If you are thinking about starting a business, are new to your business, or want to reinvent your business, one of the first things you need is a logo. Why? You will need it for your marketing and branding. Think about your:
- Business Card
- Contract
- Brochure
- Flyer
- Letter Head
- Menu
- Neon Sign
- Website
- Facebook Fan Page
- LinkedIn Profile
- Twitter Profile
- YouTube Profile
Basically, whenever you reach out to potential clients, your logo represents your business before you do. It should be one of the first things you do once you have a business plan and the funding for your business.
So what are my thoughts on designing a logo? I say : outsource it! Get a professional to do it. Really. But before you go and google ‘logo designers’ or ‘graphic designers’, let me share some insights and tips with you. This is what you should do before contacting anyone to design a logo for you.
- Write down what you want your brand to represent. If you sell a high-end product, you might want the words ‘Rich, Luxurious or Long-lasting’. If you sell home-made products, you might look to write down ‘Artistic, Flowery and Bohemian’. Look for words that will describe what you want people to feel when they use your service/product.
- Write down what you are selling/offering. A few keywords should do it. For example, if you sell cheese, the words ‘Cheese, Store, Fresh and Farm’ might be your keywords. If you offer accounting help ‘CPA, Taxes and Payroll’ might be your keywords.
- Does the logo need to represent a place, a person, a product, a business?
- Decide if you want (a) word(s) incorporated in your logo design.
- Decide what colors you might want, or what colors you do NOT want to represent your brand.
- Decide if you want a photograph, a piece of art or a graphic design incorporated in your logo design
- Do some research on what your competitors logos look like. Note what you like and what you don’t like.
- Do a google search on ‘most recognized brands’ and see what they did differently. Here is a great blog post on the world’s most recognized logos by Zac Johnson.
- Think ‘Simple – Bold – Striking’
- Come up with a catch phrase that represents what you offer.
- Make it something you love! You’ll look at it daily, hourly and it will follow you where ever you go.
Once you have some ideas on what you want your logo to look like, it is time to hire a designer. Make sure you use someone you trust. Get your logo send to you in a high resolution file like an .eps file, not just a .jpg or .gif file.
Now you are ready to crank out your marketing materials!
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Great article. Creating a logo can be a time-sink if you don’t have a good process to follow. I like the steps you suggest. Similar to your #7 above, I would add that you should do what you can to make sure that your logo is not too similar to others out there. This will help keep your company differentiated, but perhaps more importantly, it will allow you to avert litigation from other established companies who could accuse you of stealing their design and infringing on their intellectual property rights.
Nice tips! I think tip 4 is often overlooked by designers and business owners – font selection absolutely makes or breaks the logo design… Also the font can serve as a gateway into the rest of your brand identity! Great article and thanks for helping educate designers.