How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

10 Important Questions to Answer Before Starting a Business

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

As a business or a brand, how do you stand out from the crowd with quality logo designs that can easily convert? This article will cover how to create outstanding logo for your business.

Your business logo is a visual representation of everything your company stands for and can be used as a way to promote your brand both online and offline.

An outstanding logo is unique, visually enticing, and delivers its intended message to the audience. With a little thought and creativity, your logo can express many positive attributes of your business.

 

A well-designed logo can build loyalty between your business and your customers, establish a brand identity, and provide the professional look of an established enterprise

…Entrepreneur

 

A logo is an essential part of a company’s brand identity. And it’s not just easy to create a logo that is powerful, outstanding and useful to the customers.

However, you don’t need to be an artist or designer to create an excellent logo. The best logos are simple—often just a word or a shape.

This article presents some key methodologies, tips, and tricks you can adopt in creating an awesome logo for your business or company.

 

 

What is a Logo?

A Logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations, and even individuals to aid and promotes instant public recognition.

Logo (abbreviation of logotype) is any design that is used by an organization for its letterhead, advertising material, and signs that serves as an emblem by which the organization can easily be recognized.

At the very basic level, logos are symbols made up of text and images that help us identify brands we like. But they can be so much more!

 

Types of Logo

There are basically three kinds of logos.

Font-based logos – These consist primarily of a type treatment. The logos of IBM, Microsoft and Sony, for instance, use type treatments with a twist that makes them distinctive.

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business
Microsoft Logo

 

Illustrative Logos – These are logos that literally illustrate what a company does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its logo.

 

Symbolic Logos – These are abstract graphic symbols such as used by Nike -that become linked to a company’s brand.

The iconic logo of Shell Oil that hasn’t changed much since its launch in 1971 is also a good example.

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business


 

#1. Get your Message clear

A well designed logo is much more than just some colors, fancy fonts, and graphics put together.

Creating an outstanding logo demands critical thinking, creative input, and systematic planning with the objective to build up a brand.

First, you need to set up a communicating position between the company and its target audience. This is why marketing research and value positioning is important.

As the business owner or developer, it’s critical that you’re 100% clear on the message before you start the creative process.

Before you begin sketching or designing your company logo, first articulate the message you want your logo to convey.

Try writing a one-vision image and mission statement to help you focus and stay true to creating a logo for the business.

Decide what you want to communicate about your company value. These elements should play an important role in your overall logo design or redesign.

 

 

#2. Get Inspired Logo Design Ideas

If you’re struggling with ideas or concepts, look up keywords associated with your brand online.

Work with keywords and word alternatives to accumulate a variety of inspiration using different sources.

When creating a logo, the obvious sources of inspiration are design-centric websites like Logo Gala, Dribbble or Deviant Art.

You canalso expand your research by looking at the logos of other businesses in your industry. Anything that cut your attention is a potential root of an awesome idea.

Think about how you want to differentiate your logo from those of your competition. Do your competitors use solid, conservative images, or flashy graphics and type?

So,

What makes your business unique in relation to your competition? What is the nature of your current target audience?

Learn from others by understanding how other brands made it to the top, and you will get tremendous insights on logo-making as a whole.

 

List of some Logo Inspiration Sources

 

 

 

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

 

 

#3. Create Your Logo with Vectors

Even with the techy sketching programs available online, sketching your logo first using pen and paper is still the best way to layout out ideas.

Sketching out your ideas enables you to experiment freely and make changes while brainstorming on the ideas.

It doesn’t really matter if your sketching skills are poor. As long as they deliver your ideas correctly, you’re on the right track.

Right after sketching your ideas, proceed to the more technical aspect of design. The best way to save you time and frustration when you eventually edit your design is to create vectors.

In this process, the Illustrator is your best friend as it can rescale your design without sacrificing its quality.

 

 

#4. Decide on your Fonts Carefully

In terms of logo design, your fonts must be distinctive and your typeface should be unique.

A customized, hand-drawn typeface or lettering is more identifiable in a logo than a font downloaded off the internet.

Typography is certainly a key element to an effective logo. There are two main options for this: create a customized typeface or use a pre-set one.

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

 

Custom type helps ensure that your unique logo will stay that way.

Lowlife designers will rip off your work in a heartbeat if they discover the typeface you’re using, but it takes some real skill to mimic custom hand-drawn type!

If you create your own typeface, avoid making it too trendy. Instead, keep it simple, readable, and classy.

If you’re aiming for a professional yet unique look, avoid using gimmicky typefaces or fonts at all costs. The majority of gimmicky fonts are overtly fancy and excessively weak.

 

 

Again, using just two fonts in your log design is smart if you want your design to be distinct, sharp, and clean.

