Why you need a logo?
Regardless of the type of business you have, you’re going to need a logo. Why, you may ask. After all, I do bring up so often that your logo is not your brand. It ay not be your brand, but it is a critical part of it.
Why do you need a logo? Well, I’m glad you asked. One reason is simply to prevent confusion in the marketplace. Your logo is your signature so to speak. It helps people remember and recognize your business.
But a good logo is much more than that. A great logo supports your brand strategy by visually hinting to your product, service, overall offering, the transformation your customers go through, or the mission or vision for your business.
A lot of that can be accomplished by selecting visual styles that support your brand look and feel, or using a symbol or graphic to add more meaning. In this blog post, I walk you through the exact steps it takes to create a successful logo. And of course, you can find the same information as a three part video series in my free Facebook group DIY Brand Design & Strategy for Soulpreneurs.
Designing a logo
Designing a logo can feel like a time consuming, expensive, or stressful project. Most of us fear that the logo is something our customers judge our company by. So many of the most successful companies in the world have amazing and unique logos, making it slightly more daunting when you feel your designs are just not up to scratch.
But there’s no need to feel discouraged. Your logo is not your entire brand, so you can take some of the pressure off from your logo design project. That said, while an awesome logo alone won’t bring you new business, an unprofessional looking one might cost you some. That’s why you most definitely want to create a professional and designed looking logo for your business.
Designing a logo is not just about selecting a graphic and writing the name of your business next to it. There are some key steps that can make the design process much more easier — simply because it can help you clarify what look and feel you are going for. Keeping your logo aligned with all the other brand elements is important in order to create a business a consistent and memorable business identity.
Let’s dive right in.
How to pick a name for your business?
Ideally, your business name should be descriptive enough to convey eitherthe service you provide, the outcome your customers will get, or the transformation your customers will achieve. At least an element of these should be demonstrated in the business name.
Sometimes, the business name can be a little abstract. Let’s take Apple as an example. It doesn’t exactly say what the company does, right? Apple’s name choice is widely believed to be a metaphor for knowledge. To make that connection, you need to know something about Isaac Newton and the Bible.
In their very first logo, Apple had Isaac Newton leaning on an apple tree. According to the story, an apple fell on Newton’s head, and he discovered the concept of gravity. In the Bible, Adam and Eve take a bite from a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. That fruit is often depicted in art as being an apple.
As long as there is a connection with the name candidate and your business idea, the service, the outcome of the service, or the transformation then it can still work as a name for your business.
Should you use your own name for your business?
Keep in mind, if you decide to include your own name as a part of the business name, it could limit your scalability later. For example, in 10 years, if you want to sell your business, it can be more challenging to do so — especially if the brand equity has accumulated around your personal brand.
This being said, a business branding that is built around the founder and their persona can take off much easier. Why? People love to know the face behind a company, and it can create an instant know, like, and trust factor.
Brand personality
Having yourbrand personality, positioning, and audience defined makes it easier to determine the look and feel of the logo. Let’s break this up into steps:
Personality
These are the characteristics you describe your brand with. Think happy and energetic versus calm and mindful.
Positioning
How do you want your brand to be positioned in the marketplace. Is your brand a luxury type of brand with a sleek and high end finish? Or perhaps it is more of an everyday brand? The answers to these questions will ultimately affect the look and feel.
Audience
Your ideal audience will have a significant impact on the general style of anything you’ll create for your brand. What attracts a 25 year old woman who’s interested in fashion will necessarily appeal to male executives over 50. Have your audience defined early on.
These three elements will have an impact on what kind of typeface and colors you use in your logo. If you are going to use an icon, graphic or illustration, the personality, positioning, and audience will influence that, as well.
Let’s go back to the Apple logo again. The style of the graphic they use is clean and simple. Imagine they used an apple that was drawn with watercolors. Would that convey a different look and feel? Of course.
Should you include a symbol in your logo?
Now you need to decide whether you want to use an icon, graphic, or illustration in your logo. This decision will affect the rest of the process.
If you are starting out, you don’t necessarily need to use a graphic element — also called a logomark. Many people think they need one, but actually many successful logos out there don’t have a logomarks. For example, Marie Forleo has an amazing business, but doesn’t have a graphic in her logo — and never had.
Logomarks can make a nice visual element to the brand. If done right, it communicates immediately what your brand personality is like, and can highlight what your services are, too. However, adding a logomark (a graphic, an icon, or an illustration) adds to the challenge quite ab bit. The next two parts of this logo design post will focus on creating a logo with and without a logomark. So, whatever you’ll choose, you’ll have guidance.
To find this training on a three part video series, join my free Facebook group DIY Brand Design & Strategy for Soulpreneurs. You can also download my super easy DIY Logo Design Step-by-step guide here.
