How to Write a Logo Design Brief (With the Questions That Matter)

The single biggest predictor of whether you like the concepts is the quality of the brief. A designer working from "modern and clean, we like blue" is guessing. Guessing produces revision rounds, and revision rounds are where projects go bad.

Here is what to send, and why each item changes what gets drawn.

1. What the business actually does

Two sentences, plainly, as if explaining to a stranger. Not your positioning statement — what you sell and to whom. This determines whether a literal or abstract approach is appropriate at all.

2. Who you are selling to

Be specific. "Everyone" produces work aimed at no one. The difference between a mark for independent café owners and one for hospital procurement managers is total, and it is decided here.

3. Two or three competitors — and what you think of their branding

The most useful item on the list, and the most often skipped. It tells the designer what the category already looks like, which is what your mark has to stand apart from. If every competitor uses a green leaf, that is a decision made for you.

4. Where the logo has to work

List the physical realities: shopfront signage, embroidered polos, an app icon, vehicle livery, a foil-stamped box, a 40mm sticker. Each one imposes constraints. Embroidery cannot do fine detail; an app icon cannot be a wordmark; vinyl cutting cannot do gradients. A designer who knows this up front will not present something that has to be abandoned later.

5. Colours you like — and colours you cannot stand

The dislikes are more useful than the likes. "Not green, our predecessor used green" removes a whole branch of exploration immediately.

6. References, including from outside your industry

Three to five marks you admire, with a sentence on why for each. The "why" is what matters — "I like that it is confident without being loud" is directional; "I like this logo" is not. References from other categories are especially useful because they describe a quality rather than a template.

7. Your deadline, and what is driving it

"Launch is 3 March and the packaging print deadline is 10 February" tells a designer far more than "ASAP" — including which deliverables are genuinely urgent and which are not.

8. What you have already tried

If you have had a previous attempt, send it and say what was wrong. Knowing what failed removes a whole round.

Three things to leave out

• A drawing of what you want. Describe the problem, not the solution. If you have already designed it, you are paying for tracing.
• Adjective lists. "Modern, clean, professional, unique" describes almost every logo ever made and constrains nothing.
• Committee opinions, unfiltered. Consolidate first. Contradictory instructions guarantee a compromise nobody likes.

Our own intake asks exactly these — you can see the list on the process page, or just answer them in the brief form.