A good logo design brief is one to two pages that tell a designer who you are, who you sell to, what the logo must do and what you do not want. The quickest way to write one is to see it done. Below you will find a full worked example, a weak-versus-strong comparison and a section-by-section guide you can follow for your own business.
We are Kukoo Creative, and we have spent more than a decade turning briefs into logos for small and growing businesses. The briefs that go best are not the longest. They are the clearest.
TL;DR
- A useful logo brief covers your business, audience, competitors, style preferences, where the logo will be used, deliverables, timing and budget.
- Describe the feeling you want and the people you want to reach, not a finished picture. Leave the drawing to the designer.
- Say what you dislike as clearly as what you like. It saves a revision round.
- Name the real places the logo will live: a van, a shop sign, an invoice, a social avatar.
- Our logo design brief page gives you a ready structure to fill in.
Table of Contents
- What a logo design brief is (and what it is not)
- A worked logo design brief example
- A weak brief and a strong brief, side by side
- What to include, section by section
- How to explain your brand and taste without drawing it
- Questions to answer before you brief a designer
- How a clear brief helps with a simple logo
- Our view: the brief is the first design decision
- Brief template you can copy
- Ready to turn your brief into a logo?
- After the brief: keeping the result consistent
- FAQ
- Sources
What a logo design brief is (and what it is not)
A logo design brief is a short document that you give a designer before they start. It sets out the problem the logo has to solve, the audience, the style direction and the practical limits. Think of it as the map. Without one, the designer guesses, and you pay for the guessing in revision rounds.
It is narrower than a wider brief. A creative brief sets high-level strategy, messaging and business goals for a campaign, while a design brief details the visual execution: specifications, assets and deliverables. A logo brief is a design brief with one job: one mark, used in many places.
A logo brief also sits inside your wider brand. If you are commissioning a full identity (colours, type, tone, templates), the logo brief becomes one chapter of a bigger document. Our guide to visual identity creation for UK business owners shows how the pieces fit.
A worked logo design brief example
Here is a complete example for an imaginary Leeds business. Copy the shape, not the words.
Project name: Northgate Joinery logo
About the business: Northgate Joinery is a four-person workshop in Leeds making fitted kitchens and bespoke staircases for homeowners and small developers across West Yorkshire. We have traded for six years under a handwritten-style wordmark that no longer reproduces well.
What we need: A new primary logo, a compact version for social profiles and a one-colour version for stamping and engraving.
Why now: We are moving into larger commercial fit-outs. Our current look reads as a small domestic firm, and we want to be taken seriously by architects and developers without losing the craft feel.
Audience: Primary: homeowners aged 35 to 60 spending £15,000 or more on a kitchen. Secondary: architects, interior designers and site managers who recommend or hire joiners.
Personality: Skilled, dependable, warm. Not trendy, not corporate. Think “made to last” rather than “made quickly”.
Competitors: Two local joinery firms use oak-leaf symbols and serif type. A national kitchen brand uses a bold sans-serif in dark green. We want to look different from all three.
Style preferences: Simple, confident, lots of white space. A wordmark with a small distinctive detail is fine. Open to a subtle nod to timber grain or a mitre joint, but no literal tools such as saws or hammers.
Colours: Open to suggestions. We would like to avoid dark green and pale wood-brown. A deep neutral with one accent would suit.
What to avoid: Clip-art symbols, gradients, script fonts, anything that looks like a DIY store.
Where it will be used: Van livery, site hoardings, workshop sign, embroidered workwear, quotes and invoices, a website header, Instagram and Google Business profile.
Deliverables: Primary logo, secondary compact mark, one-colour and reversed versions, files for print and screen.
Timeline: First concepts in two weeks, final files within six weeks, ahead of a new van wrap.
Budget: Agreed before work starts, with the number of concepts and revision rounds stated.
Decision-maker: Sam (owner) signs off, with feedback from Priya (office manager) gathered beforehand into one list.
That is about 300 words and it already answers most questions a designer would ask on a first call.
