Logo Design Fundamentals: From Brief to Brand Mark

A logo is a small piece of design that carries a lot of weight. In this class you'll learn a complete, repeatable process for creating one: interpreting a client brief, researching the competition, choosing the right type of mark, generating ideas through sketching, and refining a final design with deliberate choices about shape, typography, and color.

The class is for beginning designers, freelancers taking on their first identity projects, and small business owners who want to understand what makes a logo work before hiring someone. You can follow along in any vector tool, such as Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Inkscape, or Figma, plus a pencil and paper. Basic familiarity with your software helps but isn't required.

You'll design a logo for a real or fictional small business from brief to finished mark, stress-test it at different sizes and in a single color, and package it in the file formats a client actually needs, along with a simple one-page usage guide.

Design a complete logo for a small business, real or invented: a coffee roaster, a dog-walking service, a neighborhood bookshop, or an idea of your own.

• A written creative brief with audience, personality keywords, and competitors
• A page of at least 30 thumbnail sketches with your top three concepts circled
• A refined final logo in full color, one color, and reversed (light on dark)
• Mockups showing the logo very small (a favicon or profile picture) and large (a sign or tote bag)
• A one-page usage guide with colors, clear space, and minimum size