How Many Logo Concepts Should You Present to Your Design Clients?
As a brand and web designer, there are a lot of decisions that you need to make about your design process. One of the biggest is how many concepts you’ll present to clients! Some designers choose to follow the one concept method and swear by it, others prefer to show multiple concepts. But which one is better? We’re going to walk you through our thoughts on the pros and cons of presenting one vs. multiple concepts so you can decide which strategy works best for you!
Presenting Only One Concept
You’ve probably seen some designers that you know talking about the one concept method and why they love it. Rather than presenting a variety of concepts and directions, they decide which concept they believe is the strongest is the best option for their client and only present that one to them. Here are our observations on the pros and cons of using this strategy:
Pros:
It positions you as the expert because the client really needs to trust you enough to only receive one option.
It can reduce indecisiveness or “frankensteining” of concepts. (aka, you show 2 concepts and the client asks you to mix them together)
It will hopefully result in less time spent on concept creation or revisions.
Cons:
Some clients might not like only seeing one option. They may prefer the process to be more collaborative and be disappointed if they find out they’ll only receive one concept.
If the client doesn’t like your concept, you’ll have spent extra time and energy exploring an option only to need to start over again.
It pressures you to come up with great, full-fledged ideas earlier in the process, which can be hard. Some designers need a few rounds of refining and feedback before finding their perfect final concept.
Presenting Multiple Concepts
The alternative (and what most designers are taught originally) is to present multiple concepts to clients to give them some variety. The number of concepts that designers present can vary depending on their preference and the types of clients that they work with. A freelancer might present 2 or 3 different concepts. But for a designer that works in the agency or corporate world, it might be common for their design team to present 10+ concepts to their larger clients. So let’s take a look at the pros and cons:
Pros:
It makes the client feel more involved in the creative process and like they have a say.
It allows you to work in stages and get helpful feedback along the way so that you don’t spend too much time on a direction that isn’t the right fit.
Sometimes a collaborative environment can help you generate better ideas.
Cons:
Clients can sometimes have trouble choosing between multiple directions. This might lead to them asking you to mix concepts together or taking longer to make decisions.
It can lead to more refinements.
Clients might feel more inclined to take over the process.
So how many concepts should you present?
We don’t believe that there’s a right or wrong answer to this question! Both strategies have benefits and downsides. So it all depends on which one you feel allows you to create your best work.
At Wayfarer, we choose to present 2 logo concepts in our first round of the branding process. We like this approach for a few reasons:
Our target client tends to be more creative-minded and prefers to see some options.
Since our clients often have a good eye for design, we enjoy having a more collaborative working relationship with them. We feel that talking through feedback and brainstorming with our clients helps guide us to a better final concept.
We don’t always land on the perfect concept in the first round. While some designers land on their final concepts quickly, we’ve found that our best work is created when we have more time to experiment and refine our concepts.
Every designer works a bit differently, so your approach for presenting concepts should align with your natural tendencies and needs as a creative. Think back to some of your past projects that you feel were your best work. What did you process look like for that project? How many concepts did you present? How much time did you spend working on each phase of the project? And what type of client was it? Were they fully trusting of you and quick to approve whatever you presented? Or were they more detailed with their feedback and wanting to collaborate more on each decision?
Your answers to these questions will likely help you find which presentation strategy aligns the most with your creative process. And remember – it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! The number of concepts you present might vary for each phase of your process. For example, we will often present only one moodboard during our creative direction phase and then two concepts for the first round of the logo process. You can mix and match until you find what works best for you and your clients.
No matter how many concepts you choose to present, do it thoughtfully.
Grab our Logo Concepts presentation template to elevate your client process. The editable InDesign templates include fill-in-the-blank prompts to explain your concepts in a client-friendly way and video walkthrough of the template in use from a real client project.
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