Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Marks, 3rd Edition

Chapter five

Balancing risk and vision in a redesign

When clients approach designers for brand identity projects, the work usually falls into one of two categories: either a new company in need of an identity, or an established company looking to redesign or refine its existing one.

If your project falls into the first category—designing from scratch—the process is typically more straightforward, because there’s no existing brand equity to consider. But if you’ve been asked to complete a redesign, the stakes are much higher, for both you and your client. Think about it: Which scenario is potentially more damaging, Nike ditching its iconic “swoosh” in favor of, say, an outline of a shoe, or a brand-new business called Pete’s commissioning a visual ...