Designing a Perfectly Executed Logo

Ian Paget: I'm keen to go into your background a little bit. So I think as an opening question for this interview, how did you first get into logo design?

Tamari Chabukiani: Well, becoming a graphic designer was not a linear process for me. I actually had to change two majors to realise that I wanted to be a graphic designer, but once I knew, I just knew. So let me start from the very beginning, it was the late 2000s when I watched a movie which is called A Scanner Darkly, and it was an adaptation of one of my favourite authors' books at the time. And in that movie, everything was filmed digitally first and then it was animated from the beginning to the end. And the name of that animation technique is rotoscope. So when I finished watching the movie, I went on YouTube right away to find a tutorial of the illustration technique that would resemble rotoscoping.

So it was the late 2000s, as I said, and there were very few tutorials online and I found this video called Bjork Factor Art Tutorial, which is still there. I've watched it a couple of times, I created my first illustration which was a portrait of my brother. And I remember it quite vividly that it was the first time I experienced the state of flow. If someone doesn't know the state of flow is when you're in the zone so much so that you lose the sense of time and you forget that you're hungry or sleepy and you're a bit afraid to leave this state because you are afraid that this moment will not repeat itself in the future. So that was the first time I knew I enjoyed working with stylised images.

And everything I did after that, after I graduated from fashion was focused on becoming a graphic designer. I applied for every graphic design course in Georgia to put a portfolio together and I relocated London and applied for Shillington College, a very fast based portfolio-focused course. And right after I finished, I applied for LCC, London College of Communication and its postgrad program has significantly influenced my approach towards design. So LCC is known for its traditional education. And another thing I remember is that we would get a gigantic reading list every week and I would spend days reading old design books. I was obsessed with their library. I used to visit every day.

And another thing that I remember is that we would not use software programs in the class for the first couple of months. Instead, we were working with a piece of paper, a glue stick, some cut out letter forms, pencils, and other tangible materials. So the logic behind that approach is that working with actual materials gives you a better understanding of scale and balance. And another thing was when you are gluing something down, you can't just easily unglue it without ruining your work. So you have to think and plan before you sort of commit yourself to an action.

So soon after I graduated, my UK visa expired, which was a devastating moment for me, because I was already in love with London and I came back home where I was lucky enough to start working at George Bokhua Studio. And as soon as I started working there, I actually broke my right forearm during the first week.

Ian Paget: Oh my God.

Tamari Chabukiani: I know, ironic. But long story short, I had a very speedy recovery and I think wrapping cabbage leaves around my forearm helped. It is something that my surgeon recommended and at first thought it was a joke just to cheer me up, "Put a cabbage on your forearm," but as it turned out, there is anecdotal evidence that it does have some anti-inflammatory properties and it does help this healing process. But anyways, placebo effect or cabbage effect.

Ian Paget: When I was a kid we’d be rubbing dock leaves on our skin if we got stung by stinging nettles, but no idea if that actually genuinely worked or if it was in our heads… never heard that about cabbage though… sounds strange…

Tamari Chabukiani: Exactly, I think it was a placebo effect though. But even after that, I would not be able to create a mark for the next six months. And the reason was a quite peculiar one, because I was so obsessed with this mysterious world of logo design that every time I tried to make a sketch, I would get paralysed from excitement. Then in six months, something clicked and I figured out the logic behind my creation. So I uploaded a couple of logos on Instagram and they got regrammed and surprisingly, enough people liked it. So we all have heard this many times, but I would advise every beginner to put their work out there and not to be too attached or ego driven about their designs. And another thing is that being too critical about yourself puts you in a high stress state and being in that state blocks creativity entirely, which is not a good thing.

Ian Paget: Yeah definitely. I think it’s good to be aware that there’s room for improvement, as that always pushes us to keep learning, but you don’t want to be so critical that you never out work out there… You need to show your work, otherwise nobody knows what you’re capable of and you’ll never get a design job, or never get clients.

I’m so keen to ask your about the logic you discovered behind logo design, but I’ll save that for later in the conversation. So we know now how you discovered you love for logo design, but how did you go from that to creating your own studio, Pragmatika?

Tamari Chabukiani: So George decided to travel in the end of 2017 or 2018, I don't remember. And he temporarily closed down the studio and there are very few design studios in Georgia back then. And style wise, I didn't feel like I was a good fit for any of them because I cherished logo modernness and I wanted to continue working in that style. And without too many options and after months of hesitation, I decided to open my own studio, which was a terrifying move because I had to do the things that I was not used to and not qualified to enough to do such as hiring people, accounting, art direction, of course, I was doing design at the same time and it was overwhelming. And to make things a bit easier for myself, in a couple of months, I decided to move into a studio and to live there because I didn't want to spend anytime in traffic.

