7 Steps to Making a Great Logo That Stands Out And Gets Attention
Think of all of your favorite brands; Nike, Apple, Microsoft – you recognize them all with a simple glance. You don’t even need to see the brand name; their logos bring instant recognition.
A logo is a visual representation of your business. It shows what you do, who you are, and what you stand for in a single glance. It’s the first impression given to potential customers or clients. But what makes a stellar logo? Like art, an excellent graphic is also subjective.
No one thing makes a brand image “good.” However, there are several things they do have in common. These are a few steps you can follow to create a stunning graphic.
Follow These 7 Steps To Make A Great Logo
- Define Who You Are – what is your Brand Identity
- Brainstorm Ideas
- Research ideas and Check Out the Competition
- Design Groundwork
- Define the style that best suits your business.
- Choose the type of logo that works best for your business.
- What are the brand colors that you will you use in your logo?
- Choose a font that feels best with all of the points above.
- Design Principles
- Simplicity
- Versatility
- Negative Space and Balance
- Readability
- Take a Break
- Revisions and Final Logo
Need help making a logo? Farm 6 Media does that.
Define Who You Are – What Is Your Brand Identity
The best place to start when you’re designing a brand image or symbol is to ask yourself a few questions that will help to formulate what your Brand Identity is. Why did you start your business? What are your beliefs and values? What makes you unique or what sets you apart from your competitors. Who are your competitors? Who is your target market? Before you can find a way to summarize your business in a single image, you need to know who you are and what you do.
Brainstorm Ideas
Now that you have an idea of what your brand identity is, it’s time to explore how you can represent that visually. Think of icons, animals, tools, objects, anything that may help explain you’re concept. Remember, there are no dumb ideas! In the brainstorming phase, anything goes! Make a list of all the images that you and your team come up with when brainstorming. Bounce them off of friends and family too. Think about how you want people to perceive your business.
Research Ideas And Check Out The Competition
Time to ask Mr. Google what else is out there. A google search of your competition gives you an idea of what they are up to online. You don’t want to copy another logo, but it can be an excellent way to get some ideas on how your industry represents. It’s useful to do another search of general symbols to help generate ideas for your logo.
Design Groundwork
Here is where you start to get down to the dirty work of crafting your logo. If you’re a creative sort and have access to the right tools, you could create the design yourself. There are several do-it-yourself logo makers out there; just be sure to customize it to suit what you need. If this isn’t something you want to tackle on your own, you can most definitely hire a professional graphic designer to do the design for you. Either way, consider the following things when creating your brand design concepts:
ONE – Style.
Choose a style that best suits your business brand. There are several styles that you can adopt for your logo. Among them are modern, minimalist, retro, vintage, quirky, fun, handmade, and more.
TWO – Logo Type.
What type of logo works best for your business? There are seven basic types of logos. Monogram logos are logos that consist of letters only, usually initials. Word type logos utilize a font to illustrate the brand’s name. Pictorial Logos utilize a graphic as the basis for the logo. Think about the Nike swoosh or the Iconic Apple. Abstract Logotypes use an abstract geometric icon as the basis of the design.
Think of Pepsi as an example. Mascots utilize an illustrated character to represent the brand. Tony the Tiger is an excellent example of this. The combination mark uses both stylized text in the Brand name and an icon in the logo. Burger King and Doritos are both excellent examples of this type of logo. Finally, The Emblem logotype is one that consists of text confined within an icon. Harley Davidson is a perfect example of this.
THREE – Colors.
Define what colors you will use in your logo. Colour is an important consideration when making a logo as color can elicit many memories and emotions within a viewer as do certain color combinations. Have a look at the basic color wheel to help decide which colors look best together or cause the most tension based on what you want to convey.
FOUR – Font.
Find a font that works best with all of the points above. Once you have the previous issues sorted out, consider what fonts work well with any graphics you’ve decided on keeping. Or, if a text-based logo is your thing, consider how the font can help further your brand’s message.
Design Principles
Whether you create your logo yourself or hire someone else to do it, there are some basic design principles to keep in mind. These basics are some of the things that great logo designs have in common. They are:
- Simplicity. The more complex the logo, the more the viewer needs to remember, and when there are so many people competing for the visual retention of their brand, a simple logo will stick in their mind a little easier than one with a lot of details. A simple logo will also allow for better enlargement and reduction for use in a variety of applications without losing the message.
- Versatility. It goes hand in hand with simplicity. A simple logo is a little more versatile. It can be enlarged and reduced without quality loss, but also used in both color and black and white. Try creating the logo using only black and white to start and add in your paint later.
- Negative Space and Balance. Alignment, spacing, and symmetry all contribute to the balance of your logo. Alignment of the elements, use of negative space, and symmetry all give the emblem a polished and harmonious look, which is more pleasing to look at and more memorable.
- Readability. It goes in hand with simplicity, as well. Look at any fonts used to ensure that it is easily read. Sometimes the more complex the typestyle, the more difficult it is to read. Remember that you want your viewer to be able to understand your logo at a glance and remember it.
Take A Break
After all of this work and you have one or more logo designs to choose from, take a break! Fresh eyes are much more likely to pick out any issues and will allow you to come back and be more objective when it comes to narrowing down or editing your final logo.
Revisions And Final Logo
Now is the time to sit down and be critical of the logo. If you’re going to go to the effort of designing the graphic, you’d as well do a stellar job, right?. Look for typos, misalignment, and be sure that it conveys the message you want to send to your potential customer. Ask friends and family for their feedback on it. What do they think when they look at it? Does it suit your brand identity? Don’t be afraid to make revisions and take suggestions. Take the time to perfect your logo.
Once you’re finished and happy with the final design, make sure that you have a different version of it for use with other platforms. Vector formats are best for print as they can enlarge indefinitely. Rasterized versions with transparent backgrounds are useful for web use. You may also want it in black and white, reversed, and in color. You never know when you will need a white reversed version of your logo that will stand out against a dark background.
A logo is an integral part of Brand Identity. It allows you to be identified by your clients and customers at a glance and stand out against your competitors in the marketplace. It will be used for decades on all of your business stationery, marketing materials, promotional items, and everything else in between. At the same time, there is a lot of thought, time, and work that goes into making a beautiful and memorable graphic. These basics are a good guideline for creating a logo that truly embodies your brand’s identity and connects with your target market.
Sources
- Logo, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo, Accessed August 3, 2020
- Picture superiority effect, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_superiority_effect Accessed August 3, 2020
- What makes a good logo? 10 design tips to follow, canva.com, https://www.canva.com/learn/what-makes-a-good-logo/, Accessed August 3, 2020
- Nona Blackman, What Makes a Good Logo? 7 Top Logo Design Tips & Guidelines, business.tutsplus.com, https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/logo-design-tips-guidelines–cms-32308, Accessed August 3, 2020
- What Makes a Good Logo: The Dos and Don’ts, Wix.com, https://www.wix.com/blog/2018/07/good-logo-design-tips?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyry2pP7t6gIVCbSzCh2t0g9YEAAYASAAEgJQLvD_BwE, Accessed August 3, 2020
- Kelly Morr, The 7 types of logos (and how to use them), 99designs.ca, https://99designs.ca/blog/tips/types-of-logos/, Accessed August 3, 2020
- Antonia Gesch, How to design a logo: the ultimate guide, 99designs.ca, https://99designs.ca/blog/logo-branding/how-to-design-logo/, Accessed August 3, 2020
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