folder
comes with my complete logo design solution
I will be demonstrating on this course.
Including all my design example files
and documents at each step to aid your learning experience.
The folder also comes with design resources,
such as a logo design process checklist,
process documents and templates,
a project folder structure, color sample charts,
and a logo proposal document example.
All of which you can not only learn from,
but use in your own design process.
To get the full learning experience
and use the resources to help develop your own logo project,
I recommend you get the course folder.
Download link with instructions is in the description.
So with the course folder open,
click into the design process example folder,
click into the presentation folder,
and click to open the illustrated document or PDF
called Euphoria Proposal.
And you'll have the same document I have open here.
So some of the biggest tips
I think I could possibly give you
when presenting your logo design are,
never reveal your design cold to a client,
take your client on a journey,
tell a story,
and always present your work.
Never just show a logo design and say,
"Hey, here it is. What do you think?"
Never send flat JPEG images over email either,
as you will never know how they will appear.
And again,
you don't want the client just opening up a logo cold
without any buildup.
This will undermine your skills.
And chances are the client will be underwhelmed
and unconvinced.
Take the client on a journey.
Now, this is really important.
In my experience,
I have found that clients love the idea behind the logo
just as much as the logo itself.
This gets them really excited and invested in your design.
Also, it's an opportunity to show the work you have done,
which helps to impress the client further
and sell your design more successfully.
So take the client on a journey and tell a story.
And always present your work.
Never let the client see your work without you present.
Always look to warm the client up to your ideas first,
and reveal your design after they understand your ideas.
Now to do this well, we need to use a proposal document.
So this is a typical client logo proposal document
I will use to present my design.
Now, we will be getting into all the details
as we progress over the next couple of videos.
But for now, I'll just give you a quick overview.
So when presenting my design to a client,
I will do this in four key sections.
Section 1 will include a project recap,
Section 2 will include a strategy overview,
Section 3 will include concept territories,
and Section 4 will include the creative solutions.
Presenting my design in this order
allows me to take the client on a journey of my process.
Tell a story of how I came up with my ideas,
and finally reveal the logo design.
When putting together a proposal document,
structure is really key.
And it will allow you to craft your narrative
and communicate your ideas really clearly
in a way a client will understand.
Now it's important to mention here,
that there are a variety of ways
you can present your design to your client.
Some designers and agencies will have different styles.
Some may choose to include more details than others,
and perhaps use different means.
For me, I like to include enough
so the client can get a good understanding
of how I came up with my ideas and developed my design
as well as reveal the final logo.
So taking a closer look at the proposal document,
you will see I have included some key elements.
When building your proposal document,
I would always recommend
you include parts of your design process
to show a client how you develop your thinking.
Adding process adds value to your design,
value for the client,
and makes you look like a top notch designer.
I always get good feedback on my proposal documents
because they are so thorough and tell a good story.
So in the first section, I include a project recap.
This covers several pages
and includes a breakdown of the design brief
and the key creative challenges.
Now you never know who you will be presenting to.
Some people in the room
may not be familiar with the design brief.
Also, it can take weeks to develop a design,
and I find a quick recap brings everyone up to speed
ready to see the design that will follow.
With a quick recap, I then like to move into the section
where I discuss strategy.
Now this includes snapshots of the process I use
to fully understand the product, company or business
to inspire creative thought and direction.
This shows the client that a lot of thought has gone into it
to really consider the unique qualities
of the product, company or business
to inspire a bespoke, meaningful,
and appropriate design
by taking time to showcase your strategy.
By this point, the client is normally invested.
Will see where you are coming from,
and hopefully will like some of the ideas
and the groundwork that has been covered
to reveal some interesting qualities of that product.
This shows you have done more than just whip up a design.
It shows you have really thought about it
and considered the product carefully.
Again, more value for the client here.
So once I have demonstrated understanding, consideration
and interpretation in the strategy overview section,
I'd then like to introduce inspired concept territories
with rationale.
Depending on the requirements, this may include one or few.
Concept territories are like themes and key areas
that outline a core idea or direction.
I will base a design on generated from the research,
discovery, and brainstorming stage.
This is here to show the meaning, purpose,
and focus of my intended design.
Once I have set out the ideas I want to base my design on,
I then like to move into the last section
where I show creative solutions.
Now this will include development, final artwork,
and in situ visuals.
So the last section begins with some initial development
where I will show snapshots of the process I used
to generate some visual ideas for a concept territory.
Here, a client can begin to see
how I have connected the dots
and started to see how a logo could be made
inspired from the unique qualities
for this specific territory.
Here, I will include some images of my early process
and initial logo development.
Now, clients love to see this.
Clients love to see this sparks of ideas
and where they come from,
which adds a lot of credibility to your design process.
This also helps to tell a story
on how you generate your ideas and turn them into design.
Now, there may be one or few ideas
that come from the development.
If there are more than one,
I will show specific design options for the territory.
