Logo Creation Process – Lean Sumo Creative

Note: This post originally appeared on Steve Coe’s blog StephenCoe.com.  Steve is our Web & Graphic Designer at Lean Sumo Creative. You can learn more about him here.

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I recently started a new job at a web graphic and design company called Lean Sumo Creative as a Web and Graphic Designer. My first task was to design the company logo. Through this post, I aim to give you some insight into the design process of logo creation that businesses and other designers may find useful.

I always find that the easiest way to start designing a logo is by getting back to the basics and using a pencil and paper. The numbers beside each logo indicate the order in which I drew each. Since the company name contains the word “sumo” in it, I really wanted to figure out a way to incorporate that idea. I began sketching my ideas knowing that I wouldn’t use them, but were helpful as a starting point. It would of been difficult to use these first couple of logos because the amount of detail in each would of been lost if they were shrunk to fit on a business card or a website. As I started sketching more and more logos, I found myself creating more abstract/Web 2.0 forms and playing with the moves and motions that Sumo Wrestlers make. The logos with arrows beside them, were the ones I was considering using as the final logo.

These were my top three favorite logos that I had sketched. From there, I asked some friends and family what they thought of each and which one they preferred. Ultimately though, I decided to use the bottom left logo. I chose this one because of the Web 2.0 look and that it contains a really iconic move that Sumo’s do prior to the match – the Sumo stomp to drive away the evil spirits from the dohyo (the wrestling ring). And as an added bonus, he has a “lean” look about him haha.

Once the logo was chosen, I pasted the image into Illustrator, traced over it and started playing with the color scheme. Although I had originally designed with the color scheme on the far right, we ended up using the second from the right (Orange and Grey).

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