As you’re designing logos, consider whether or not your design is generic or unique. Because it is likely that others will produce something similar.

Custom lettering is far more identifiable in a logo than a font that you purchased and/or downloaded off the internet. At least, can you remember Coca-Cola logo?

 

 

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

 

 

#5. Keep your Best Logo Design Simple

A logo is an emblem, not a manifesto. Thus, it needs to be kept simple. This is because simplicity does convey a very important design consideration.

Simple logo designs are easily recognized, incredibly memorable and convey the most effective requirements of the client.

A well refined outstanding logo will catch the attention of a viewer even while driving at 70km/hr speed.

A complicated logo is not only difficult to identify, but also repeatedly fails in engaging the audience.

In its basic form, a well-designed logo is a form of brand identity. It’s that simple!

 

 

#6. Make Your Logo Memorable to Audiences

An effective logo should be memorable and this is achieved by having a simple, yet, appropriate logo design.

Companies expect their logo to appeal to a diverse spectrum of users. With such diversity, the audience is bound to have different types of tastes and preferences.

Surprising to know, the subject matter of a logo or the appropriateness of its content does not always play a significant role.

It merely indicates that a one-to-one relationship between a symbol and what it symbolized is very often impossible to achieve and, under certain conditions.

Ultimately,

 

[Tweet “The only mandate in the design of logos is that they be distinctive, memorable, and clear.”]

 

 

#7. Understand the Importance of a proper Color Scheme

Colors form the essence of any visual representation.

Of course, one of the most important considerations for logo design is the color palette. Colors carry great meanings, give further context to the shape and communicate ideas.

Colors have the power to affect feelings and emotions. A color can grab attention, pull you in, and bring life to the illustration.

Sometimes you’re pegged to the colors of a brand, but other times you’ll have the freedom to explore.

 

DesignBuddy recently conducted a data analysis on the world’s top brands, and what their logos have in common.

Here are some key highlights from the article that you might want to consider when designing your logo:

  • 95% of the world’s top brand’s logos use one or two colors
  • 41% of the brands use stylized type as their logo
  • 93% are simple enough to be recognized at smaller sizes

 

You want to see the exact color codes for some of the world’s top brands?  Take a look at BrandColors.

Quite often, designers disregard the value of the astute usage of colors. This is probably caused by the misunderstanding that a ‘clean’ design only involves white.

Ideally, your choice of color should be made on the basis of the target customers’ demographics. Considering the age, gender and cultural orientations of the target audience.

Take a look at this article from Buffer written by Leo Widrich – “Why Facebook is Blue: The Science of Colors in Marketing” to get a good idea of what colors to use for your logo.

Try not to exceed three colors unless you decide it’s absolutely necessary.

 

 

#8. Make Your Logo Design Versatile

Being versatile goes a long way in making a logo design popular. If your logo is such that it looks great on posters, but horrible on coffee mugs, it will never achieve popularity.

Further,

If your logo is a slave to a color scheme, it cannot be called a good logo either — what this means is that a logo should look good even if it is displayed in black and white, or a set of colors that are not part of the original or actual design.

Take a look at Apple’s logo, for instance, which still looks good irrespective of the color scheme. This is versatility in logo design portrayed at its very best!

 

 

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

 

Versatility also means that an effective logo should be able to work across a variety of mediums and applications. That is, the logo should be functional.

For this reason a logo should be designed in vector format, to ensure that it can be scaled to any size. The logo should also be able to work both in horizontal and vertical formats.

Creating a versatile logo goes a long way in ensuring its longevity. If the logo looks great on posters but awful on novelty items, it can limit its popularity.

Versatility plays a huge role on how you select the elements of your logo designs – colors, fonts, layouts, and the likes.

 

Ask yourself; is a logo still effective if:

  • Printed in one colour?
  • Printed on the something the size of a postage stamp?
  • Printed on something as large as a billboard?
  • Printed in reverse (ie. light logo on dark background)

 

One way around creating a versatile logo is to begin designing in black and white only. This will ensure that the logo will look good in its simplest form.

This allows you to focus on the concept and shape, rather than the subjective nature of colour.

Color is very subjective, emotional and can distract you from the overall design – say if you saw your logo in all red, that color may be the first thing that you respond to and not the composition of the design elements.

You should also be familiar with the color codes when it come the commercial printing process, so as to avoid going into printing problems further down the track.

When designing logos, the Pantone color system is recommended. Learn to difference between the CMYK, Pantone and RGB color systems.

 

 

#9. Tell a Story with Your Logo Design

Every design has a story to tell, and logos are not an exception.

If you view a logo as mere artwork or a pattern of lines and/or text, then you will not be able to express the meaning behind it.

