I’ve written about logo design before, and didn’t have good things to say about the process as part of business front end development. It’s too easy for a start-up or small business owner or owners to get caught up obsessing over minutia like the logo, which has very little to do with meaningful business value.

On the other side of the coin, I’ve worked with clients whom I feel do it right. They exhibit the following characteristics:

• When they propose logo mark (the graphic portion of a logo) metaphors, they describe them in practical, simple terms that have personal relevance for themselves or their team
• They leave the execution to the design team
• They cooperate with a “one thing at a time” design process which presents them, for example, (1.) a mark concept, (2.) logo type concepts, and (3.) color concepts in no particular order but sequentially, to streamline the decision-making process

It’s always encouraging to work efficiently on something like this, because not only does the trust lead to inspired design work, but it’s also an efficient use of business resources to invest only what is necessary in front end/storefront development and keep their efforts based around their core competency.

The design team might accrue more billable time if they pass along the cost of endless revisions to the client, and some design houses are more than happy to do that. It all comes around, though, and the only design the people I work with are interested in is that which serves the business objectives. Anything else is navel-gazing, figuratively speaking.