CategoryLogo Designs

Is it worth paying for your company logo?

When starting a business you have many start-up costs and a big chunk of this can be your new brand marketing. It may be tempting to try to cut costs with this and design your logo yourself however there are lots of things to keep in mind when doing this.

Firstly if you are using images off the internet you need to be aware of copyright laws. If an image has a copyright attached to it you must not reproduce it without prior consent from the image owner. Copyright pictures will usually have a watermark on them but if in doubt you can do a reverse search on the image in google to check.

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the image you are using. Some images look fine small on a screen however if you were to blow them up to print on a sign or poster you may find they come out blurred or pixilated. These issues are avoided when you get a professional logo made as you will then own the rights to that logo and you can request that the logo quality is good enough for large print items.

It’s important to remember that your chosen logo is the face of your business, it’s the thing that makes you stand out and be remembered, so with that in mind it may be worth the short term investment for a long term gain.

How important is your logo?

When It comes to having a logo designed, you should take the time to fully brief the designer on what your company ethos is about and how you want your brand to be perceived. You may not have any idea on how you want the logo to look, which is fine as that is the job of the designer, but if you have seen logos you like or dislike, you could send them to your designer so they have an idea of what you may want.

How important is your logo? If you think about any big brand such as PlayStation, MacDonald’s, Apple etc they all have a very recognisable logo. Their logos are actually quite basic and don’t have their full brand name in but they don’t need to as everyone knows exactly what it is when they see it. Logos often evolve over time, so to start with you may decide to have your brand name in your design. As the brand grows in popularity you may drop the name and just have initials instead.

Be sure to consider what your logo will look like in different forms of media and maybe on different backgrounds as this is important when you come to start marketing.

How to Choose a Logo

Your business logo is an essential part of your identity. It is something that will be with you forever, unless you decide to re-brand – and, really, the idea is not to have to re-brand. Your logo should have plenty of longevity so that people will be able to recognise your business well into the future.

If you are going to choose a logo, it’s important you have it designed professionally. You may think that it’s easy to put something together yourself in some design software but this approach is never going to be as successful. You also probably will not create graphics that are high res enough, meaning that you are left with blurry logos.

Work with a design agency on your logo and ask them to produce a few designs to run past you. Discuss them with other people and see what they think works to represent you well.

Two Important Tips For Beginners In Logo Design

Being a beginner in logo design isn’t exactly easy. Logo design is in our opinion one of the hardest, if not the hardest type of graphic design. Below are a couple of tips we consider to be important when it comes to effective logo design.

1) When designing a logo, remember that the most popular logos in the world do not necessarily show what said company is about. The Apple logo says nothing about technology, and the Mercedes-Benz logo doesn’t hint that it’s anything to do with a car.

2) Don’t worry about colour too much when designing a logo. Logos should be designed in black and white first, to make sure they look good and stand out. If you do decide to add colour to the logo, stick to a maximum of three different colours.

Following SMART

There aren’t many rules when it comes down to logo design. The main job of the logo is to identify your brand. Although there aren’t rules, there are guidelines one can follow.

Simple, Memorable, Appropriate, Resizable, Timeless – SMART.

Simple = Look at some of the most popular logos in the world and see how simple they are. Main examples – Nike, Apple and McDonalds.

Memorable – Achieved by simplicity, creating a logo which is memorable is key to design.

Appropriate – Create a logo which is appropriate for the target audience of the business.

Resizable – If it’s recognisable no matter the size of the logo, then you’ve done well.

Timeless – Can the logo stand the test of time? Trends are only for clothes and music. Make sure your logo stands out.