D&K Agri-Sales is a family-owned business in Plymouth, Nebraska, that sells and constructs all kinds of grain-handling equipment. That includes grain bins, dryers, augers, custom fabrication, and much more. They even design site layouts in 3D modeling software.

D&K Agri-Sales needed both a website and a logo for their business. If you haven’t checked it out already, please read the case study for their website.

D&K did not have a real logo to speak of, but they had lots of places where they could have shown one. That was an opportunity they recognized and they realized they needed a logo to make their business brand stand out.

While I researched their business and customer base for their website, I also was doing research for their logo. I knew it needed to be something simple, bold, and clean. The logo would be used in a variety of environments. Out in the country, things get dirty – so it needed to show up well and be recognizable from a distance.

To start designing the logo, I began by just sketching ideas. As you can tell, I’m not a great artist, but pencil and paper is the best way I’ve found to generate lots of ideas quickly. There were some ideas I could eliminate quickly, and some that I would need to flesh out further.

After sketching out countless ideas, I narrowed them down to five to explore further. I created five high-fidelity logos with two or three variations, based on each of those ideas. I sent those to the folks at D&K to review and they selected the one they liked best.

After some additional tweaking and adjustments to the logo, we had the final product:

I also designed some variations for the logo, some that might be more appropriate at smaller sizes or in different environments:

I think the final logo achieves the goals of being clean and simple, and also easily recognizable. It’s a bit rustic looking, but with a modern feel to it.

Since creating the logo, D&K Agri-Sales has used it in a lot of different places: website, building sign, business cards, flyers, shirts, truck decals, and even on a TV commercial. 

Here are some pictures of the logo in different environments:

Thanks for reading this case study about the process for designing the logo for D&K Agri-Sales. Be sure to also read the case study for their website to find out more about them.

If you are interested in a logo or website for your business, please contact me and I’d be happy to discuss it with you.