What is Urban Market you ask?  Last month, I learned about a new concept in Lexington called the Urban Market.  After some investigation, I thought this sounded like the perfect venue to showcase my “functional art” visual art and gift business. 

2nd Saturday, once a month ~ yes, I could handle that.  Indoor shopping; lots of women vendors ... helping a non-profit empower women to return to work, create jobs, help the local economy, raise money for charitable causes ~ such as stopping human trafficking ~ YES, I definitely wanted to support this.

Additionally, since I'm no longer employed professionally as a graphic designer, it was good to use my design brain again.  These are the designs I created:

Three things I've learned about designing logos for clients:

1.) Never present too many concepts to your client at once. If you give them 3 unique designs, often they will select the font from one, the graphic image from another and the color from the third ~ requiring yet another set of proofs.

2.) Listen to your client!  Communicate as much as possible before you begin working on their logo thumbnails.  If your client only wants a basic "Helvetica or Times Roman" conservative style logo ... "give it to them".  When a client has made up their mind, you are wasting your time to keep encouraging them to have a fancy/artistic look if it is not what they want.  Please the client, not yourself. Not everything you design is worthy of a sample for your portfolio.

3.) Make sure you have delivered an easy to understand proposal before you start the design process.  Often times, once you create a logo for a business or organization ... they will need your services many times for years to come.
Establishing good boundaries in the beginning will help you maintain a professional relationship with your client. For example, don't say, "Well, I charge $___ for logo development; (and no other explanation). Rather, present your client with a detailed written proposal of the estimates for one logo sheet of proofs and the estimated time to finalize the logo after their selection. If additional time is needed, then list an hourly estimate on the proposal. Also list estimated charges for communicating with possible vendors such as magazine or print publication designers, etc., ~ as they will need to communicate with you when you or the client forwards "the logo" for production. Make sure to include time for communication, meetings, etc., and not just for your time on the computer.

This was the final design selected  ~ I was pleased with their choice.

For additional information about the organization behind Urban Market click here and select the events tab: http://www.capacityinc.org

This is a quick, simple information flyer I also created in Adobe Illustrator to help promote the Feb. Urban Market. The heart was sketched with the freehand pencil tool called "Chalk Scribble".  I duplicated it three times and added the logo for the basic visual, since "branding" the name of the venue is most important.