Creating a logo for your business is a lot like choosing a name for a child. This will be a daunting task if you don't have a few good ones and a couple of ideal ones on hand. On the one hand, the logo should reflect the mission of your brand, on the other, you need a logo that will work perfectly on any media. You cannot launch a website without a logo, you cannot print business cards or flyers. The list goes on and on – without a logo you are like no hands.

A good and attractive logo is an essential part of an effective branding strategy. It sounds loud, but it's hard to imagine a website or business card without a logo. Since the article is called “ How to save money on logo design”, Then keep in mind that, from my point of view, the author's examples do not look like” good and attractive “and my opinion slightly does not coincide with the author of the article – a permanent Forbes employee Jia Wertz.

How can you optimize your logo design process?

Start with research

The more research you do, the more chances that working with a designer will be productive. Armed with the colors, fonts, and design examples you like, you can streamline the process and reduce the number of changes as well as the cost of logo design.

Find differences from competitors

It's important that the logo doesn't look similar to competitors in your industry so as not to confuse potential customers. The last thing any new business wants is marketing effort, wasted because customers are confusing the brand for something else. You will have to look for analogs not only among competitors, but also analogs of your future logo. In order not to invent a bicycle, we had to revise the tons of logos with the letter “G”, which is used in the logo of the Goldman Group holding.

Make your own logo

If you don't have the budget to pay a designer, then you can always do it yourself. And the most important thing about this approach is that you will create something very personal and unique.

Katherine Sprung, the owner of Squish Marshmallows, a confectionery company, designed her own logo in a very creative and interesting way. ”I didn't have a budget, I drew the logo by hand and asked a friend to digitize it for $ 20.“ “And for my font, I used Calligraphr (a site that converts your handwriting into a downloadable font for free) Shabrina Koeswologito, the founder of the travel blog Slow Travel Story, also worked on the development of its logo. To begin with, it took her three months to complete the design process and complete her logo. ”I was looking for images and design in Unsplash and on Etsy. After looking for inspiration on Pinterest, I created my logo using Canva. “

Myth # 1. The logo should reflect the scope of the company.

Many entrepreneurs believe that their company logo should represent what they do. If he doesn't have a mug on his logo, how will customers know he is making coffee?

Take a look: how often do you see a pencil on a designer's logo or an image of Themis on a lawyer's logo? However, Starbucks still sells coffee, and Apple is known for its smartphones. A logo is one of the ways to become recognizable and does not need to answer the question “what are you doing”. You can show this without cluttering your logo with boilerplate images from the internet. The main disadvantage of logos that show the industry is the lack of ambition. You will always be one of the many among the crowd of your competitors. If it doesn't matter, then the cost of your services or goods will always be below average in the crowd of competitors.

Myth # 2. Your logo is simple and doesn't look expensive or rich.

Imagine you have ordered a logo for a sports company. The money was sent to the freelancer. And after two weeks, he sends you something like the one next to the text. Of course, the first thing you ask is how many seconds it took him to draw this thing? And then you ask him to redo the logo again, because it looks “very simple”.

These situations happen all the time, and customer frustration is understandable. The disagreement between real money and the logo, which is physically drawn in a couple of seconds, is too great. Designers have to deal with endless changes and fixes, and as a result, the first option is still the best. The problem is that entrepreneurs do not understand the fundamentals of design and measure its value in the effort expended.

Sometimes good things don't look great because they've taken years to create. If the logo is effective, complexity doesn't matter.

Myth # 3. I only need a logo.

A logo without a corporate identity is useless. If you know how the logo will be used, if you see the ideal image of the company and its audience, then you should call a professional designer and order not only the logo, but the entire corporate style of the company. And if you don't understand what this is about, then you really should use the services of a professional designer.

When there is style, the logo becomes something big – the whole concept is organized around it, and therefore it brings significant benefits. Brand colors, graphics, fonts are used by the designer in order to have the maximum emotional impact on the consumer.

The logo is not a brand. To convey the personality of your brand, you will need to develop a corporate identity. If your company is a taxi and is engaged in the transportation of passengers, then the design of cars and drivers will be the main identifiers of your brand. They are the points of contact with the brand and form an opinion about you every day. The corporate identity for a taxi is the appearance of the driver, his manner of communication and the design of the car.

So, you had a goal and you decided to build a brand and started blogging. The very first thing you need to do is choose a name and design a logo. Your logo is the visual identity that people use to identify you. The best logos are inextricably linked to brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Nike. Your brand has every chance of getting the same potential. Here are some tips on how to create your own unique logo:

01. Choose the perfect color palette

Perhaps the most important aspect of your logo will be the color palette you choose. A good logo is versatile, and there are no rules about which color is preferable.

