How To Design The Perfect Logo For Your Business
By: Zaheer Dodhia
Tags: Tips And Tricks, Logo Design, How To

Image: istock.com

If you’re starting a business, you’re about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime! You’ll need knowledge and know-how, enthusiasm, products or services, a logo and other branding features, and start-up money.

Got all that?

What? You have everything except the logo? Well, you can’t start your business without that!

Logos are a highly important factor in the recognizability and ultimately the success of a company. Creating a business without a logo of some sort would be like creating a business and not ever naming it. It means creating a business without an identity, or a “face.”

Well, the good news is that there is plenty of help available to put your business “face” together.

Let’s get started with this step-by-step of the basics of how to design the perfect logo.

Know Your Business

This step is important. This is the foundation on which you will build your entire logo.

Creating a logo which perfectly represents your business requires that you really understand your business: its mission, its goals, its audience, and its “personality.” That’s the only way that you’ll know you’ve achieved your ultimate logo.

Take time to put together a creative brief, detailing the four aspects listed above. Include other details, too, even if they may not seem immediately important to your goal of creating a logo.

What inspired you to create your business? Who will it help and how? What values does it hold to?

All of these can play a part in the final design of your logo.

Do Your Research

Once you have a good idea of what personality your logo will reflect, it’s time to cross out a few things that you absolutely should not do.

This isn’t just for the sake of restricting your creativity!

This step requires market research. Who are your competitors? What do they offer? And, importantly, what are aspects of their logos that you should avoid on your own?

This gives you a leg-up on your design in a few ways. For one thing, you can look at other examples and see what works, as well as what really doesn’t.

For another, awareness of your competition will help you to avoid any inadvertent copy-catting as you create your own logo.

It’s definitely a good idea to avoid logos that are too similar to existing logos. For instance, don’t choose a similar shade for your main color, and avoid graphics that could easily be mistaken for another company.

Creating a copy-cat logo can cause you to lose customers, as they may think they’re going to you but actually using your competition instead.

Search For Inspiration

This is one of my favorite parts of logo creation: an excuse to go on Pinterest.

Whether it’s Pinterest, Google search, or anywhere else, take some time to look around at examples of logos and other pieces of design. Isolate elements that you like, which fit your company, or which you feel are particularly effective. Keep track of these elements for future reference.

Note that you don’t necessarily need to be focused on logos within your own niche market, at this point. You’ve already taken a look at some of those in the last step. This step gives you a chance to soak in some creativity and explore your own preferences.

Choose A Logo Type

Now that you have some do’s and don’ts under your creative belt, it’s time to start making some decisions. (Although, please note that none of these need to be hard and fast rules! Until your logo is finished, you can always choose different aspects that work better as you go along.)

Image: istock.com

Choosing the type of logo that you want can help to shape your design later on.

There a few options to look at:

Lettermark logo. This type of logo is made up simply of a letter — but don’t let that “simply” fool you. The letter doesn’t necessarily need to be a basic typeface letter. It can be ornate, representational, or even hand-drawn in order to convey the feeling behind your company logo. Lettermark logos are often the initial letter of the company name, or perhaps a monogram, if there are multiple words in the name. The McDonald’s arches are a great example of a lettermark logo done right.

Wordmark logo. Along the same lines as the lettermark, a wordmark logo uses the company name as the logo itself. Ebay has a classic wordmark logo.

Iconic logo. An iconic logo — not “iconic” as in “well-known” — is based around an icon or a graphic. It can be something as simple as the Nike swoosh — which is “iconic” in all senses of the word — or something a little more involved, like the Apple logo.

Combination logo. A combination logo or combination mark uses more than one type to create a logo that works on both the iconic and the font-based level. Starbucks, for example, has a great combination logo, with both a memorable graphic and a wordmark.

Choose A Typeface

When researching different logos, you likely identified some typeface options to consider. There are plenty of resources to turn to in order to find the perfect typeface for your logo.

Several typefaces usually come bundled with graphic design and word processing software, to start with. But there are also original typefaces, both free and paid, to be found with a simple Google search.

The typeface that you opt for should reflect the personality of your company. It should also be scalable and easy to read.

Research Colors

Colors are a very important consideration in creating the optimal logo for your company. Colors have a big impact on everything from first impressions to the motivation to seek your company out.

Just think of something like John Deere green, a color that has become so synonymous with the brand that we can’t picture a classic John Deere tractor any other way!

Image: Wikimedia

Colors also tend to be on-trend and popular based on the market in which you operate. So it’s a good idea to find out what the more commonly used colors are in your own niche. You can do this by searching for logos within your market and comparing them to find the most used colors.

Of course, with your market research we advised earlier on, you may already have that information at your fingertips.

Pen And Paper Sketches

It’s time to take all the information you’ve gathered up til now and turn it into something concrete!

Many graphic design artists recommend taking the time to sketch out ideas before you digitize them on design programs. This is a great idea for a couple of reasons:

It gives you the chance to experiment with lots of logo concepts

It may lead to a completely new idea

It’s a lot of fun

Whatever reason convinces you, here’s how to do it.

Use a piece, or a few pieces, of paper. Use a pen or a pencil — many like to use a pen, because it keeps them from going back and editing or changing as they go.

Keep your research and idea lists handy, and start to sketch out possibilities.

Fill the paper.

If you don’t like how one possibility looks, don’t try to edit it as you work — move on to another area of the paper and re-do it from the start.

This method of “quick and dirty” design is surprisingly useful and productive to many graphic design artists. You can watch how this graphic designer creates an outstanding hand lettered logo in this tutorial.

Once you’re satisfied with your pages, go over the possible designs and circle the ones that you believe have potential.

Make It Digital

This step is the one that takes your creative effort and turns it into reality.

To make your graphic design idea into a real logo, you can opt for a few different methods:

Scan your sketch in as it is, and use it as a guide to create a digital version over the scan.

Refine your sketch on paper, scan it in, and use vectorizing software to make the sketch lines themselves a vector image.

Start from scratch in a design program, and reference your sketch as you go.

If working with design programs isn’t in your comfort zone, you can also turn to outside sources, such as hire a professional logo designer or refer to a logo maker like LogoDesign.net that can take your design idea and turn it into a finished, polished product.

The Ultimate Goal For Your Business Logo

Ultimately, the point of having a logo is to properly reflect your business, and to give your brand an identity.

This gives your audience and customers something to connect with, remember, and share with others.

Properly designed, a good logo will be memorable, adaptable, and on-message. And with all those features, it’s obvious that the perfect logo will help your business to thrive and grow.

And for business logo inspirations head over to my website LogoDesign.net.