Logo design from sketch to final design

Last year I was asked to create a logo for In4systems, a company that creates property management software. This software is used by companies who need to manage large portfolios of properties, such as landlords and housing associations. I started by asking a few questions about their requirements and enquired about their competitors. Their brief was fairly open so I started by taking a look around at what their competitors were doing. The next stage was to start sketching. Whenever I am designing a logo I always spend a considerable amount of time sketching, it allows me to quickly try out different ideas to see what shapes and designs are like likely to work. Below are a few of my sketches which I scanned in ready for the next stage.

These sketches are very rough but they were never intended to be seen by the client they are purely a tool for me to work out my ideas. Within the sketches I thought it would be a good idea to include a descriptor/strap line in these which would give a more immediate sense of what the company does and worked this into the designs.
The next step was to start working up some of the logo design sketches on the computer. Using Adobe illustrator I used the scanned sketches as a guide and started designing the logos in black and white, choosing what I felt were appropriate fonts. Working in black and white enabled me to concentrate on shapes and type rather than be distracted by colours.

Some of these I felt were working and some weren’t so I took my preferred options and started deciding on colours.

I showed these to he client and they chose their preferred option and requested some changes to colours and the addition of shapes that represented windows. The chosen design was then worked up into stationery designs for letter heads and business cards which you can see below.