This will include some early sketches, logo formulas,
and some refine drawing,
showing the thinking and creative strategy
that has gone into the design.
And this is where it all starts to make sense to the client.
By this point,
a client should start to get excited about the ideas
as they begin to see them come to life and take shape.
Then I reveal the fine logo design.
This will include the final artwork for the logo design
within in situ visuals.
From the initial sketches and the logo formula,
the client will finally see
how a logo design has been crafted
and developed into a fine logo design.
Here, I normally introduce this in black and white,
so the client can appreciate
and understand the main elements of a logo design.
I then proceed to reveal colors,
the meaning and ideas behind the colors.
I then reveal the final logo composition in full color,
along with any specific colorways and alternatives.
And then I include a final conclusion page
where I list how the logo has met the goals of the brief.
And state exactly how the logo looks, feels,
what it creates,
and what it offers the product, company or business.
Now, by this point,
the client will have seen
how the final logo was designed from scratch.
And when looking at it,
will be seeing it from a much wider perspective,
Instead of seeing it cold,
they will now understand everything that has gone
into the design.
And will fully appreciate the intricacies of the design.
Now, it's really important not to end there.
It's really important to show a client
that your design actually works.
Once the logo has been revealed,
I will then include a series of in situ visuals,
which will show how the logo could work.
Here, I will always find appropriate instances
where I see the logo being used
for the product, company or business
in both large and small formats.
Using in situ visuals is the cherry on the cake
and will knock your design out of the park.
When clients see a logo design
working in real life instances,
it really helps demonstrate intended usage
and communicate exactly how you see the design working
in a range of context.
This helps reaffirm and persuade the client
of the quality and suitability of your design.
If done well,
this will convince the client
that the logo is the perfect creative solution
for their product, company or business.
Finally, I will include a few pages
where I show final logo in context of the competition
or next to similar products.
So the clients can see at a glance
how the logo works against others.
This serves to show how the logo stands out
from the competition or other products.
So this is how I will typically present a logo design.
As mentioned earlier,
there may be times where I present more than one logo option
for a territory.
If so, after presenting the first logo,
I will then include the next logo example.
Here, I will copy the previous structure
for the next design option.
Once I have presented all options for a territory,
if I want to include design for another,
I will then add in the next design examples.
So if I'm presenting more than one logo territory,
I will place the next logo territory examples
after the first territory.
Here, I will copy the previous structure
for the next territory,
including any additional options.
Now, if my proposal document
includes more than one logo design,
right at the end of the document,
I will also include a conclusions page
where I will place the logo designs on one page.
So at the end of a presentation,
I can show all logo designs in one instance
for us to discuss and choose.
Now, some of you may be wondering
why have I done this in Illustrator
and not in a presentation program like InDesign or Keynote?
Well, there is a good reason for this,
which all comes down to circumstance.
In my experience, I have often presented my logo design
to a room full of people, board members, creative teams,
or company staff members.
Sometimes, if I'm presenting to a room large enough,
I'll print out each page and pin it up on a wall
and take everyone through it
so they can see the entire process as you see it here.
However, sometimes I will need to present on screen
or over a Zoom call.
In Illustrator, it's easy to replicate the wall experience
and browse over the entire presentation
or zoom into specific pages.
Clients like to see it at a glance.
And it makes it really easy to dive into specific sections
if they have questions afterwards.
Presenting a doc like this in Illustrator is really easy.
If I click on the cover page or any page for that matter,
and press Shift + F,
I will enter into presentation mode
where I can simply click on the arrow buttons
to move left and right.
And if I press Esc, I can exit presentation mode.
Also, I find it easier to design
and develop a presentation this way.
Having the presentation open like this
allows me to take a step back and see all the parts clearly
so I can see what I am missing or what I need to include.
Diving in is easy.
By clicking on a page and pressing Cmd + 0 on Mac,
or Ctrl + 0 on Windows,
we can fill the screen.
And if I just want to skip through each page,
I can press Page Up or Page Down on the keyboard
to move through the presentation real easy.
And once the doc is complete,
it's easy to export as a PDF afterwards.
Now, I could also develop this in InDesign
and build a Keynote presentation
if there is a specific request.
In the project folder,
there are also versions of this proposal doc in InDesign.
But if it's up to me,
I'll normally do it like this in Illustrator.
So that is a quick overview
of the proposal document we are going to be building up to
in the final section of this course.
Over the next few episodes,
I'll be discussing and demonstrating
how to build this in Illustrator.
However, this can easily be followed and created
in InDesign as well.
Now, in my proposal here,
you can see that I have included design examples
for just one idea.
Now, I have done this for the sake of the course
and to keep it focused.
However, in my experience,
I have included multiple ideas in a presentation like this.
So some of you may be wondering,
"How many logo ideas should I show in a proposal document?"
In the next video,
I'm going to discuss this question
and talk about how many design ideas you should show
in a proposal document.
So see you in the next video.
(upbeat music)