How to design a text only logo? (Aka a logotype)
Let’s face it, the easier route to take when designing your logo is to choose NOT to have a graphic. Including a symbol or a graphic element (also known as a logomark) add a layer of challenge that designing a text only logo doesn’t have.
Don’t get me wrong, you still need to put quite a bit thought into it to make it reflect you brand personality correctly. So, what are the important factors you need to remember in a designing a text only logo?
Pick the right font
Did you know there are different font styles? Yes! When designing your text based logo, you need to understand that different fonts are perceived differently. As a general rule, lightweight fonts that are thinner are considered more feminine. Italics would seem more feminine, though this isn’t always the case. Masculine fonts tend to be bold and more heavyweight. And it’s always dependent on how you use the typefaces, as well.
In addition to different styles like bold or italic, there are also different font classifications. Let’s look at this a bit further.
Serif fonts
A serif font is a font that has smaller strokes attached to larger strokes. The smaller strokes are referred to as serifs.
These fonts are considered more formal, mature, and traditional. And as you can imagine, there is a sense of class and heritage that comes with the more traditional style and outlook. Certain serif fonts are also considered more feminine than the sans-serif font types.
Sans-serif fonts
A sans-serif font does not include the small strokes. Common examples are Helvetica and Arial. These are fonts that appear to be more modern, clean, and straightforward. Though, this is highly dependent on the individual font in questions, as some sans-serif fonts can also have a retro vibe to them.
Slab serif fonts
These are fonts that have block-like serifs: slabs. The slabs can be rounded or sharp. Slab serif fonts can look either friendly and easily approachable (rounded slab) or impactful and innovative (sharp slab). Examples of this font include Archer, Rockwell and Memphis.
Script fonts
These fonts tend to resemble handwritten and calligraphic lettering styles. They can appear formal and elegant, but can also have the versatility of appearing informal and playful. Examples include Alex brush and Allura.
Modern fonts
Modern fonts are a variation of serif or sans-serif fonts. The defining feature of modern fonts is combining thin hairlines with thicker lines. The name “modern” is misleading as some of the fonts classified as modern are a couple hundred years old.
Decorative fonts
“Decorative” is a catch-all name describing all fonts that have more decorative — even illustrative qualities. These fonts are often playful and fun-looking. At first, they may seem like a fun idea for a logo. But I’d advise you to consider the use of these fonts carefully as their legibility is often compromised in smaller sizes. And what today looks fun, tomorrow might just look goofy. In other words, they don’t necessarily stand time too well.
How to combine fonts?
You don’t need to limit yourself to one single font. You can combine two fonts to create the appearance you are after. Be mindful, however, how the two typefaces pair together. There are lots of resources available that will help you choose a pairing that has already been tested together. Simply search Pinterest with “font pairing” and you’ll get lot’s of results! This saves you the time and effort of finding a pair that works for you.
When combining fonts there are two good reminders: 1. Not every font will look good together and 2. Your logo needs to match you brand personality. And the font you choose has a big impact on this.
Where to find typefaces?
My favorite resources for finding typefaces include:
- Google fonts for free fonts
- MyFonts for paid fonts
DaFont is also an online resource for free fonts. There are some good fonts available there, but there are many unprofessional looking fonts, as well. Google fonts are better vetted and have a good variety of suitable options to choose from.
Visual ideas for your logo
So, you have chosen your fonts and decided to go with a text based logo. What different visual ideas are there to include in your logotype?
- Script font mimicking your signature — if you want to use your actual signature in our logo, you will need to fin a way to convert your script into a vector shape.
- Monogram — this combines one or more letters in a larger logo element. It can be very simple yet powerful in creating visual interest. One letter could be highlighted in a different color.
- Using simple shapes — combining simple graphic shapes like lines or rules, squares, rectangles or circles can be used around your logo or part of it. This can put emphasis on certain aspects of the logo.
Now, its important to highlight that you’re probably going to have to explore and create multiple versions before you find something you like. Don’t be discouraged as ultimately you want the best logo that speaks to your audience.
How to design a logo with a symbol?
This type of logo can feel slightly overwhelming to DIY, because you need to think about a font and an image. And a logo with a symbol is more work than a text only logo. However, with the process outlined here, you will find it is condensed down into bitesize steps.
Selecting an icon or symbol
One of the most important thing with this type of logo is that the icon or symbol you choose represents your brand and the offering you have accurately. That’s why it’s critical to define the right metaphor in the beginning of this process.
What does that mean? A successful metaphor represents your offering or the transformation you bring to your customer. For example, a delivery service may use a delivery truck in their logo. Sometimes the metaphor can also refer directly to your business name. Think about the Puma logo, what does it have on it? A puma.
