The evolution of a logo is a relatively long and complicated process. That is, if you want your logo to be worthy of your company's name, values and personality.

The workflow below shows my process of creating a logo for a company called Pixel2Canvas, based in California. The mission of Pixel2Canvas is to make finest quality art work, currently focusing on high-end canvas prints for professional photographers. Their clients are some of the world's greatest photographers and their canvases decorate many celebrity's walls.

The owners of Pixel2Canvas realized that their logo needed to be updated, but were so attached to it that they had a hard time letting it go. They gave me an opportunity to design a new logo for them.

The old Pixel2Canvas logo:

After learning more about the company and talking to the owners, we came to a conclusion that the new logo should not be completely different than the old one—if anything, they wanted to retain the same colors and really wanted to emphasize the number 2.

My work began by understanding their philosophy, seeing their offices and printing and framing areas, and touching their canvases. Then I made a word sketch of some important things their logo should portray, along with some questions.  Pixel2Canvas is very descriptive, so I wanted to create something subtle that reminds us of a pixel or a canvas.

When the main ideas came to life on paper I sat down at my Mac and started to draw the ideas in Adobe Illustrator. I usually always draw my ideas in black and white and later add color to make the main message of the logo even stronger. After brainstorming lots of different ideas, I finally go through them all and just drop off the ones that aren't as good, keep the ones that have potential and maybe even combining a few together into one new logo. As I get to the point where I have created several viable logos, I print them out and hang them on the wall in my office, where I can see them constantly. After a while I start to see which ones work better than others. I'll make a small selection of three to five options for my client to choose from. I'll also pick the one that I believe is the best, then send it to my client with the descriptions of every selected logo, explaining why I designed them the way I did, and what the main message of a logo is.

In this case my first choice and client's first choice were the same, with this logo:

And this is the logo with their tag line:

As you can see the colors stayed the same, the number 2 is emphasized, and we created a very good logo. And I say we, because I believe that the best results come from working closely with my clients. For me the most important thing is to create a quality design and at the same time make my clients happy with my work.

For my clients I also make a corporate identity packages, which contains their logo with the rules of recommended usage, selection of primary and secondary typography and stationary—business cards, letterhead, envelope, presentation folder and seal.