Logo design in Newcastle, NSW: a logo that works anywhere.

It has to stay readable at the size of a phone icon, work in one colour for stamps and signage, and still make sense in five years. Past that it is taste, and taste is the owner's.

Most logo conversations are about whether somebody likes it. The tests that actually matter are practical, and they can all be run in a few minutes.

What to test it against

• Shrink it down small.

  To the size of an app icon. Where the words disappear at that size, the mark will disappear on a phone.

• Print it in one colour.

  Solid black on white. Signage, stamps, embroidery and a scanned document all end up looking like this.

• Put it on a dark background.

  There has to be a version that works there, because half of everything on a screen is dark now.

• Photocopy it once.

  The old test, and still the honest one. Fine detail vanishes and you find out what the mark really is.

A logo passing all four is usable everywhere. One that fails them costs money every time it has to go on something new.

A plain logo used on the quote, the vehicle and the website does more than a clever one those three do not match. The set around it is doing most of the work.

The studios working here are not easy to compare from a search result, so they are listed separately with what each publishes about itself.

Owners spend weeks on the mark and minutes on everything it goes on. Customers do the opposite. They never look at a logo on its own, they see it on a quote, a vehicle and a website.

What they notice is whether those three look like the same business. That is the colours and the type doing the work, and both are usually settled in the last ten minutes of a logo job.

So the logo is worth doing properly, and it is worth about a third of the attention it usually gets. The other two thirds belong to the set around it.

A vector version, meaning one that can be scaled to the size of a truck without going fuzzy, flat versions for the web, a one colour version, a dark background version, and the exact colour codes.

Design prices are easier to judge job by job than as one figure, because a mark and the pieces around it are quoted on different bases.

This is the difference between owning a logo and renting one. Ask for the list by name, in writing, before any money changes hands.

What comes back at the end

• The vector file itself.

  The original, which can be blown up to the size of a truck without going fuzzy. Without it, every future sign starts with somebody redrawing your logo.

• Flat versions for the web.

  Ordinary image files in a few sizes, including a square one for social profiles and app icons.

• A one colour version of it.

  Solid, for signage, stamps and embroidery, where colour is simply not available.

• A version for dark backgrounds.

  Because half of everything on a screen is dark now, and the standard version usually disappears on it.

• The exact colour codes.

  For screen and for print separately. They differ, and a printer will ask you for the print ones.

Get the ownership agreed in writing at the same time. It is cheap to settle at the start and expensive to argue about on the day you change designers.

Search whether somebody has already registered the name or a similar mark in your industry. It is free to look, and finding out afterwards means paying for the signage twice over.

This is the step people skip, and it is the one with a real bill attached to skipping it.

Search the name first, then check IP Australia for a registered trade mark in your industry. The search is free to run and it takes a few minutes.

While you are there, make sure the name is written the way it is registered on the Australian Business Register. That is the version belonging on anything printed.

Whether to register a trade mark of your own is a legal question rather than a design one. It is worth asking somebody qualified rather than a designer.

Collect examples, name everywhere it will be used, and agree the file list. Look at directions rather than finished marks, send one round of notes back, and then put it onto everything.

Picking a direction early is what stops one of these running for months.

1. Collect examples first

Five marks the owner would happily have and two they would not, from any industry at all. It is faster than any adjective anybody could give a designer.

2. Name everywhere it is going

Vehicle, shirt, sign, website, social icon, stamp. A logo for a website only is a different job to one that has to go on a truck.

3. Agree the file list and who owns it

In writing, before anything is drawn. The list from the chapter above, and who holds the files at the end of it.

4. Look at directions, not finished marks

A few different ideas, roughly done. Picking a direction early is exactly what stops a logo job running on for months.

5. One round of notes comes back

Everybody's opinions argued out inside the business first, then one list. A new opinion every Friday is how a logo job stops finishing.

6. It goes onto the things customers see

The quote template, the invoice, the email signature, the listing photographs, the website header. A logo sitting in a folder changes nothing at all.

The drawing is the short part. Feedback decides the length, and putting the mark onto everything it has to go on carries on afterwards.

Where the whole mark is being replaced rather than tidied, what a rebrand costs is a different conversation again, and a larger one.

The order it happens in

• First the brief is agreed.

  Examples, where it will be used, the file list, and who owns it. Nothing is drawn during any of this part.

• Then directions, one round of notes, then the files.

  This is the drawing itself, and it is shorter than most people expect it to be.

• Then it goes onto everything.

  Templates, signage artwork, profiles, vehicles. This part carries on, and it is where the value actually arrives.

A job getting one clear round of notes moves along. A job getting a new opinion every week does not, and that is about the business rather than the designer.

Ask which files you get, who owns them, how many rounds are included, and whether the templates it goes on get set up too. The file list decides whether you own anything.

These are worth asking of any designer, including this one, so the answers given here are underneath each question.

• Which files do I actually get?

  The vector original, flat versions, one colour, dark background, and the colour codes. That list goes in writing before a deposit.

• Who owns the artwork at the end?

  The business does. Ask plainly, because the answer is not always yes and it matters on the day you change designers.

• How many rounds are included?

  A number rather than a feeling. Two is normal for a logo where the brief was clear at the start.

• Will the templates it goes on get set up?

  The quote and the invoice are what customers actually receive. A job stopping at the mark has left the useful part undone.

Where a business is new and the money is tight, a plain wordmark set properly in a good typeface is a perfectly respectable answer. Plenty of Newcastle businesses run one.