A logo costs $30 on a marketplace and $800 at a studio, and the client ends up looking at a PNG of roughly the same size. The difference sits in what happens before and after the drawing: how the direction was chosen, whether the mark was tested in monochrome and at 16 pixels, which files you received and who owns the rights. Below is the real process day by day, how many routes belong on the table, which formats to insist on, and what to check before the final payment.

Why an hour of drawing is not the job

You genuinely can draw a mark in an hour. The trouble is that the hour goes into form, while the logo has to live in conditions nobody looked at while drawing: a favicon, embroidery, single-colour print, a dark site header, a messenger avatar, an overlay on a photo. A mark never tested in those conditions gets redrawn later — on your budget and under deadline pressure.

The second half of the work is selection. A designer can generate twenty shapes in a day; the hard part is arguing why this shape suits your category and separates you from the companies next to you on the shelf. Skip that and the choice is made on personal taste — and a year later a new marketing hire has exactly the same right to say they do not like it.

The stages and how long each one takes

1. 1

   Brief and research, 2–4 days

   Category, audience, competitors, places of use. The key question is not which style you like but where this mark will be smallest and worst reproduced. That answer decides how complex the shape can be.

2. 2

   Exploring form, 3–5 days

   Sketches, work on shape and negative space, dozens of drafts the client never sees. Two or three directions come out of that — each with its own logic, not three tints of one idea.

3. 3

   Presenting directions, 1–2 days

   Each direction is shown in use straight away: site header, avatar, business card, monochrome. Never on a white square — the decision has to be made on how the mark will actually appear.

4. 4

   Refining the chosen route, 3–5 days

   Optical weight correction, kerning in the wordmark, building versions: primary, horizontal, compact, monochrome, reversed. Two rounds of revisions belong here.

5. 5

   Technical prep and handover, 2–3 days

   Text converted to outlines, clean paths, correct colour profiles, exports for every scenario, a rules file for minimum size and clear space, signed paperwork.

How many options belong on the table

Two or three directions. An offer of "ten logos to choose from" sounds generous and is the worst service a designer can provide.

• Ten options means none of them is finished. Project time is fixed: either one idea is developed properly or ten stay at sketch level. There is no third outcome.
• Choosing from ten stops being expertise and becomes a lottery. Nobody can compare ten different logics against criteria in one meeting, so taste decides.
• The nine rejected options poison the tenth. The classic pattern: route one is approved, then a month later someone asks to revisit route three. The project stalls.
• A direction is not a shape. It includes the logic of the mark, the typeface, the character of the palette and an example in use — things that can actually be assessed.

If a supplier insists on ten options, ask for three instead, each shown on real applications. The difference in decision quality is immediate. The shape also has to agree with the rest of the system — the palette and the brand typefaces — or you end up with a mark that is handsome alone and a stranger on your own website.

The files you should walk away with

This is where assumptions bite. The client gets an archive, opens the PNG, decides everything is there — until the first task a PNG cannot do.

Rights, trademarks and handover traps

Paying for work and owning the result are separate things. The gap shows up when you file a trademark application, or when a competitor starts using something suspiciously similar.

1. 1Assignment of exclusive rights has to be written into the contract. Wording along the lines of "the designer assigns all exclusive rights in the work to the client in full" is what you are scanning the document for.
2. 2Run a similarity check before filing. Searching the trademark register in your class takes a few hours and saves you from rebuilding an entire identity later.
3. 3Stock elements inside a logo are off limits. A mark assembled from a purchased icon cannot be registered, because you hold no exclusive rights to that component.
4. 4The typeface in a wordmark carries a licence too. Once outlined, the mark itself is usually safe, but you still need a separate licence to use that typeface anywhere else.

A logo alone does not make a brand recognisable — it works alongside a palette, typefaces and usage rules. What a full kit contains and what each level costs is covered in our guide to brand identity; the rules themselves get formalised in a brand book.

Frequently asked questions about logo design

In short

• Drawing is the smallest part. Most of the time goes into choosing a direction and testing the mark in real conditions.
• Two or three developed routes shown in use beat ten sketches on a white background.
• Minimum file package: SVG, editable vector master, outlined PDF, transparent PNG, plus colour values.
• Exclusive rights transfer in writing. Without that clause, trademark registration is off the table.