A weak brief and a strong brief, side by side
Most weak briefs are not wrong. They are vague. Compare how the same details land with a designer.
| Brief section | Weak version | Strong version |
|---|---|---|
| Business | “We’re a cleaning company.” | “We clean offices and clinics in Leeds and Bradford, with 18 staff and contracts run on monthly invoices.” |
| Audience | “Everyone.” | “Office managers at firms of 20 to 200 people who want reliability and clear reporting.” |
| Personality | “Modern and professional.” | “Calm, precise and trustworthy. We want to look like a firm that never misses a visit.” |
| Style | “Something like Nike.” | “Simple mark, strong at small sizes, two colours maximum. We like the clarity of airline signage, not the swoosh.” |
| Usage | “Online and print.” | “Uniform chest badge at 25 mm, van doors, email signature, tender documents.” |
| Dislikes | Not mentioned. | “No bubbles, sparkles or cartoon mops.” |
| Timing | “ASAP.” | “Concepts in two weeks, final files in five. Uniforms ordered after that.” |
The strong column costs you perhaps twenty extra minutes. It can save weeks.
What to include, section by section
Different guides group things differently, but they agree on the core. Milanote’s template lists brand overview, project description, goals, target audience, competitors, style preferences, deliverables, timing, existing design work and what to avoid. VistaPrint adds personality and tone, colours, typography, file formats, usage, revisions and budget. Here is how we would put that together.
Your business and the reason for the project
Two or three sentences: what you do, where, for whom and how long you have been doing it. Then the trigger. Are you launching, rebranding, merging, or moving upmarket? The reason shapes the solution. A start-up needs a logo that looks credible on day one. An established firm needs one that carries its reputation forward.
Goals
State what the logo should help you achieve. “Look established enough to win tenders” is a goal. “Be recognisable at a glance on a van” is a goal. “Look nice” is not. Pick one or two and rank them.
Audience
Go beyond age and job title. Say what your customers care about, what worries them before buying and what they already trust. If you have two audiences, say which one the logo must win first.
Personality and tone
This is the part most owners rush and the part designers value most. Logo direction should follow the message the brand needs to send. Playbook contrasts a bank that wants to look trustworthy with an adventure-travel company that wants to feel fun, and the two would never share a logo. Pick three or four adjectives, then add a “but not” for each: “friendly, but not childish”; “premium, but not cold”.
Competitors and differentiation
List three to five competitors or businesses your customers compare you with, and say what you notice about their logos. The aim is not to copy or to shun everything, but to avoid blending in. Describe, for example, the colours and symbols that dominate your sector, so the designer can choose a route that stands apart.
Style, colour and references
Share two or three references and explain what you like about each: the shape, the spacing, the typeface, the boldness. Reference logos from other industries are fine, as long as you say what exactly you are borrowing. If you have brand colours already, say whether they are fixed or flexible.
Usage and applications
List every place the logo will appear, and the smallest and largest size. Green Hat’s briefing checklist asks you to define usage contexts, digital and print needs, variations and draft and final deadlines. A logo that is lovely on a website banner and unreadable on a pen is a failed logo.
Deliverables and formats
Say what you expect to receive: primary logo, stacked and horizontal versions, icon, one-colour, reversed, vector and web files, and a basic usage guide. If the brief is silent, assumptions will differ.
Timing, budget and revisions
Give a real deadline and the reason for it. State the budget range or the package you have chosen. Agree how many concepts you will see and how feedback will be collected. Who has the final say? One named person is best.
How to explain your brand and taste without drawing it
Most owners are not designers, and that is fine. You do not need design vocabulary. You need honest comparisons. Try these prompts:
- If our brand were a person walking into a meeting, how would they dress and speak?
- Which three brands, in any industry, do you wish yours felt like, and why?
- Which logo in your sector makes you wince?
- What do customers already say about you in reviews? Use their words.
- If the logo shrank to the size of a fingernail, what must still be visible?
Write answers as sentences, not as instructions for the layout. “We want people to feel they’re in safe hands” gives the designer room to find a good answer. “Put a shield in the corner” does not.
Questions to answer before you brief a designer
If you cannot fill a section, the gap is useful. It tells you where to think before you spend money.
- What does the logo have to do first? Win trust, stand out, look premium, or simply be easy to remember.
- Who decides? Collect opinions internally beforehand and send one set of feedback.
- Is the name final? Changing a name halfway through wastes work. Check it is free to use too: a business name and a trademark are different things, as this explainer on trademark versus business name shows for Australia. For UK rules, speak to a solicitor or trade mark attorney.
- Where will it live in the first year? Van, shopfront, packaging, app icon, tender documents.