So before COVID hit, we were working primarily with the financial sector, banks, investment firms focusing on visual identities. But I think the pinnacle moment was that in 2018, we got approached by a presidential candidate, which was quite surprising, to design a campaign, which was, I mean, a huge thing. But still the long story short is that we had to decline that project because the deadline was quite tight for such a huge responsibility and eventually she would become a president. So after the COVID hit, we had no other choice but to turn pragmatically into a part-time studio. And I shifted my focus towards teaching design online and offline, that's when I recorded my first SkillShare class about design principles and that's when I became a tutor at Miami Ad School Georgia and I never stopped taking on design projects, but nowadays I hire people on a project to project basis.

Ian Paget: Oh wow. I know you did a skill share course but I wasn’t aware you did teaching too. I need to ask you about that too at some point, but focusing on Pragmatika, it sounds like you went all in from the outset and started hiring people, in some form. I think that’s a big leap to take for anyone when they start their own thing - can you talk through how you’re approached hiring other designers?

Tamari Chabukiani: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, as I said, nowadays, I hire people on a project to project basis because in terms of workflow, there's no need for a full-time employee. And I usually hire if I'm working on a really massive project or something with a tight deadline. And it depends whether I'm hiring a beginner, an assistant designer, or if I'm hiring an already established designer, I have different approaches. If it's an established designer, they should have a completely different skillset from me. And in that case, if I'm responsible for art direction, I'm looking for someone who has a strong portfolio that shows proficiency in a specific skill or style. And if I'm hiring an assistant, it can be one of my students. And in that case, I'm more attentive towards their attitude, whether they have a fixed mindset or whether they're open to new things. And of course, whether they're persistent or not, because persistence and willingness to sit for many hours are usually the main differentiators whether someone will be an okay designer or a good designer.

Ian Paget:  I agree with that. I think as a logo designer persistence is really important, especially to really perfect a logo and to get that execution right. I remember one time I was working on a logo for hours, trying to get one tiny detail right… my partner at the time walked in my office to see what I was working on, and returned a few hours later and she was like “you’re still working on that!?”… I did so many variants of this same logo, but think it was worth it. Those tiny details matter I think, even though the average person doesn’t notice.

Anyway, one thing I’m really keen to discuss with you is your logo design process. I really feel you’ve mastered the art of execution, so can you talk through how you usually work?

Tamari Chabukiani: Sure. So what I find fascinating about logo design and design in general is that it requires two modes of thinking, both analytical and creative. And there is this constant switch between these two modes of thinking at different stages of design development. For example, when you're developing a creative brief or researching your competitors, you are in an analytical state. Whereas when you are generating visual directions and making sketches, you are in a creative mode. And I also like to call this creative mode an incubation period.

So one of the initial states is competitor research and research of similar brands, both locally and globally. And there are two reasons for that because in every field, for example, you're creating an identity for a sports brand, right? It has been already established, "Visual language," a lot of angles, full typography, vibrant colors, that work feeling of energy. And you cannot divert too much from that because if you do, you risk confusing your target audience. So research helps with that. And indeed it also enables you to avoid some accidental plagiarism because when you know what is already out there, it's more unlikely that you will repeat it. And unintentional plagiarism is not a rare thing in design because if you're creating something, there is a high chance that someone has already done it and you're copying someone without even knowing it.

And after I draw initial ideas on sticky notes, I have this obsession with sticky notes, those sketches are usually very raw and almost unrecognizable. And my obsession with sticky notes started when I realised how disheartening it is to buy a brand new designer notebook and you create a beautiful spread with well thought out sketches and suddenly draw one awkward shape and you cannot just undo it, just can't rid of it without ripping out the whole spread and two more pages from the other side of the notebook. So stickers are lightweight, you can carry them around, you can fresh them if you don't like it and it's just easy to get rid of it and this approach

Ian Paget: You’re not the first designer I’ve spoken to that likes using sticky notes for logo design… I’ve seen Von Glitschka do this too. I’ve used them when writing as a way of planning content, but can see why some like it for logo design, especially if it’s helping you to generate ideas quickly.

