A logo is the cornerstone of your brand and a visual representation of your company, so regardless of your size, a great logo will help build identity and recognition for your brand and should ultimately leave a lasting impression on the customer. In this way, DIY logo design is a great option for small business owners looking to make a big impact.
Learn how to design logo yourself, and your brand will stand out from the competition. For small businesses with limited budgets, DIY logo design offers a number of benefits. Firstly, it is a much faster process than working with an agency. Once you have selected an application, it can be as quick as you want to design your logo.
Understanding the Basics of Logo Design
Key Elements of a Successful Logo
It is important to understand and implement several key elements into your logo to make it effective. At the heart of a good logo is simplicity. A good logo is very simple. Not only is a simple design more memorable and easier for customers to understand and recognize, but it is also more easily adaptable to different mediums and sizes. A complex logo with too many elements will be easier to translate well onto blog headers, social media profile pictures, website home pages, business cards, and other surfaces with different sizes. A simple, clean design will likely have more of a future-proof quality as your brand grows.
Scalability is a vital aspect of a logo’s success. A winning logo should look as impeccable on a giant billboard as it does on a tiny soap label, so a great logo should retain its clarity and effectiveness regardless of the size in which it is used. A well-designed logo will be recognizable and retain its integrity whether it is scaled up or down. This is especially important in today’s digital world, where logos are used in a myriad of screens, devices, and formats, whether it is for a website or a mobile app.
Memory is intrinsically linked to simplicity and scalability. If your logo is memorable, customers will be more likely to remember your brand. Suppose your logo is instantly recognizable without the brand name attached. In that case, you have created one of the most iconic logos of all time. This level of recognition is possible by really considering your logo’s use of color, typography, and shapes. Color can evoke certain feelings and create associations. If your brand is about fun and playfulness, then making your logo appeal to a child’s sense of wonder is a great step towards defining your brand.
Typographic choices also play an important role in defining your brand’s identity. Choosing a certain font can communicate professionalism, creativity, or approachability. Last but not least, you should carefully consider the shapes and symbols used in your logo, as they can have a significant impact on how your brand is perceived. A well-crafted logo should combine all these factors to create a design that is not only visually appealing but also linked in a meaningful way to your brand values and message.
Researching and Gathering Inspiration
Before you start designing, it’s important to take time to do your research and get inspiration. You need to understand what logos are being used by your competitors, what’s popular in your industry, and what’s not working. Look at the successful logos in your industry and note down the common themes and visual elements that you see coming up repeatedly. For example, suppose you’re working in a more conservative industry. In that case, you’ll probably want to avoid bright colors and childish designs that are popular with young companies. This process helps you avoid design cliches and ensure that your logo not only stands out and is unique but is also recognizable to your target audience.
Step 1: Inspiration. You need to get inspired if you want to be creative and come up with your logo design concepts. The sources for your logo inspiration can vary a lot. Even if you are not a designer—which you don’t necessarily have to be since we have professional design tools for you—it’s great to take a look at what other professional designers are posting. There are many design websites out there where you can find creative inspiration. A few popular ones are Dribbble.com and Behance.net, where you can browse through countless professional logo designs and find ideas for your unique logo.
A great example of this is Pinterest.com, where you can find creative logo designs and visual designs from all over the world. Everyday nature is also a great source of inspiration. The shapes, colors, and patterns you find in nature can be a great source of inspiration for your unique logo design.
It is important to keep an open mind and to consider a diverse range of ideas when you are seeking fresh inspiration for your logo. By thinking creatively and exploring a broad selection of ideas, you’ll be better equipped to consider various approaches to your design. Compiling a mood board or collage of visual references can assist in bringing some order to your thoughts and identifying common threads or key concepts and design elements that you might wish to include in your logo. Drawing on insights from industry research and a diverse range of sources of inspiration can lead to the creation of an original and appropriate logo for your brand.
Choosing the Right Tools for DIY Logo Design
Free and Affordable Logo Design Software
This makes it an excellent choice for small business owners who want to create their logos on a shoestring budget. Canva is one of the most popular online tools for DIY logo design. Its drag-and-drop interface is so intuitive and simple to use that even people with no design skills can create professional-quality logos. Canva provides a great selection of templates, icons, and fonts that can be customized to your business’s unique design style. You can use Canva for free, and the paid version unlocks more premium templates and advanced design features.
Another one is Looka, an AI-powered logo-design tool that automates the process of logo creation using design options informed by your brand’s name and the preferences you set. Looka offers a plethora of options to customize the logo, allowing you to adjust colors, fonts, and layouts to match your brand’s identity. Looks can be a good starting point for those of us who get overwhelmed by design, giving us a head start that we can refine on our own.
Another option for a DIY logo design is Adobe Spark. It is more feature-rich but more affordable, too. It is part of Adobe’s library of creative tools. Adobe Spark offers a variety of templates and design elements that you can mix and match to create a logo that looks as though a real graphic designer designed it. The tool is built around a simple interface that is easy to use, even for beginners. While the free version of Adobe Spark offers a lot of features and can be used to create a basic logo, upgrading to the paid version of the tool opens up more customization options and gives you access to Adobe’s massive library of design assets.