- What is the budget? Without a figure, a designer cannot suggest an honest scope.
- What will you not change? Existing colours, a strapline or a symbol customers already know.
How a clear brief helps with a simple logo
Simple logos are harder than they look. They work because someone made firm decisions about what to leave out. A brief gives the designer permission to do that. When you say “must work at 25 mm” and “two colours maximum”, you have set limits that push towards simplicity.
Green Hat frames logo quality as both communication and function: simplicity, relevance, memorability, timelessness and versatility matter alongside appearance. Put those five words in your brief as the test you will use to judge concepts. Our own checklist in what makes a good company logo design goes deeper, and our logo design best practices for UK business owners is worth reading before you finalise your wishes.
It also helps to know what kind of mark you are asking for. A wordmark, a lettermark and a symbol with text each behave differently. Our guide to the types of business logos explains the options in plain English.
Our view: the brief is the first design decision
We have read a great many briefs over the years. The best ones come from owners who are honest rather than polished. They tell us what worries them, what they have tried and what they cannot stand. The worst ones are a list of adjectives copied from a template: innovative, dynamic, professional, modern. Every business thinks it is those things, so the words tell a designer nothing.
Our advice has three parts. First, write about your customers more than yourself. The logo is for them. Second, be specific about constraints and relaxed about solutions. Third, treat the brief as a conversation starter, not a contract. We work in a collaborative process with unlimited revisions on branding work, so a brief that is 80 per cent right is enough to begin. We would rather talk it through with you than receive a perfect document that hides what you really think.
Many of our clients arrive with a brief they are embarrassed by. It is nearly always better than they think.
— Kukoo
Brief template you can copy
Paste this into a document and fill each line in plain sentences.
- Business name, location, what you do, how long you have traded
- Why you need a logo now
- Top one or two goals for the logo
- Primary and secondary audience
- Three to four personality words, each with a “but not”
- Three to five competitors and what you notice about their branding
- Two or three references and what you like about each
- Colours: fixed, preferred, to avoid
- Things to avoid
- Where the logo will be used, with the smallest and largest size
- Deliverables and file types
- Deadline, with the reason
- Budget or package
- Decision-maker and feedback method
If you would like a head start, our logo design brief page walks you through the same ground.
Ready to turn your brief into a logo?
Once your brief is written, the next step is choosing how far you want to go. Our published logo and identity prices are £150 for polish (refreshing an existing logo), £440 for logo only and £750 for Visual Identity. A Custom Pack is also available for bespoke needs. Each package comes with our collaborative process, and unlimited revisions apply to our branding work.
See the options on our logo design and visual identity page, send us your brief, and we will tell you honestly which option suits your business. If a new logo is part of a wider rebrand, our services include web design, print artwork and more, all from one team.
After the brief: keeping the result consistent
A logo only builds recognition when it is used the same way everywhere. Once the files arrive, write down the rules: minimum size, clear space, approved colours and which version goes where. Our branding consistency workflow for small businesses gives a simple routine. If you want to see how finished identities look, we have collected examples of visual branding that show the logo working inside a larger system.
FAQ
How long should a logo design brief be?
One to two pages is enough for most small businesses. Aim for specific sentences rather than length. If the designer would still have to ask basic questions after reading it, add detail. If you are repeating yourself, cut.
What is the difference between a logo brief and a creative brief?
A creative brief sets out strategy, messaging and business goals for a project or campaign. A logo brief is a design brief: it covers the visual execution, such as style, usage, formats and deliverables. For a logo, you mostly need the second, with a few lines of strategy at the top.
Should I include logos I like in the brief?
Yes, two or three at most, and explain what you like about each. A reference with no explanation is easy to misread. Include one you dislike too, with the reason.
Can I brief a designer if I do not know what style I want?
Yes. Describe your audience, your personality words and where the logo will appear, then ask the designer to propose directions. Clear problems lead to better concepts than vague preferences.
Is a free template good enough?
A template is a useful checklist, but the value lies in your answers. Fill it with specifics about your customers and your competitors, and delete any sections that do not apply to your project.
Sources
- Milanote: logo design brief template
- VistaPrint: how to write a logo design brief
- Green Hat: logo design briefing checklist
- Playbook: how to create a logo design brief
- monday.com: creative brief template
- Elamine Law: trademark versus business name