The main thing you need to know is that there are rules by which all colors are combined with each other. You need to make sure the colors you choose complement each other and grab the attention of your target audience. Ikea is a great example of how the yellow and blue color schemes complement each other and the logo is easily recognizable around the world. Ikea uses a contrasting color harmony. This color scheme is created by using two colors opposite each other on the color wheel.

Take a closer look at your environment by choosing a color scheme. While developing the a bakery logo, we noticed that the standard color choices for designers and marketers are shades of yellow. We chose a bright green that screams on the bread. Sales have tripled.

02. Study your audience

Remember the brands that were mentioned at the beginning? They are in different industries and each company has its own audience. Some brands have a similar audience because they provide services or products to a wide audience. But as a rule, the audience of companies is very different and this must be borne in mind when developing a logo. A classic brand that knows its target audience well is Disney. Disney's target audience is kids and families. Their handwritten and playful logo has stood the test of time. Before you start designing a logo, you should carefully research who your target audience is and what they want.

03. Do not decorate the logo with details

Microsoft Windows is worth $ 63 billion, and the logo is made up of four small squares that make up the window, proving that smaller is better. Do not limit your creativity to rigid frames – give freedom to your creativity, but do not forget about the essence, and it is always very simple and concise.

04. Be original

The mistake many people make with their logo is blindly copying the logo.

Not only will it be an unsuccessful attempt at plagiarism – you will be a laughing stock or worse, you may be sued. It is important to study your needs and develop a design that will represent exactly your site or product.

05. Come up with a beautiful legend

There is often a story or hidden meaning behind a logo. Beautiful legends surround modern logos: Salvador Dali did not like children, but he came up with the Chupa-Chups logo. Apple's apple was painted with a bitten one to distinguish it from a tomato. If there is no history, then it must be invented, people love beautiful legends. So make sure you create a logo that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also meaningful.

Six reasons for a new logo

1. We have changed a lot since our inception, but with our logo, we look old-fashioned.

2. Our logo looks good, but not modern enough compared to the competition. We look worse than them and this does not allow us to fight on equal terms with competitors.

3. We have many divisions and offices across the country and each uses a different logo. Modify a single perfect logo for us.

4. We have a solid business, but you can't tell by the company logo. I am ashamed to show our company's business card.

5. Our logo is complex and difficult to read. Every time I give a business card, I am asked again what is depicted and how it is read.

6. We are often confused with other companies. The logo that a freelancer/accountant/friend designed for us is very similar to other logos of our competitors and is no different.

Your logo and your visual identity ( corporate identity ) are key elements of your strategy for success. Without a good logo, it is difficult to create successful customer communication. Your company must stand out from the competition and the logo serves only one purpose – to distinguish you favourably from other logos. The six reasons I write about in this post require the involvement of professionals with experience in creating a brand identity.

01. Explore the competitive landscape

Before designers start developing a logo design concept, the target market is carefully researched. Customers provide identity developers with detailed information about their competitors.

The designers then compare competitors' logos and analyze the competitive landscape. Researching analogues among competitor logos reveals established branding trends, which certainly helps the process by allowing patterns and visual associations to be seen.

Professional designers study the patterns in the visual image of competitors and create recognizable logos in the design world by avoiding trends and thinking differently.

02. Ask the right questions

Strategy is becoming an increasingly important part of the branding process. What this means in practice often depends on the size of the project, but it all starts with asking the right questions.

Michael Johnson's book Branding: Five and a Half Steps focuses on the creative process of Johnson Banks and covers challenging tasks such as formulating brand strategy in more detail than many books. Throughout the book, Johnson acts as a starting point by asking six questions about the brand you are working on:

1. Why are we here?

2. What makes us different?

3. What is our personality?

4. What are our core values?

5. Who are we here for?

6. What do we do and how do we do it?

03. Be flexible during the design process

Once you've formulated your strategy, you don't need to carve it in stone. There is a reason why Johnson Banks' creative process has an extra half step: what and how we do it. Part of the question presents the grey area between strategy and design.

According to Michael Johnson, this is a two-way street. Some conceptual, strategic ideas that work in theory can fall apart in practice when visualized and vice versa, a convincing visual solution that emerges from the left margin at the design stage can return to the second stage and help to develop strategy retrospectively.

04. Respect the brand heritage

The so-called “retro branding” movement was launched by the acclaimed North's Co-op brand, which revitalized its original 1960s brand and won one of Computer Arts magazine's coveted awards in 2016.

NatWest and Kodak followed suit and spent several months trying to make their own rebranding with historical roots in mind. But something went wrong with the veterans of the bank and the photo.

Brands need to be careful about using authentic heritage as there is a high risk of splashing the baby with the water and losing brand identity.