Which tool is right for you? Each tool offers slightly different features and benefits, but what you choose, of course, depends on your needs and your level of design skills. Canva is for the user who wants an enormous range of templates with tools that require little to no skill to use. Looka is for the user who is willing to expend a little bit of effort for a quick, AI-assisted design process and who might want to adjust the end product to their liking. Lastly, Adobe Spark is for the user who is already familiar with Adobe products and wants more design options and control over their end product.
How to Use Online Logo Makers
Suppose you would rather go the easy route and create your logo but need more design experience. In that case, several online logo makers allow you to create a professional-looking logo in a matter of minutes. Most of these tools take you through a step-by-step process, allowing you to easily and quickly create a logo. To start the creation process, you need to choose a template or layout that is closest to what you envision for your brand. Logo makers typically provide a broad range of templates that are grouped by industry or style, and you can choose any of them to work with.
Next is the customization process: you select a template and then refine the design to match your brand’s personality. Most logo makers online will allow you to modify colors, fonts, and layouts and add or remove design elements such as icons and shapes. Your brand guides the choices you make to ensure that the logo truly represents your brand identity. A playful, bright logo is probably a good fit for a children’s toy store. Still, it wouldn’t be appropriate for a luxury brand, which would likely benefit from a more subdued, elegant design.
The last step will be to download your logo files. Most online logo makers will let you download your design in a number of different file formats, such as PNG, JPEG, and vector formats, such as SVG or EPS. The more formats you download your logo in, the more versatile your logo will be and the easier it will be to use your new logo in different media, from digital to print.
Though online logo makers are a great way to quickly and cheaply produce a logo that looks professional, you should be aware that these tools have limitations. Online logo makers, in general, offer less control over the customization of your logo when compared with working with a designer and more powerful software. For many small businesses, the practical considerations make using these tools a great way to get a polished, professional-looking logo.
Step-by-Step Guide to Designing Your Logo
Defining Your Brand Identity
But before you even begin sketching, it’s important to have a clear understanding of who you are as a brand, what your brand values are, and who your target audience is. Your logo is more than a symbol. It carries with it a message about who you are and the type of company you’re trying to build. So ask yourself: What is your brand’s voice? Playful? Professional? Innovative? Traditional? What is the purpose behind your company’s existence? What are the mission and core values of your brand? What visual style should the logo be in order to come across as the voice of your company and attract the customers you’re trying to target?
Another way to clarify your brand identity is to write a brand brief in which you summarize your brand’s goals, audience, and unique selling points. Then, you can refer back to this document throughout the design process to ensure you’re not straying too far from what’s important. Think about how your customers should feel when they see your logo—should it make them feel trustworthy, perhaps excited, professional, reliable, or any other emotion that is meaningful to your brand identity—and choose design elements that evoke those feelings. Your brand identity will be the driving force behind your design decisions, helping you to develop a logo that looks great and is meaningful and appropriate to your business.
Sketching and Conceptualizing your Logo
When you finally know who you are, it’s time to start doodling. Doodling is how you turn ideas into designs. Decide what you want your logo to look like, and start sketching out basic ideas on paper. Begin with simple geometric shapes and squiggly lines. As you doodle, your brain will start making associations and generating new ideas.
Keep going until you have 10, 20, or even 30 ideas! At this stage, it doesn’t matter if you create a perfect design or not; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. The point of doodling is to generate as many ideas as possible. Doodling is a great way to come up with logo concepts that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
Think about what makes it special—is it the symbol? Is it the negative space? Is it the color palette? Think about who you’re designing for. Who is your target audience? Does your logo speak to them? Once you have some sketches, step back from the work. Look at all your sketches and identify the strongest concepts. Build on them through iterations. Combine elements from different sketches and see how it looks.
Designing Your Logo Digitally
Once you’ve done that, it’s time to bring your logo design to life. Start by choosing software or online tools that you’re comfortable with, such as Adobe Illustrator, Canva, or another logo design tool. Recreate your chosen sketch in digital form, making sure that the alignment, proportions, and spacing of all the elements are consistent. You will begin to see your logo design come to life, so make sure not to add any unnecessary elements or complexity to your design.
When it comes to color, red can indicate excitement or energy, while blue is often associated with trustworthiness and professionalism. Choose a color palette that fits with your brand identity and is flexible enough to work across all your marketing materials. Typography is also important. Ensure that your logo’s font is legible and attractive and that it matches the overall message of your design. Your logo’s layout should also be balanced and cohesive, with each element working harmoniously with the others. While you work, test your logo at different sizes to ensure the design is legible and packs a punch at every scale, from a business card to a billboard.
Refining and Finalizing Your Logo
When your digital design is complete, it’s time to refine and lock down your logo. Start by getting other people’s opinions—co-workers, your mom, or someone who likes to give helpful feedback. Ask them about your logo, and their feedback can help you see issues with your design that you might have missed. Take the feedback you get and make adjustments to the design: tweak the colors, adjust the shapes, or perfect the spacing. Make sure your logo looks good in different formats, so create different versions: color, black and white, and an icon version that you can use for social media or an app.
