How Long Does It Take To Design A Logo?

As a graphic designer, you most probably know that designing logos isn’t as straightforward as it seems. There’s a lot of work involved which could often require a lot of time. At the same time, you want to work fast so that you can take on more clients and make more money. For that, you’d have to design logos fast. 

This brings us to an interesting question: How long does it take to design a logo? 

On average, a typical logo design process takes 4-6 weeks of work. However, the logo design turnaround time also depends on several other factors and your logo design process. 

In this article, I’ll be talking about how long logo designing takes and why this time is longer than you expected. 

A Closer Look At A Typical Logo Design Process – How Long Does It Take To Design A Logo?

A lot of new designers are under the impression that designing a logo would probably take 30-60 minutes. Well, technically they’re not wrong but most of them fail to take into account the logo design process. 

Your logo design process defines how long it will take you to design a logo. The simpler your process, the faster your logo design turnaround time. 

Let’s take a close look at the typical logo design process and see how long each step in this process takes. 

Client Meeting & Brief (2-5 days)

The logo design process begins as soon as your meetings and calls begin with your client. This process mostly involves understanding the client’s business, requirements, and goals. 

The client meetings and brief process usually take 2-5 days or sometimes even more based on the availability of the client. 

It’s also at this point, that you can mostly figure out the time you’d have to invest in the project as all the goals and expectations are set. 

A helpful tip to ensure this process goes smoothly and fast is asking as many questions and clearing all doubts beforehand to avoid pitfalls during a project. 

You can send over a logo design questionnaire to get as many answers as possible in less amount of time. 

Logo Design Proposal & Contract (1-2 days)  

Once the project goals are set, it’s time to create a logo design proposal and contract to send over to the client. This proposal or contract usually includes all the details about the project such as the cost, time, deadline, deliverables, etc. 

Finalizing the proposal and getting a contract signed takes around 1 or 2 days. You can create a contract in just 20-30 minutes but sending it over to the client and then receiving a deposit could take longer which is it could take 1-2 days. 

Brand Research & Logo Brainstorming (7-10 days) 

The brand research and brainstorming process take 7-10 days as it involves a lot of research and understanding of your client’s business. 

You could do this in less time but I usually prefer and even recommend that you give proper time for research as this is the main meat of the process. 

Rushing this process could cost a lot as you won’t have clarification of your clients’ business and their requirements. 

Sketching & Designing Concepts (2-3 days) 

During the research and brainstorming process, I save a lot of designs for inspiration so that when I get to sketching and designing concepts, I could work fast. 

This way, sketching and designing concepts for logos can take up to 2-3 days. But if you’re unable to come up with good ideas during this process, there’s nothing wrong with giving it a few more days. 

I also take a break in between this process to clear my mind and look at the concepts with fresh eyes. 

Concept Presentation & Review (2-5 days)

After designing concepts, you pick the ones you want to present. The concept presentation and review take 2-5 days. 

I take 1-2 days for preparing the concept presentation and around 3 days to give the client some time to review the concepts. 

Rushing them to make a decision is not a good idea and giving them some time to think about it is important. 

Revisions & Approval (5-10 days) 

If the client wants revisions, it would typically take 5-10 days to work on the revisions and approve the final logo. 

5-10 days might sound a lot to you as you’re nearing the end of the project, it’s important to give your client the time to make the right decisions for their business. 

This not only helps them but also helps you in understanding what they like and what they don’t. However, keep in mind that this time doesn’t exceed much as it could lead to the project being dragged for days without any approval or decisions made. 

Delivery & Handoff (1-2 days) 

The delivery & hand-off process takes around 1-2 days as you finalize and refine the logo. You also prepare all the deliverables so 1-2 days is about the right time. 

Since you want to make sure the hand-off is smooth and leaves a good impression on your client, don’t rush this last process. 

What Factors Affect The Time It Takes For Logo Design? 

Regardless of the process, you follow for designing logos, other factors influence the time it takes to design a logo. 

Here are some factors that affect your logo design turnaround time:

Client Communication 

This is a big one and could take your project in one direction or the other. If the communication between you and your client isn’t proper or clear, it could cause delays in the project affecting your work. 

Oftentimes, you’ll come across clients who respond late to messages. In such cases, the project could turn into a disaster and it’s something you want to avoid at all costs. 

I’ve also come across clients who would take weeks to respond to my messages. What’s worse is that the client canceled the project just before the final hand-off because they changed their mind. 

You’ll deal with such clients in your freelance design journey and the only way to make sure you avoid such problems is by being upfront about your expectations from them. 

In my contract, I mention that the client should: 

• Be responsive to all messages and communications
• Not cause delays during reviews and approval 
• Be upfront about their goals early on

Setting some expectations from the client will make them realize that you’re not a commodity who offers a service but rather someone who also needs to be respected. 

The Time You Dedicate To The Work 

Your turnaround time for logo design also depends on how much time you dedicate to the project. If you’re working on other projects as well, then you might not be able to dedicate your full time to one project. 

That’s not a problem until you take on too many projects that you can’t handle. So, before taking on a new project, make sure you have the bandwidth for it and can prioritize your work without missing deadlines. 

Decision Makers & Stakeholders

Your client is running a business and sometimes, it’s not just one person making all the decisions in the company. 

There could be multiple decision-makers and stakeholders involved in reviewing and approving your work. 

This also affects the timeframe of a logo design project. The more stakeholders involved, the longer it could take for getting your work approved. 

You might think this is something you have no control over. But that’s wrong. 

During your client meetings at the beginning of the project, you should ask the client how many decision-makers will be involved. This way, you can get an idea of how long it will take for your logo to be reviewed and approved. 

Based on this information, you can decide early on how much time and effort you want to dedicate to the project and how much you want to charge for it. 

Conclusion 

I hope this article helped you understand that logo design isn’t a 30-60 minute project and there’s a lot involved that gets often overlooked. 

If you’re working with a client on a logo design project, then whatever time you invest for that project should be counted and not just the time it took you actually design the logo. 

This will help you understand the time and effort you give into each project and whether you’re charging worth that time.