Your metaphor could be more abstract that these. For example, the Nike swoosh doesn’t directly depict the product of service they deliver. A logo symbol can be literal, but it doesn’t have to be. Though, there must always be a connection to your business — whether it be the name, offering, transformation, or even the mission.
Finding the right metaphor
Struggling with finding a metaphor? Try this mind mapping exercise to help you come up with the right metaphor for the logo:
- Come up with 2-3 keywords that describe your brand’s mission, offering (your product/service), or the transformation you bring to your customers. Some things to keep in mind
- If you are focusing on your mission, you need to think about what change your business is creating in the world or people’s lives. You can literally think of this as “I’m on a mission to….”
- When thinking about your offering, you are going to have to think about your service and product. What value does it bring people? What does it allow them to do that they could not do before?
- Choose 2-3 keywords that describe your brand personality. Your brand personality is the characteristics you’d describe your brand with. For example, energetic, joyful, creative. In total, you will have anywhere between 4-6 words that will describe your brand offering or mission, as well as your brand personality.
- Next, take a large plain paper and write the name of your business in the middle. Draw out 4-6 branches, representing your keywords. Write down whatever comes to mind about each of the branches. Let your creativity run free for 20-30 minutes, and write down anything that comes to mind: items, animals, objects, adjectives.
After completing the steps above, take a break from the work and come back to it the next day. Can you come up with any more ideas? If you are not in a hurry to create your logo, come back to it regularly for a week. The more time you spend on it, the more ideas you are likely to come up with.
Finding the icon or symbol
Now with your metaphor selected, you can search for different stock services for your icons. I personally like to use The Noun Project, but there are others. Finding the right icon doesn’t have to be pricy, but there may be some investment.
If you want a custom symbol, you can draw one yourself if you know how to use Adobe illustrator or any other vector graphics software. You could also hire a designed to draw this icon for you. You could even bring a pencil sketch of your own design to a freelance designer, and they could work on it from there.
Hiring a junior talent could help you do this on a budget, but you probably will want to give them the metaphor for your logo symbol, any sketches you’ve drawn, and the brand personality keywords you developed. Remember to give the designer instructions on the colors you want them to use to stay in line with your brand.
Once you have your logomark, either from the stock icon service or from a designed, you need to combine it with your business name. Of course, if you hired a designer they could do this for you, too.
To find this training on a three part video series, join my free Facebook group DIY Brand Design & Strategy for Soulpreneurs. You can also download my super easy DIY Logo Design Step-by-step guide here.
Size and layout
As a general rule of thumb, you need a landscape and portrait version of your logo. Landscape is perfect for your website header, document headers and footers. The portrait version will look great on social media, business cards and postcards. By creating both types, you can use your logo on a variety of different projects.
Depending on the icon graphic you have, you might need different versions for various sizes. Some details may become illegible or look unclear in smaller sized documents. Experiment by reducing the size of your logo to 0.5 inches – is it still legible? If no, you may need to tweak something.
You will need a smaller sized logo on your website header, especially for mobile versions of the website. This is important as website traffic from mobile devices has increased exponentially in recent years. More than 50% of ALL web traffic in the world today comes from mobile devices.
And the number increases, if you use Facebook advertising to drive traffic to your website as most people use Facebook on the mobile app. Imagine all these people visiting your site and not being able to read what your logo says!
File types
Finally, let’s just quickly talk about the different file types there are and where you might need them. This is dependent on the use you have for the logo.
.eps file: This is a vector format that can be resized and scaled without compromising the quality of the logo file. You will need this format if your logo will be printed on a physical object like books, t-shirts, or business cards.
PNG file: This type of file allows for your image to have a transparent background. If you are a digital business with a website or social media presence and most or all of your communications and products are digital, you can probably get away with just having your logo as a PNG file.
JPG file: In some web formats or emails, this file size could be preferred as it is smaller compared to the PNG. JPG files are, however, not transparent like PNG or EPS.
The last thing I just want to highlight to you is that if you decide to work with a designer at any point of the logo design process, make sure you get them to transfer the copyright over to you. This is important to ensure you have the copyright to use your logo whichever way you please. And can make any amount of changes and updates to it in future.
Stop procrastinating with your logo design by getting started with these three steps. Each one is pivotal in helping you to create a logo you are happy with and supports your brand message. It’s ok if each step takes a bit of time. By taking time, care and attention in each step you are much more likely to come up with a brand look and feel that you can see going the long haul.
And remember: your logo is not your brand. It’s simply a part of the story. Experiment and see what you come up with!
Download my FREE and super easy DIY Logo Design Step-by-step guide here.