05. Remember, a logo is only one ingredient

Brand Impact Awards judges Bruce Duckworth and Mark Bonner discuss in the video that logo design is only a small part of the modern branding process.

Now people interact with the brand through a huge number of different points of contact, and the logo is not always their first point of contact.

Keep this in mind when designing your logo: be versatile and flexible, and think about how the logo interacts with the rest of the brand, from packaging to tone of voice.

Your logo is the first point of contact with the outside world. If people love your brand's design, they will be more open to whatever it has to offer.

The professional execution of a logo requires a combination of sophisticated design skills, knowledge of graphic design theory, and skillful application of skills. Any designer with graphic editor skills can create a logo, but it takes over 10 years to fully master all aspects of the craft.

Logo design is a small part of creating a company's corporate identity, but it is important to know that the logo or trademark is the centerpiece of a brand's identity. And we all know that this is the part of the corporate identity that is most often remembered by the audience.

10 golden rules of logo designer

When you think of a person who has influenced your life, you can probably imagine what he or she looks like. The story is exactly the same with logos. We can easily imagine a logo by thinking about contact with a product, company or service.

Where there was once no competition, now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of companies that compete for the attention of the buyer, and they all want us to take their goods off the shelf. This creates a growing need to visually differentiate brands from competitors.

The corporate identity and its key elements that work together form a distinctive picture in our minds and differentiate the company from the competition. Depending on the industry, identity includes designing uniforms, car styling, business cards, product packaging, coffee mugs, billboards, and a host of other elements, including website font choices.

Designers' job is to translate the essence of a brand into shape and color, as visual appearance plays a critical role in forming the connection in our brains between what we experience and what we encounter. In many ways, the company logo is similar to the character of our loved ones.

When a logo made by a professional is supported by a great product and does not change over a significant period of time, it becomes an invaluable asset to the company. Nike swoosh, McDonald's golden arches, Michelin man, Mercedes three-pointed star, Woolmark symbol are examples of professionally made logos.

But beyond the uniqueness of the logo, what are the traits that enable a brand to achieve status? There are universal techniques and techniques that allow designers to create professional and quality logos.

01. Investigate the situation

One of the most interesting things about being a designer is that you learn a lot with each new project. Each of your clients will have a different character, market, audience. And each time the designer has to study the client's business, research the audience and the market in order to create a unique strategy based on the research and develop a logo.

To make it easier for themselves, the designer uses a design process. The first stage of the process is characterized by an analysis of the situation and your role is to ask the right questions: why are you here? What are you doing and how did you achieve it? How are you different? Who are you here for? What do you value the most?

02. Generate an idea before designing a logo

Image from Behance

The easiest way to generate ideas is to create sketches. Your brain transmits electrical impulses to your hands very quickly, so it's so easy to create a concept with and quickly draw an idea on paper. The perfect way to remember the logo you dreamed at night is with a pen and paper by your bed.

Designers carry a notebook with them, in which they constantly draw sketches. Today, you can also use your phone's camera for these purposes. Before creating the final design of the future logo, graphic designers create logo ideas on paper and share sketches with their clients without being distracted by fonts and colors. There can be hundreds of sketches, so designers show only the best ideas.

03. Work with sketches in a black and white palette

Designers leave the choice of color for the logo to the very end of the design, focusing on the key idea in the logo sketch, and not on what may change in the future. A bad idea in a logo will be saved by a trendy color palette. A good idea will still be a good one, regardless of the color choice.

Imagine a well-known symbol. This is the shape we remember, regardless of color. Lines, shapes, an idea, whether it be an apple bite, three parallel stripes, four connected circles in a horizontal line, arches, a crocodile – first you remember the shape, and then the color appears.

04. Create a logo according to the goals and objectives

The sign should correspond to the goals and objectives of the designer. The elegant font will suit a high-end restaurant more than a kindergarten. A palette of pink and yellow colors won't catch the attention of retired men.

Researching and analyzing the situation allows the designer to delve deeper into the design topic, so the appropriate rationale when creating a logo helps to sell the idea to the client. This is the most difficult stage of the project. Designers don't just design. They sell the logo to the customer.

05. Simplify your logo

When creating a logo, designers are guided by a simple rule “The simpler, the better.“ According to Gestalt, when recognizing a logo, our brain uses a set of patterns and patterns that help us identify a visual image more quickly. Therefore, a quick glance is enough for the viewer to recognize and remember a simple logo rather than a complex one.

Designers focus on simple concepts when creating a logo, and in most cases, brand identity has clear meaning and form. This is because the task of a logo is not only to be well recognized, but also to scale well in a variety of applications, from website icons to building signs.

