A logo brief is not a mood board with a paragraph on top. It is the set of decisions a designer cannot make for you: who the mark must persuade, where it will be printed, what it must never look like, and who has the authority to approve it.
Get those onto one page and the work improves immediately. Leave them out and you will spend three rounds discussing a shade of blue instead of whether the mark reads at sixteen pixels.
Open with the job, not the style
Write two sentences about what the logo has to achieve in the next eighteen months. A mark for a trade counter that appears on vans and invoices has a different job from a mark for a software product that lives in a browser tab. Say which one you are buying.
Then name the audience in plain terms. Not small and medium enterprises, but the office manager who approves the stationery order. The designer will use that person to test recognition, and it will shape weight, spacing, and how much detail survives at small sizes.
Give the business facts
Designers are not detectives. If your name is easily misspelled, say so. If the company will trade under a shorter name in another country, say that. If there is an existing mark that customers recognise and you are keeping part of it, supply the files and explain what must stay.
Add the legal and practical boundaries: registered trademarks, a partner brand that dictates colour, a franchise rulebook, a domain that must appear in the lockup. These are the constraints that turn a nice drawing into something usable.
List every place the mark will appear
This section saves the most money. Walk through a normal week and write down each surface.
- Shop sign, vehicle livery, uniform embroidery
- Website header, favicon, social avatar
- Invoice, packing slip, email signature
- Presentation title slide, trade stand panel
- Product label, stamped packaging, single-colour print
For each one, note the size and the production method. Embroidery cannot hold fine lines. A favicon cannot hold a tagline. A one-colour stamp cannot hold a gradient. If the mark is expected to work in all of these, the designer needs to know before they sketch rather than after.
Describe taste with references and reasons
Send five logos you admire and, for each, one sentence on what specifically works. The letter spacing. The way the shape holds at small size. The confidence of a single colour.
Send three you dislike for the same reason. Avoid naming direct competitors as inspiration, because you will get something that looks like a cheaper version of them. If you have no references, say so and describe the feeling you want to avoid. Designers can work with that.
A brief that says modern and clean has told the designer nothing except that you have seen other briefs.
Say what is fixed and what is open
Mark each element as locked or flexible: the name, the colour palette, the typeface, the symbol, the tagline. Most projects have one locked element and the rest is negotiable. If everything is flexible, the designer will make assumptions. If everything is locked, you are paying for assembly rather than design.
Also state the budget and the deadline honestly, including the date by which feedback will be returned. A three-day review turnaround is part of the brief, because it changes how the work is scheduled.
Agree the deliverables and the handover
Ask for vector files, a version for dark backgrounds, a single-colour version, a stacked and a horizontal lockup, and a favicon-ready crop. Request the working file, not only exports. Ask who owns the artwork and whether the typeface licence covers your use.
Ask for a one-page usage sheet: minimum size, clear space, approved colours with codes, and three examples of misuse. That sheet prevents years of accidental stretching by people who mean well.
Give feedback on the brief, not the mood
When the first round arrives, respond against the criteria you wrote. Does it read at small size? Does it survive one colour? Does it feel right for the audience described? Say which criterion a draft fails, and let the designer solve it.
Skip phrases like make it pop or can it be more premium. They transfer the problem back to the designer without information. If you dislike something, name the element: the weight of the type, the angle of the shape, the amount of space around the mark.
- Two-sentence statement of the logo's job
- Audience described as a real person
- Locked and flexible elements marked
- Every surface listed with size and production method
- Five references with reasons, three anti-references
- Budget, deadline, and review turnaround
- Deliverables and file formats agreed
- One named approver
One page is enough. Two is fine. Anything longer usually means the decisions have not been made yet, and the designer will end up making them for you by accident.