Tamari Chabukiani: Yeah, and this approach seems to elevate this perfectionism tension that we designers naturally have. And it also gives me another starting point for cleaner sketches. And also I think that psychologically, this is something that I noticed lately is that you treat every sticky note as a felt for a new idea and not as a continuation of your previous logos. You don't continue doing the same logo type with iterations, but you're approaching it as a new area. So plus, I have about 30 stickies, I go into sprint mode.

The sprint technique is when you draw as many sketches as possible in a limited amount of time on a larger piece of paper, it can be an A4, or it can be an A3. And the key here is to generate as many ideas as possible rather than focusing on one single concept. And they either differ conceptually or they differ style wise. For example, if you know that your final logo has to be a line, it can be a single line line, a negative space line or a line using gradients, transparency, overlaps and et cetera. So this process of sprint technique can be repeated multiple times until I'm happy with two or three concepts. And after that, I move on to digitisation. The key with it is to treat your digital outline as a digital sketch rather than try to perfect it right away.

The first thing I make sure is that silhouette is strong. And the second thing I keep in mind is that there is a good balance between foreground and background. And what helps a lot and what I ask all of my students to do is to zoom in and out obsessively. It's like pressing command and S and saving your design, zooming in and out, come into minus, come into plus and looking at the excessively black areas. And also looking at the overall silhouette, whether it's bubbly or strong because in smaller sizes, it's more noticeable. Because if the shape is off, no amount of detailing will help. And after I'm happy with the silhouette, I'm happy with the balance, I refine separate details of the mark and I usually make copies after each iteration. And it is something that I actually learned from George. I will fill out an art board with these hundreds of similar logos, which have like really minor changes.

And this approach seems to work because when you're in the moment, you don't know whether you are improving the mark or making it worse. So saving the previous versions helps you see things in perspective and you have an opportunity for comparison. And when I'm happy with the final result that I managed to achieve at this stage, the final step is the improvement of a geometry. So some people like to call it greeting, and what greeting is replacing existing shapes with its geometric analogs. So it can be a circle, it can be an ellipses or can be a line or a spiral. And sometimes there are moments when I'm not happy with the greeted version. For example, one line is not refined enough or it doesn't look good as a part of a composition. And I usually change it and it means like destroying your greeted version and regretting it again. So basically this is a very speedy summary of my process, which hasn't changed in about three years.

Ian Paget: Well I can see why, I really this process. I’m just going to quickly summarise it based on notes I’ve jotted down.

So firstly you’re using sticky notes to quickly scribble out ideas. Then using using larger sheets of paper to do a sprint technique to generate lots of ideas as quickly as possible. Then you’re doing a rough version of the design in illustrator, focusing on the silhouette, which I think is a really good idea… if it works as a rough sketch, then you know it has potential and worth developing, but if it’s not working once vectorised you know to abandon it quickly without wasting too much time. I like what you said also about zooming in and out - that’s solid advice because it’s important a logo is versatile, so you need to keep checking it looks good at smaller sizes. Then, you start making copies of the logo where you make tweaks, that way you can be sure you’re constantly improving the design. I know you said George does this, and I’ve seen the same lesson from Aaron Draplin too. Then, once you’ve got a perfect design you’ll then use a grid - geometric shapes to perfect the logo.

I can see how when applying this approach the logos you do are always so perfect! So thanks for sharing that. I think to go along with this, I did want to also ask about your skill share course where you discuss the ‘Basic principles of design’. Can you tell us more about this course, and those principles that can apply to logo design?

Tamari Chabukiani: Sure. So my SkillShare class was actually recorded in the midst of the pandemic's first wave. And I wanted my first class to be about the basics, the basic principles of graphic design. And I talked about seven design principles that are used across various fields of graphic design. And these are balance, contrast, hierarchy, white space, repetition, tension and scale. So let's take scale for example, it is a bit hard to explain in without physical demonstration, but I'll try my best.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah.

Tamari Chabukiani: For example, we need to create a sense of dimensionality in a circle. We want to make it look more rounded, like a sphere, right? The first shortcut is to use gradients. That's what a beginner designer would do, to make the central parts lighter and make the edges darker because lighter things are perceived as closer to us and darker things are perceived as they're receding. It's not going to be something new and exciting, right?

And in another scenario, you can take a circle as a silhouette and place shapes inside of the circle and how you place those shapes will define whether your circle will look flat or whether it'll look like a sphere. So if you place oversized objects or shapes in the center, they'll feel like they're closer to us. And if you put smaller shape at the edges, they'll look like they're further away from us. And also, here's where placement and correlation comes into play, there should be more space around the central area because a significant amount of white space will create a sense lightness and smaller objects that are further away from us should be placed more densely to create a sense of darkness. So this is just an example of scale and if we take balance, it's much easier.