06. Create outstanding logos

Designers know that the easiest way to stand out is to do something outstanding, and not like everyone else. Examine the competitive landscape of the logo to understand that your customers' competitors often use the same font, similar color palette, or symbol that sits in a standard place – to the left of the brand name and do something different. Designers know differentiation works and makes it possible to stand out from the competition.

But that much similarity in the market does not necessarily mean that your job has become easier, because it takes a brave client to reverse the trend. With your imagination in your portfolio, you are on your way to reaching the client you want.

When creating a logo that will differentiate your client, be prepared to defend your point of view. Because everything new can be met with hostility and it is easier for the client to be like everyone else and not stand out from the gray mass.

07. See the logo as a system

Rarely do you see a logo on its own, out of context: on a business card, in a drink menu, or on an app icon. This is why a customer presentation needs to cover many relevant touchpoints to show how the logo looks when seen by potential customers.

It's like seeing the whole picture. Create a complete environment for the logo and test its work on corporate identity media. From a design point of view, brand identity carriers are every potential element on which a client's logo can appear. Designers always think about how a brand identity would work without a logo, despite the fact that we perceive the logo as a central part of the corporate identity.

One way to get a coherent visual identity is to create a custom typeface that is used not only in the logo, but also in the typography of the corporate identity, with an emphasis on the headlines of the ad copy.

08. A logo is not a clipart

Don’t use clipart as logo. The logo should not reflect your line of business or tell you about the product that you are selling. In fact, it's best if the logo doesn't even hint at it. The more abstract the sign is, the more stable its development will be.

Instead, logos make it clear who you are and reflect your personality. In the eyes of the public, strong associations are formed between what a company does and what it is, using the shape and color of the logo.

09. Use symbols

Custom designed brands work well if the company name is unique, such as Google, Mobile, or Pirelli. What to do for those who have a brand name that does not have sufficient uniqueness?

Designers develop variants of the logo, within which there is an accent that reveals the meaning of the name. It can be an emphasis on a letter, on a color, or on a symbol that can be used as an additional element in the design of a company logo.

Resist the temptation to overdo your design just because the focus is on symbols. Legibility is a key factor in logo design and your presentations should demonstrate how projects perform at any size, large or small.

10. Make People Smile

Designers add riddles, humor, rebuses and Easter eggs to the developed logos, which makes the identity more attractive and helps the client become more successful. This trick is not suitable for every industry. There are logos, for example, created for the legal and financial sector, which are filled with commonplace and stereotypical symbols. Giving a small spark of humor to the created logo will add personality and distinguish the client from the mass of the same competitors.

01. Choose your font carefully

As part of a major corporate identity redesign, Google has ditched its distinctive serif logo after 16 years in favor of a clean, modern sans-serif typeface Combined with minimalism, sans-serif typefaces have dominated logo design in recent years. High-profile examples include logo examples from Pentagram for Windows, MasterCard and London University of the Arts.

In 2015, Google changed the old serif logo to a friendlier, more modern, sans-serif logo. But don't let trends dictate the rules: sometimes a serif typeface can be the right choice.

02. Customize and refine your personality

Simplicity in logo design can lead to longevity. Alan Fletcher's lightweight and stylish V&A logo relies on the interaction of characters between V and A

Once in the logo, a typeface can forge connections between letterforms or add a unique twist to match the tone of the brand – one example would be shifting characters at appropriate angles to create a sharp and contrasting look.

03. Create a unique logo

Sometimes it is not possible to express the idea of ​​a logo with an existing font, so a handwritten font seems more appropriate for a brand. The most iconic example that has evolved over more than a century is the Coca-Cola logo.

Compared to its perennial rival Pepsi, which has gone through at least seven major iterations, the market leader has virtually the same logo as it did in the late 1800s. If Coca-Cola's designers had thrown away the handwritten font, as Pepsi did in the 1960s, it would have caused a lot of buzz.

The bottom line is simple: Create a truly unique, custom illustrated typeface and you will have powerful brand awareness with genuine durability.

04. Explore Letter Combinations in Logo Design

Designers place monograms on hotel robes and wedding invitations. With the right initials, designers can create a truly exemplary example of a simple yet effective logo.

Existing examples of logos in the fashion industry are proof of this – Coco Chanel and Yves St Laurent.

Sometimes even the simplest typing can reveal random “coincidences” that, if developed correctly, can lead to ingenious twists and turns. One classic example is Landor's FedEx badge, a hidden arrow between the letter “e” and the letter “x,” making a simple sans serif logo toast to logo design critics around the world.

05. Take complete control of typography

If your client can afford to work with a specialized type design agency, then your work is destined to be successful. Typography can become the center of a brand's personality and permeate all communications.

Two agencies have worked for brands such as Nokia, Lush, Rio 2016, Sainsbury's, ITV, and Lloyds. Typography defines a brand's tone of voice by its emotional quality.