How do you handle clients ideas vs logo design?

[Haakon]

customer input isn't a bad thing as it they know their business and that helps. what doesn't help is when they have an "artist" cousin or a kid that is a computer "whiz".

Oh yes. Where I used to work before starting on my own, we had a customer that imported diggers/excavators from China, and put their own branding on them. They modified them first with their own hydralic system that they had some kind of patent on. Anyway, the daugther of the owner was attending art school and had "designed" full graphics with all kinds off effects. We had to make them on the Gerber Edge with metallic and chrome foils and on top of looking dreadful, the actual graphics kit came out at well over $2000...

But the best (or worst) part is that they wouldn't pay for having us install it, they decided to buy two full kits and install themselves - so they had a spare kit if they messed it up! It was a $3-400 install job...

Oh well, selling $4k worth of graphics instead of $2k made my boss very happy at least

 

[jfiscus]

I threw my care away long ago; if they want bad & ugly - give it to them! Hit print and deposit the check.
It always amazes me when we get a new customer with a fleet of trucks to re-wrap and they aren't at all interested in at least getting a decent logo to start with instead of just their company name typed out in Times New Roman before spending 50K on wraps. We probably wouldn't even charge for the design, as that is already included with the wrap fees.

 

[mmblarg]

I personally don't like simple logos or websites, its kind of a fad right now but to each their own. Designers seem to love them but I think theyre in a bubble.

I can understand - we avoid the depth of simplicity that you see with logos like Nike, but we do try our hardest to be sure that the logo is entirely vector with colors and designs that are easy to change for any product the client may want in the future from letter heads to fleet graphics. I can't tell you how many time's I've gotten a beautiful logo that ended up looking like poo because they were either created with size restricting bitmaps or had thousands of separate objects that made it impossible to edit.

If the customer wants more information and more images of what they do or sell, that's fine, but that belongs on a banner or other type of advertisement - not in the logo itself.

 

[peavey123]

The struggle is real. I'm usually straight up as I can be with the customer. I like to get the most input possible because in their sometimes silly explanation of what they are looking for, you can usually pull some ideas from that. Although probably not how the customer intended.

I found the best bet for me is to talk to them in plain english. I go over their input with them and point out their good ideas, if there is something they are insisting on using that is just tragic (like a specific typeface) I'll tell them why their idea isn't great from a design perspective. Then I send them a couple different layouts. I don't really concern myself with worrying that I didn't use their idea, because I'll use it if it's good and I won't if it's not and most of the time my clients are very pleased with my work -there's not often a lot of back and forth.

P.S. I don't go trying to sound goofy by using the jargon Pete Moss uses in the above post. lol No offence pete. There's no way I'm getting into a discussion about analogous colour schemes with my clients. hehe

 

[peavey123]

I personally don't like simple logos or websites, its kind of a fad right now but to each their own. Designers seem to love them but I think theyre in a bubble.

I disagree. Good design is not a fad.

 

[Billct2]

Just had one today. A customer gave me his custom logo he bought online....it hurts just looking at it. I made a few suggestions (keeping some of his original) so that at least it would be make sense and be legible, showed them side by side. He's going with my suggestions. It's still awful, but at least people will know what he sells.

 

[Fares Bayazeed]

It depends. I agree in the simplicity aspect of logos. Having been in offset printing applications and printing costs as well as specs usually lead to a simple design. The logo needs to be able to go everywhere from a billboard to a business card is my usual close. Too much detail in a logo, or too many color changes just will not reduce right.