We can talk about foreground and background balance. And in design what is invisible like a background is just as important as what is visible and background can create inside shapes as well. And whether you want your logo to be heavy, you use more foreground. And if you want your logo to be light, you leave more white space so you use more background. So those principles are most apparent in the classical pieces of design because the designers back then did to rely on special effects and read emotions and digital textures because there were none obviously, and they relied on the design principles to create these effects of dimensionality and depth.

Ian Paget: That’s a really good point, and actually when you consider that you can use shapes rather than gradients to create dimension, it’s making me thinking about how we can apply that to single colour versions of a logo, so it’s worth pulling out some of those classical pieces to see what we can apply to our work now.

Okay. So we know how you go about designing logos, we've we spoke about how you got into design and your process for for creating those perfectly executed marks. I'd love to go into more about your agency because it sounds like you're at good point now where you’re getting regular clients, and able to hire other designers to do some of the work for you, allowing you to spend time creating courses and teach, which is a really nice position to be in. So you’re clearly very good at finding clients, as having a regular stream of clients is the key to be in a position where you are I think. So how do you go about finding clients for your business?

Tamari Chabukiani: Yeah. And actually, I don't think I'm the perfect person to ask this question because I-

Ian Paget: Just be honest.

Tamari Chabukiani: Yeah, I don't find clients. Georgia is a tiny, tightly connected country and I feel like every local client that I ever worked with found me through word of mouth. And usually those are either ex happy clients introducing me to the new clients or someone I know through the design community. And other than that, I get inquiries mainly from social media, Instagram and Behance, and having social presence helps although I must add that before the algorithms were introduced to Instagram, the outreach was bigger and logically there were more inquiries through Instagram.

And lately, I have also started noticing that I get clients through my SkillShare class and my teaching practices. So generally the logic is that you'll get hired for the work that you do, you'll get hired for the type of work you have on your portfolio and whatever you put out there is most likely going to attract the type of clients you're going to work with in the future.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I find it interesting that you say that you're not the best person to talk about this because when I have spoken to people that know what they're doing, how you are finding clients is pretty much how they're finding clients. So there's a few things that I see you doing and a lot of it is what I would describe as reputation growth. So you are posting consistently on social media, sharing great work. And obviously because you're sharing great work, other people will share that. By the sound of it, you are networking with other designers and networking with people in general and that's allowing you to attract work because people know that you do good work. And those two things alone will allow you to build a reputation so that you get known for doing good work and it attracts clients.

And even though it sounds really simple, that is how most graphic designers get work. And obviously you can learn more about different social platforms, but as long as you are doing that in some way, so that people get to know, like, and trust you, then you're going to get clients. So that advice, even though you said that you're not the best person to talk to about this, is still valid advice and it's allowing you to be in a position where you're getting clients.‍

Tamari Chabukiani: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And living in a small country actually helps as well.

Ian Paget: Maybe, but even being in a small country you have a wide reach, I mean I'm based in the UK and I'm familiar with your work, and I’d imagine a lot of other designers are familiar with you too. So even though you are based in a small country, because of social media, and the internet, your reach is a lot bigger than you probably realise as It opens up the doors to every corner of the globe.

Yeah. So I do want to talk more about your training courses. We’ve already briefly discussed SkillShare, but I am aware that you’ve in the early stages of doing a Domestic course which is very exciting! They do great quality content. Can you tell us more about that? I really enjoyed the one they did with Sagi Haviv, so I’ll probably be signing up to yours too.

Tamari Chabukiani: Oh wow. Thank you. My first student, you're going to be my first. Thank for your interest. So I was approached by Domestika while I was actually preparing for my second SkillShare class and I had to pause my SkillShare preparations for a while to refocus on Domestika. So the class is going to be about building a monogram. So for those of you who doesn't know, a monogram is a "logo composition" composed of the first letter forms taken out of the name of the company. It's two or more words, right? For example, general electrics, for example, IBM or PS. And we're going film it in March and it's going to be a two part class with a bonus unit.

So the first part will be theoretical, we will go through a theme such as what makes a good logo, what is a fine line between minimalistic and boring, how to utilise multiple methods and principles of depth creation that I talked about so that your logo doesn't look flat and generic. And the second part will be the process, how to conduct a visual research, how to generate as many sketches as possible in a very limited amount of time. And I'm also going to talk about sprint technique that I mentioned, and we'll execute a mark from a sketch to its final greeted version. And as a bonus lecture, bonus unit, I will teach my students how to improve a mark if you're feeling stuck and we're going to take their designs through a logo checklist.

