When you hire a graphic designer,  you know they’re going to be doing creative work for you. What you might not know is that us designers also put in a ton of research before we even start working on the actual design component of your project.

What kind of research? Well, it really depends on the project. The most extensive research and homework I put in are usually related to branding work. If I’m custom designing your logo, you can be assured I’m going to research every possible thing I can to achieve a unique design solution. Is your company name unique? I’ll research its background and origin. Where is your company based? I’ll be checking out that location and its history. How did your company come to be? I’m going to see what types of styles and imagery I can connect it to.

As an example, here’s a logo I created for a local company called Cod Sounds a couple years back. Cod Sounds creates a unique experience by using traditional Newfoundland culinary methods to collect and cook food from the land. My first step in this process was to find out where the name Cod Sounds came from. Turns out, a cod sound is the part of a cod fish that keeps it afloat in the water (sin that as a Newfoundlander, I didn’t know this).

I knew I wanted this logo to be fairly minimalistic, and also to represent Newfoundland and its heritage. I decided to do some research traditional fishing methods in Newfoundland. I found a lot of interesting things that I didn’t know; but what caught my eye was the manner in which fisherman used to catch their cod. They used a simple line with a hook, and by hand pulled up one fish at a time. That’s where the hook image in the logo comes from.

In conclusion, there’s a lot of behind the scenes effort that goes into your designs. Making sure your logo or poster or brochure is uniquely you it something we pride ourselves on, and having the creative freedom to do this is important- and why I love my work.