How Do You Prepare a Logo Design Brief?
Drawing does not start in order to fill the gaps in a brief. The gaps travel into the drawing and each round looks like a new logo. A brief is not an album of work you like. It is the list of decisions that are locked.
An album is not a brief
Nielsen Norman Group does not treat the logo as the brand itself. A logo is one way of communicating the brand. The brief is the description of that way: who will see the mark, where it will stand, what job it will do. Ten logos set beside it do not replace those three questions. In design systems a standard is written so the team does not invent the same decision every time. The brief is that standard, written before drawing starts.
That delivering the mark does not close the identity is covered in a separate piece. What sits inside the identity job is counted in the scope piece. This article comes before both. On the brand side, the thing asked before drawing is not whether the file will be handsome.
What is locked before drawing
If the lines below are unwritten, the brief is a wish. Each line comes before the first sketch.
| Decision | What it locks | What happens if it stays open |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Whether the name is finished, the spelling fixed, and a tagline present | The mark is drawn on a word that may still change |
| Job | What the mark will identify, and whether it must hold small and in one color | A mark drawn for a wall disappears in an icon |
| Who | Who must recognise it at first glance, and what that person already knows | A mark told to everyone looks like it belongs to no one |
| Surface | Where it will stand in the first year: sign, pack, screen, profile | A surface added later invents the mark again |
| Limit | What it must not resemble. A competitor, a category cliché, another brand | The reference turns into a target to be copied |
A reference shows a direction. It is not the target
A mark you like stops being a brief and becomes a copying instruction when someone says 'make it like this'. The job of a reference is to show which weight, which space, which seriousness is wanted. If what is being shown is a shape, the sentence separates two things: we want this kind of line, we do not want this logo.
The shape a category is used to is also a reference. If everything is a leaf, a badge, or a script, the brief says whether that is the difference you want or the cliché to stay away from. If it does not, the first round redraws the category's shared mark.
How many routes, and who has the last word
This article does not say how many routes should be shown or how many revision rounds are needed. What it refuses to say is not something the brief may leave blank. How many routes will be shown, when the rounds end, and who has the last word are written in the brief. If they are not, every new preference opens another round, and the round takes the place of the decision.
If the last word is scattered across a committee, the mark cannot be chosen. The brief writes the person who closes it, not the people who will vote. If that person changes after drawing has started, the locked decision changes too. Then the brief is written again. A sketch is not stacked on top of the old brief.
Fictional example
This example is not a client record. A bakery sends forty logos instead of a brief. Whether the name is finished is unwritten. It says 'make it warm' and does not say whether the mark will stand on a sign or a cover. Three routes arrive in the first round. Everyone on the committee likes a different one, and a fourth round asks for the average of the forty logos. The drawing has worked. Nothing was locked.
Before you send the brief
If the questions below have no answer, it is not early for drawing. It is early for the brief.
- Whether the name is finished, and whether the spelling and any tagline are fixed.
- What job the mark will do, and whether it must hold at a small size and in one color.
- Who must recognise it at first glance.
- Which surfaces it will stand on in the first year, and whether those surfaces are named.
- What it must not resemble, and whether a reference is standing in as a target to copy.
- How many routes will be shown and when the rounds end. This article gives no number. The brief does.
- Who has the last word, and whether that person stays the same through the drawing.
- This brief does not close the identity. Whether the delivery list will be written apart.
Sources
- Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
Accessed October 20, 2026
- Design Systems 101
Accessed October 20, 2026