Ian Paget: It sounds like it’ll be really good. I’m excited to check it out. An amazing opportunity for you. Out of curiosity how did they find you?

Tamari Chabukiani: I'm not sure how they found me, but one of the producers contacted me through email. And I think one of the reasons was that I already had a SkillShare class and I already had some experience in teaching. And other than that, I think there were very few logo design specific classes back then when I got contacted because it was in September or October, I don't quite remember. And now there are quite a few, but back then, there were not as many. So I think there was a demand and I got lucky.

Ian Paget: Definitely! I know the Sagi Haviv one did very well, so I’d imagine you’ll do well out of this too, so good luck!

You mentioned earlier in the conversation about books, and since we have time I’d like to discuss this. What design books would you recommend?‍

Tamari Chabukiani: So the first recommendation would be an all time classic that my tutor recommended while I studying at LCC, it's Armin Hofmann's Graphic Design Manual. And this book explains design principles through basic geometric shapes. And another one would be The Elements of Typographic Style. And this book is a masterpiece itself. The way its type set makes it extremely easy to read and understandable. And I think this is what good typography is all about.

And another one would be, it's not a design book, but I found it really helpful and inspiring, it is Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, sorry for this. And it is about creativity and happiness and it's about the state of flow that I mentioned previously. And another two or three would be 79 Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut and the book says that it's about design right? 79 Short Essays on Design, but really it's about everything. And Michael Bierut says this quite a lot that having a wide area of interest and being genuinely curious about life is what makes you good designer and not just reading the right books and being-

Ian Paget: Yeah, I agree with that.

Tamari Chabukiani: And the last two would be Grid System by Joseph Muller Brockman, he's my design idol and Logo Modernism of course, I cannot not mention it.

Ian Paget: I think every designer that I know has Logo Modernism and I think if you're listening to this and you don't have that book, go out there and buy it.

Tamari Chabukiani: Yeah, don't order it online because it is too heavy and you'll have to pay the double price for the shipping.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it’s a heavy book. We’re really lucky in the UK with Amazon as shipping is free. At least it is for me as I have Amazon Prime which offers free shipping. Worth having for a book like that, but don’t envy people in other parts of the world as it’s a huge heavy book, but worth it I think.

So we’re getting close to the end of the time we have, so I’m going to ask one last question… What one piece of advice would you give to young designers out there…

Tamari Chabukiani:‍

Okay. So the advice that I would give to the beginners is to practice making mistakes and correcting yourself because when you make a mistake, you may not be able to articulate what the mistake is as a beginner. For that you need an art director, but if you don't have an art director, you can still feel like something is off and it creates sense of discomfort in you. And if you're sensitive enough towards that feeling and persistent enough, you'll most likely try to find a source of that mistake and you'll try various ways of correcting it. So you become a strong visual problem solver by failing and fixing your failures in that process. And in addition to that, more often than not those mistakes turn into design solutions. And with enough practice, you will start recognising those errors as potential design solutions. And I think that's the part when the design magic happens.‍

Ian Paget: I think making mistakes is really keen to learning anything in life... without mistakes you can’t improve.‍

Tamari Chabukiani: Exactly. And it also elevates a lot of pressure when you allow yourself to make mistakes and be fine with it.

Ian Paget: And I think when working with logo design, you can often see what doesn’t work but not always know how to fix that issue without lots of experimentation, but this definitely becomes easier as you get more experienced.

Tamari Chabukiani: That's it really because you actually become faster at noticing those mistakes or either dropping your design or using this mistake as a design solution. Yeah.

Ian Paget: I actually really like it when designers share their mistakes. I always vividly remember Ian Barnard sharing a calligraphy error on instagram… you’re so used to seeing perfection all the time, so it was so unexpected to see it go wrong, and him be happy sharing that. It just shows that it’s ok to make mistakes.

Tamari Chabukiani: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it's part of the process. No design is perfect from the very beginning, it takes a lot of errors to get there.

Ian Paget: I think that’s solid advice to end the interview one… nobody gets good without making lots of mistakes along with way, and the more you do, the more you learn and improve. Well Tamari, it’s been great chatting with you! We managed to cover a lot, so thank you so much for coming on.

Tamari Chabukiani: Thank you for having me. And thank you for this opportunity to share my experience with you.