Logos Round …138

Hi! My name is Sasha Lasakow, I’m a Design Intern at Grayson Sky, and one thing I wish I had fully realized before starting my internship is how high the stakes really are.

As the only design intern, and the only current employee who solely does design, I am responsible for the majority of the visual work at Grayson Sky. This isn’t too hard to digest when it comes to small design projects, such as social media posts and email campaigns, but having to design an entire brand identity? That’s absolutely terrifying.

It’s made even more terrifying when you have to sit with the clients and present your ideas to them, knowing fully well your ideas might be rejected, or you might pass out from nerves in front of your entire team.

You see, in my previous design positions, I had been working under other designers, or had been designing for student organizations. Therefore, my designs wouldn’t necessarily make or break a company and often, I didn’t get the final say in design ideas. I also wasn’t working for a company that was paying for my services and I wasn’t always being held to as high a standard. 

But in my first day at Grayson Sky, I was instructed to create some logos for a new client, one that I had little knowledge of. The next day, we drove to their office and showed them our ideas.

It wasn’t easy.

There was a lot of back-and-forth, frustration from both ends, and ultimately, we left with instructions to go back to the drawing board. I returned to the office clueless as to the direction in which to head. However, after a lot of staring at my computer screen, reading the industry background information five times over, and drinking a lot of coffee, I came up with some more ideas I was proud of and that the client ultimately chose.

Two months after that initial meeting, I actually look forward to the chance to develop a whole brand identity for a client. I also enjoy the collaborative process of presenting to the client and hearing their feedback. It can still be disheartening when a client nixes an idea I felt strongly about and it’s never fun to leave a meeting only to return to my desk and start from scratch with logo ideas, but there’s nothing better than the feeling when you finally get it. When the client finds something they can identify with and you create something you’re proud of.

I’m here to say that it gets easier to present ideas and as time passes, the prospect of a client hating your work becomes less scary. All it means is you pick your pencil back up and find another solution to the problem… and another and another and another, until you find the perfect compromise.