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Logos might end with a designer, but they start with you! Often, taking steps before you go to a designer for a logo will ensure a quality product. Since this is such an essential part of designing a logo, we’re going to start with pre-design.
PRE-DESIGN
Here are three things YOU should think about before talking to a designer.
- What do you want your logo to say?
Logos are an incredibly important part of your entire identity as a company. If your company was a person, what would you want its face to look like? Nature doesn’t give us such luxuries, but creating a business does. Do you want it to be feminine, bold, or elegant?
- What colors do you want it to be?
Color palettes are one of the most fun parts of designing a logo. What colors do you want your logo to be? Sometimes black and white works well, and at other times, pops of color make all the difference.
- What is your logo doing?
Is your logo building your brand, creating trust, or trying to be memorable? If you want your logo to be memorable, for example, you probably want to think of a more unique design. Logos that blend in are beneficial in many areas, such as in construction or PC repair. If you’re the 5th Yoga studio in town, however, getting creative can make the difference between a new customer and not a customer at all.
DESIGN
Sketch
You can hire a designer to do a sketch for you, or if you can try to put your design on paper with pen. Not DIGITAL pen; simply put a pen to a piece of paper and see if you can get some sort of sketch out of it. Absolutely anything you create will be helpful to your designer, as long as you like what you made.
Stay Original
Remember that your logo should be original, even if it is inspired by bigger brands or logos you like. Don’t copy anyone else’s design – this also means your logo should be unique, and not from a website that sells stock logos. This will help increase and determine brand awareness and trust; if people see your logo elsewhere, they’ll often be a little turned off by your company.
Keep It Simple
Stay away from designs that won’t print well, or won’t digitize well. Detail is good, but intricate designs that are very specific sometimes don’t translate to social media or website accounts easily.
Translate Your Design from Paper to Digital
From here, you have three options on how to make your design come to life.
- Hire a design company
A design company can make all the difference. A team of professionals can bring detail to your drawing that you might not have even known would make it better. It might feel like spending hundreds of dollars on someone’s drawing is a lot, but once you have a sleek, unique design, you’ll probably feel differently. In the grand scheme, hiring a design company is often a very affordable option.
- Do It Yourself
You can design your own logo with many design tools and logo-machines you can find online. Sometimes, these machines do come up with a completely suitable logo that you’ll like. However, they are often not unique in any way.
- Hire an individual designer
The biggest benefit here is fair labor; you’ll know that the person designing your logo is going to get paid for it. At Logoworks, we pay all our designers, regardless of their design gets picked for final production, but not all companies do that. While individual designers can easily cost thousands of dollars, you have the benefit of very personalized, specific attention from a single person.
TWEAK UNTIL IT’S PERFECT
Tweak your design until it looks exactly what you want it to look like, and embodies both your vision and purpose of your logo. If you’re working with a design team or an individual designer, this should be a smooth process.
Once you have your logo, it’s time to launch it and get some feedback. Ultimately you are the deciding factor! However, input on whether your design is unique, readable, and projecting the image you want it to project is important and worth the effort, especially if you plan to put it on paper materials.
Now get out there and make your logo!
