Why a 'quick job' will never be.

I'm often asked, "Why don't you just do quick logos for people if they know what they want?". The simple truth is, well, it's never that simple. The client usually starts with a clear idea of what they want in their head, but find it difficult to translate this into an actual visual image. A sketch, diagram or examples of things kind of like it get given to the designer, but without actually being able to convey what parts of the images you like, or what feeling you're trying to convey through your sketch, too much is lost in translation.

Imagine if you had a van Gogh Sunflowers painting in front of you. Now presume the person beside you has never seen it before. Imagine trying to describe the sunflowers, the textures, colours, swirls of paint to this other person without them seeing it. What you are saying you want is a vase of sunflowers, but the painting is so much more. Even sketching it won't help.

We all lie to ourselves when we ask for a 'quick job'. "Can you please just mock something up, just do it cheaply and whatever you do will be fine". What we're really doing though, is crossing our fingers and hoping that it will be just what we want, first time so we don't have to spend much money on it.

Telling yourself "it'll do" is the most expensive lie of all. You know deep down it won't do, and when that hope that you'll luck out and the designer will get it first time doesn't come to fruition, we tweak, tug and change until we get something that is close to what we wanted - something that ends up costing as much as if you'd done it properly in the first place, but it's not as good (OK, I'll say it, a 'Frankenstein logo').

Now look at the logo with which you've used as an example. This logo most probably wasn't just created in a flash by someone who knew what it should look like (I'm betting the house on it). It was a process of business discovery, design research and an organic exploration process until the right image was created that hit all the right objectives in the original brief. I'd also bet that, just as van Gogh didn't know what his painting would look like exactly before he started, the designer and business owner didn't know what the logo would look like, but they did know they would find the right solution through processes.