A good logo brief fits on one page. It tells the designer who buys from you, where the logo will physically appear, how Arabic and English should sit together, which colours are fixed or ruled out, who you compete with, who signs off and by when. Everything else can wait for the first call.
Why one page does more than ten
A designer goes back to the brief every time they are stuck. A single page gets read again. A ten-page document with the company history, the mission statement and a founder’s message gets read once and then sits in a folder.
Length is only half the problem. Most briefs we receive say the logo should be “modern, clean and professional”. Nearly every business asks for that, so it tells the designer nothing about yours. Facts help: what you sell, to whom, on which street, on what kind of sign.
Describe the customer before the company
Say you run a pest control company in Ajman. “We serve residential and commercial clients” gives a designer nothing to draw from. Try this instead: “Most calls come from villa tenants who found us on a map search and want someone today. The contracts come from warehouse facilities managers who need a schedule and a certificate.”
Write two or three sentences of your own:
- Who pays you, and what is their job or situation?
- How do they find you the first time?
- What are they worried about when they choose a supplier like you?
Then add one line on what you want that person to think when they first see your name. Use ordinary words. “That we will turn up on time.” “That we are not the cheapest and that is fine.”
List every place the logo will appear
This is the part owners skip and designers need most. A logo is not judged on a white screen. It is judged on a fascia above a shop, on the side of a van, stitched on a pocket. Each surface asks for something different.
| Where it appears | What it asks of the logo |
|---|---|
| Shop signboard | Readable from across the road, comfortable in a wide and shallow shape, often in Arabic and English together |
| Vehicle | Understood in two seconds while moving, clear on a white, silver or coloured body |
| Uniform | Survives embroidery: no hairlines, no gradients, few colours |
| App icon and social profile | A symbol or initial that holds up small, inside a square or a circle |
| Company profile and letterhead | Sits quietly in a corner, with a single colour version for stamps and forms |
| Packaging and labels | Prints small, sometimes in one ink on kraft paper or foil |
Tick the ones that apply and mark the two that matter most.
If a signboard is on the list, send a photo of the shopfront and the rough measurements of the sign area. Proportions vary a great deal from one building to the next. Where a landlord, a mall or an authority has rules on signage wording, size or language, check the current requirement with them before the design is fixed, and pass on what they tell you.
Say how Arabic and English should work together
Three questions settle most of this.
What is the exact name in each language? Type it. Do not send a screenshot. If your Arabic trade name appears on your licence, copy the spelling from there. English names written in Arabic letters can be spelled more than one way, so choose one and keep to it.
Which language comes first? On some signs Arabic sits above or to the right. In an app used mainly by English speakers, the English may be all anyone sees. Tell the designer where each language matters more.
Will the two always appear together? If the Arabic name will sometimes stand alone, on a uniform for example, it needs to be drawn as a logo in its own right and not as a caption under the English.
We have written more about pairing the two scripts in our guide to Arabic and English bilingual design.
Colours to keep, colours to avoid, and who you compete with
On colour, give constraints and reasons, not taste. Useful lines look like these: “Our vans are already white with a green stripe and we are not repainting them.” “The franchise owner requires navy.” “Our closest competitor is red, so not red.”
On competitors, name three to five and include links or photos of their signs. Add the one that customers confuse you with, even if you think they are not in your class. The designer’s job is to make sure nobody mistakes your van for theirs.
Then add two logos from outside your trade that you admire, with one line each on why.
Name the decision maker and the date
Write one name next to “final approval”. If a business partner, a family member or a head office abroad will also want a say, list them and say at which stage they will see the work. Designs go wrong when a new opinion arrives after two rounds of changes.
Give the real deadline and the reason for it: a shop opening, an exhibition, a vehicle wrap booking, a tender submission. Then work backwards. Sign fabrication, printing and uniform orders all need time after the logo is approved, so the logo date is earlier than the opening date.
List what you need beyond the mark itself. A logo alone, or stationery too? Will a company profile follow, or a flyer for the opening week? Knowing this lets the designer test the logo on those items from the first presentation.
A one-page brief you can copy and fill
Copy this list into an email or a document and answer each line in a sentence or two.
- Business name in English, exactly as it should appear.
- Business name in Arabic, typed, with the spelling you have settled on.
- What we sell, in one sentence a stranger would understand.
- Our customer: who pays, how they find us, what worries them.
- What they should think on first seeing our name.
- Where the logo will appear: signboard, vehicle, uniform, app icon, company profile, packaging, other. The two that matter most are marked.
- Arabic and English: which comes first, and will they ever appear separately?
- Colours we must keep, and why.
- Colours to avoid, and why.
- Competitors: three to five names with links, including the one we get confused with.
- Two logos we admire from other trades, with a reason for each.
- Existing material: old logo, shopfront photo, sign measurements, vehicle colour.
- Final approval: one name, plus anyone else who will be consulted and when.
- Deadline and the event behind it.
- What we need delivered: logo only, logo with guidelines, stationery, other documents.
When you send a brief like this to us, the reply is a written scope and a quote in AED. CPDA is part of HelloPixels, we work in Arabic and English, and a first draft arrives within 48 hours of a complete brief. Our logo design service in Dubai page sets out the steps, and the contact form takes attachments. We are open from 8am to 8pm UAE time.
Frequently asked questions
What if I have no idea what I want the logo to look like?
That is normal, and the brief does not ask you to design anything. It asks for facts about your customers, your surfaces and your constraints. A designer can propose directions from those. Describing a look you have not seen yet is their job; describing your business accurately is yours.
Should I send logos I like as references?
Yes, a couple, with a sentence on what you like about each. The reason matters more than the image. “I like how it works in one colour” is something a designer can use. A folder of unrelated favourites with no comment tends to produce a design that tries to please all of them.
Who in the company should write the brief?
The person who will approve the final logo, or someone who sits with them while writing it. Briefs written by a junior team member and never read by the owner are the usual cause of late changes. Ten minutes from the decision maker at the start saves rounds of revision afterwards.
Can I change the brief after work has started?
Small clarifications are expected. A change to the name, the customer or the main surface is a new brief, and the designer may need to revise the scope and the quote. If something is still undecided, flag it on day one so the first concepts can allow for it.