Ideally, a good logo has two stories to tell: one, the obvious one, and second, the hidden one.

Basically, if you can show your clients that the logo you have designed is not simply a shallow piece of artwork but consists of deep thinking and meticulous ideology, they’ll love it, even if it is something simple.

Many designers use shadows, color differences in their story telling.

Remember,

Your business name will affect your logo design, especially if your name features initials. However, how you position the logo should be appropriate for its intended purpose.

 

 

Read: 7 Key Factors That Make an Exceptional Advertizing Piece (Ad)

 

 

#10. Don’t Fall in the Cool Logo Creation Trap

Be it a design, artwork or even writing, flexibility and adaptability go a long way in helping you succeed.

A rigid logo means if you hate it, you hate it! And that does not work in design. A logo has to be dynamic and innovative.

This point works along with the “Be Simple” rule above.

Innovation is a wonderful thing; you can work around, experiment, and come up with the killer idea for your logo. This is how artists work!

Although, everything has its own share of limits. You innovation abilities definitely are limitless, but their practical usage is often a victim of the innovation possibilities that are provided by a given product.

Excess experimentation can result in a logo that is gorgeous to look at, but is not identifiable with the company itself. Remember: a logo is not an art masterpiece.

Instead, your aim should be to make the logo both identifiable and easily associated with the brand.

At the end of the day, your design should be something the customers can identify and the company can ‘own’.

And if you can accomplish that, your logo design is a success, irrespective of it being generic or innovative.

Take a look at Opera’s logo, for example. Just a red ‘O’, and people know that it belongs to Opera. Innovation lies here in the shape of the ‘O’: the flat-bulge, and that’s it!

 

 

 

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

 

 

#11. Do Not Be Predictable: Create Smart Logo Designs

Don’t copy clip arts, create outstanding logo.

It makes sense to steer clear of cliches and give your clients or business the unique logo they expect from you.

Basically, make sure your logo is worth-watching.

On first look, your logo should convey the brand’s identity and nothing too loud.

Example,

If your logo is about a firm that makes umbrella, it shouldn’t shout out “RAIN”.

Thereafter, on a deeper look, your logo should also be suggestive of something: again, if talking about an umbrella firm, it should be suggestive of weather, but refrain from mentioning rain or sunlight.

How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business
Nokia Logo

 

It is also important to state here that a logo doesn’t need to show what a business sells or offers as a service.

That is, Car logos don’t need to show cars, computer logos don’t really need to show computers.

The Harley Davidson logo isn’t a motorcycle, nor is the Nokia logo a mobile phone. A logo is purely for identification.

For further evidence of this, check the top 50 brands of the world – 94% of the logos do not describe what the company does.

Paul Rand also has a say on this topic:

 

Should a logo be self-explanatory? It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning.

A logo derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes. If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate.

It is foolhardy to believe that a logo will do its job immediately, before an audience has been properly conditioned.

~ Paul Rand

 

 

#12. You can’t Stress it, Hire a Professional Logo Designer

Now that you have a good eye for color and a sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still hire a professional designer to handle the job.

Why?

Your logo is the foundation of all your promotional materials, so this is one area where spending a little more now can really pay off later.

Most experienced designers know whether or not a logo design will easily convert customers and transfer into print or onto a sign.

By helping you  build your image, raise your company’s visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.

As a business, remember that a good logo should last at least 10 years; and still be effective in 20, 50+ years time.

Just remember to keep your customers and the nature of your business in mind when you put it all together.

 

 

 

Wrapping up: How to Create Outstanding Logo for Your Business

Now you have it. How to create outstanding logo for your business with little thoughts and creativity.

A good logo must always be simple to understand, be scalable, easy to reproduce, memorable, appropriate and distinctive.

Icons are better than photographs, which may be indecipherable if enlarged or reduced significantly.

While brainstorming logo ideas about creating your business identity, entrepreneurs even on a tight budget should shop around for a best designer.

Once it’s published, use it everywhere you want: on business cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads, your Web site and any other place where you mention your company name.

Abbakin is a professional logo design firm in Nigeria. Make your business stand out and look better than your competitors with our graphic logo design services.

 

If you think professional logo designs could be a waste of your startup capital, here are a few company logo making websites you can use to create your own logo online.

 

List of some fantastic logo Makers or Logo Generators

 

 

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Comments (2)

  • Logo and Graphics Design in USA Reply

    Logo and graphic design in USA could be an expensive affair in comparison to website designing

    April 23, 2018 at 4:23 pm
  • Helga M Reply

    Thanks for the useful information. I like the service for creating the logo design of my business.

    March 27, 2019 at 12:22 am

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