Once you have a client to work for, you need to communicate effectively and efficiently to find out exactly what the client wants from you.

You want to find out things like:

• Do they have any previous designs & products that they liked or disliked?
• Do they have any specific colours or logo elements that you should incorporate?
• Do they have any ideas, themes, or suggestions to pass along?
• When should you have a first draft ready?
• etc.

So, if you have someone to work for, just keep me in the loop and show me that you are communicating these things. If you’re not communicating with a real client, you still need to have some kind of record of these ideas, which you will drop off!

You also need to do some research to look at other designs in the field. So if you’re working for Jimmie Jam Radio, for example, you would look at & for other radio station logos. You’d want to see if you could find any student radio stations, especially. You don’t want to copy those, but having an idea what others look like can inspire you to do something along the same lines or entirely different.

I want you to share with me at least 3 other logos in a similar field/area (with links to where you got them.)

Once you have done some research and you have the client’s input, it’s up to you to start designing a logo and colour scheme that you will use in future designs. To present your client with options, you should create:

3 different logos using 3 different (or at least modified) colour schemes

Of course, you should use Illustrator, and use original elements as much as possible. If you need to add in any symbols/icons, use a legal source that provides Creative Commons files.