What an identity project needs from the client before you start

An identity project rarely fails at the drawing. It fails when nobody has said what the logo must do, where it will live and what it has to respect.

The client almost always starts with the color or the shape, that is, with the last of the subjects. Here is what you need to make them settle before the first stroke.

What already exists, before you draw anything

A client asking for "a new logo" rarely arrives empty-handed. They have a current logo, business cards, a sign, sometimes a website. Three questions, and none is answered with a yes or a no.

What is dated. "The logo no longer looks like us" is a usable answer: it says what the brand has become. "It needs to be more modern" is not, because modern breaks nothing in particular. Ask what, exactly.

What stays. The name, a color that customers recognize, a typeface installed for years. What stays becomes a constraint, not a preference.

What must go. The client usually knows how to say it. A spelling mistake in the name, a nod to a past era, an element nobody has ever been able to explain.

A positioning, in one sentence that excludes someone

"Our audience is everyone" is a refusal to choose, and it produces a logo that speaks to nobody.

The useful question is not who the brand is for. It is: who should it push away? One company that wants to be taken seriously, another that wants to stop being seen as a neighborhood workshop, a third that wants to stop being compared to a competitor. Three positions, three logos.

Ask too for two or three brands they admire, and especially two or three they dislike, with the reason. People name what they reject far better than what they hope for, and "too serious", "childish", "generic" point in opposite directions.

Where the logo will live, and what that decides about the line

Identity is a special case: the same logo ends up on a sign, a vehicle, a textile and a screen. Each surface imposes a constraint that has nothing to do with taste.

A sign read from a distance needs contrast and a line that holds at small scale. A vehicle adds surfaces and curves. A textile limits colors. A favicon is not a variation: it is another architecture.

Ask for the list of uses, and on what backgrounds the logo will appear. A client who answers "everywhere" has not made the list. A variation discovered at delivery is not a detail: it is often a second job.

What cannot change, and becomes a rule

Before competing with your own proposal, write down what is not negotiable.

The spelling of the name. A color customers already associate with the brand. A code inherited from a parent brand, a certification or a contract. A version that must sit next to a tagline or a descriptor.

"The previous chart had a green our customers recognize" is not a preference: it is a rule, and it must be written down before you draw a different green. What cannot change gets listed at the start, otherwise you redo half the work only to end up where you began.

What must exist at delivery

A logo alone is almost never the deliverable. The client will need business cards, a letterhead, an e-mail signature, a profile image, sometimes a sign. Each is a file, a format, often an adapted version.

Ask at the start what the job covers and what it excludes. A variation added along the way is not an end-of-project detail: it is a gap between the quote and reality, and it is harder to renegotiate once the work is already done.

Validate a direction before you develop it

The rule that saves the most time, and the one most often skipped.

Develop after validation, not before. Two or three direction proposals, the client picks one, and only then does the developing begin. Redoing ten versions of the wrong idea costs less than fully developing a logo that will not pass a first glance.

State the number of rounds in the quote. A client told up front knows exactly how to ask for them, and far less so when they believe "keep evolving" is included.

The full list of questions this trade asks lives here: the brief for a visual identity. Treat it as a starting point, to shorten and reword to match the way you work.

And on the number of rounds to announce before starting, which matters here more than in most trades: how many rounds to plan.

Frequently asked questions

What should you ask before starting an identity project?

The current logo and files, what is dated and what must stay, the positioning, where the logo will live, what cannot change, and what has to be delivered. The drawing comes after that list.

How do you get a client to describe a positioning?

By asking who the brand should push away, and two or three brands they like or dislike with the reason. "Everyone" is not a positioning, it is a refusal to choose.

Why ask where the logo will live before drawing?

Because a sign, a vehicle, a textile and a screen impose different constraints on the line, the contrast and the colors. A logo designed for a single surface adapts poorly, and a variation discovered at the end becomes a second job.

Should you always validate a direction before developing it?

Yes. Having a client pick one of two or three direction proposals before developing costs less than fully developing the wrong logo. State the number of rounds in the quote.