Paying for a professional logo designer is extremely expensive. It’s understandable, their work is freaking difficult.
If you want to save your money though, I’m here to help. I’ll share some tips on how to design your own logo (you can even use these tips when designing a logo for your clients!).
Define clearly the focus of your own business (or your clients).
When designing a logo there are a few key questions that you need to answer:
What is the business all about?
Is it a business that needs to convey a message of trust?
Is it more of a friendly and playful company?
What products and services does the business offer?
What is the target audience?
Once you can answer those questions and you have reviewed the logos of your competition it’s time to think about designing.
With this level of research, planning and visualizing, you can get to the point that you actually know what your logo should look like.
The balance of everything.
There are three main components of every a logo. These are the shape, font used for the writing and the color scheme. You have to keep these three factors balanced. Let me cover each of these points individually.
Shape
There are no rules that state a logo needs to be a certain shape. However, it is a good idea to create a logo that would be suitable for printing on items both large and small. Think anything from the tab on a website through to a huge banner.
Font
The font has to be consistent and can’t be replaced. Of course there are thousands of fonts out there, to pick from. You need to pick the right one for you. It needs to be suitable with your business.
Besides the font character, you really need to bear in mind how easy the font will be to read. Yes, please don’t use those curly fonts with too many effects like emboss, glitter, etc. If you are in doubt, go with Helvetica.
Color
Never underestimate the impact of color.
Yes, colors also represent emotion. Pick your color carefully and use smaller color palettes. If you pick too many colors, this can cause your logo to be hard to memorize. For example big companies like Facebook and IBM use just one color for the logo and one color for the standard background.
As I was talking about before, remember your logo could end up being printed in miniature, so a simple color scheme is important.
The art of Black and White.
Last, to test that your final logo is actually good enough, do this: go transform it to black and white. Is the appearance of your logo still clear? Can you recognize the logo easily? Make sure your logo design can work well on a white background (bright) or black background (dark).
Ps: Some people create their logo in black and white at the beginning and then start to add colors when they are happy with the result. Use the method that fits you.
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