Make sure that your logo is adaptable to work on any digital or print medium and any platform, so have it tested for use on your website, social media profiles, business cards, flyers, and other promotional materials. Once you are satisfied with the final version, save your logo in many different file formats (PNG, JPEG, SVG) so that it’s ready to go in any application. Your logo is the most essential part of your brand identity, and you should be willing to take the time to refine it and get it right.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Logo Design
Overcomplicating the Design
One of the most common mistakes made when designing a logo is adding way too many details or complex elements. The commitment to simplicity is absolute—adding elaborate patterns, multiple colors, or an excess of symbols will actually hinder your logo’s efficacy. A complicated logo can be hard to recognize and is, therefore, hard to remember, defeating the point of creating a strong brand identity. Simple, clean designs are more flexible and easier to reproduce across different mediums and scales. A simple logo that is recognizable at a glance is key—stick to the idea of minimalism.
A simple logo, too, is more likely to survive the test of time as the design trends shift. Overly complicated logos might become dated or might translate poorly across all platforms, such as mobile apps or social media sites. A good way to prevent overcomplicating your design is to occasionally put yourself in the shoes of your audience and assess the logo. If not necessary, remove any design elements that are detracting from the value or the clarity. Create a logo that is aesthetically beautiful but, more importantly, effective in its function.
Ignoring Scalability and Versatility
One of the worst mistakes is failing to design your logo to scale and adapt to a variety of applications. A simple logo design can easily transcend to small business cards and large billboards. If your logo’s design requires fine details or complex gradients, it may not scale well to small sizes. You’ll lose resolution and impact. It’s best to test your logo in different sizes during the design process so that it works for all potential applications. A great design should scale and adapt while still maintaining the integrity of the logo.
Versatility is also vital. Your logo will have to work in many different contexts, from digital to print, and it needs to look good on any background, in any color scheme, and any size. Design more than one version of your logo to cater for all its potential uses. A black-and-white version of your colored logo—or a simplified icon of your logo—might come in handy. How would your logo look in black and white? How would it change as its size increases or decreases? Most importantly, a versatile logo works effectively and powerfully in any medium or context.
Copying Other Logos
A close imitation of another logo will only harm your brand by damaging its identity and credibility. Though it’s natural to want to take inspiration from logos that have been successful in the past, you want to avoid copying another logo and ending up with something that looks like it could belong to the same brand. This could confuse customers, and when it comes down to it, your brand is supposed to be unique, right? Moreover, copying another logo could result in you being accused of copyright infringement, which would make customers think you’re an evil brand, which is sure to damage your reputation.
Avoid this pitfall by making your logo design unique by focusing on what makes your brand different and emphasizing that in your logo. Also, look up your competitors and make sure your logo doesn’t unintentionally look similar to theirs. Originality is important to create a cool logo that helps build a strong and authentic brand identity. Spending time and effort on your logo can help you create an unmistakable logo that will represent your brand.
Applying Your Logo Across Your Brand
Integrating Your Logo into Your Brand Identity
After finalizing your logo design, the next step is to make it a consistent part of all aspects of your brand identity. Your logo should be seen on every piece of brand material, from the website and social network profile pages to every piece of printed collateral, from business cards and packaging to promotional merchandise.
Consistency is important to make sure that your logo is easily recognized. The more consistently people see your logo, the more familiar it becomes. Suppose you want to make sure your logo is used the right way. In that case, you can create brand guidelines that detail how the logo should be used, including the colorways, spacing, and all the correct ways in which the logo can be applied.
Brand guidelines help those creating the materials or content that will touch your customers to know how to present your logo in a way that reflects your brand. They should include guidance on when to use your logo and how it should be positioned in relation to the other elements in the design, be it typographic, color, or image. Suppose you can keep your logo present consistently across different touchpoints. In that case, you will reinforce your brand identity and build a visual affinity with your audience.
Creating Branded Marketing Materials
Your logo is central to the design of any marketing materials you create. It would help if you kept this in mind when you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard in the creation of business cards, flyers, brochures, product packaging, and so on. Each of these materials should have the logo clearly displayed and aligned with the design. You should also use the same colors, fonts, and visual style in your marketing materials as you did in your logo to keep your brand and image consistent. This consistency will not only help your brand to be recognizable, but it will also communicate professionalism and attention to detail.
Consider how your logo works with other design elements when you create marketing materials. If you’re designing a business card, where do you place the logo so it works with the name, contact details, and icons for social media channels? If you’re designing packaging, where does your logo go so that it stands out without taking over the design? Carefully thinking through where your logo lives in the context of your marketing collateral is essential to creating a visually cohesive brand that audiences will remember.
Conclusion
Creating a logo requires you to “know yourself,” generate and refine ideas, and then finalize your design so that it’s clear, original, and adaptable. A successful logo is essential to your brand’s image and long-term recognition, so it’s definitely worth investing time in crafting a logo that represents your business in the best light. It will truly pay off in the long run if it resonates with your audience and makes your business a truly recognizable brand.
