If you are a small business who needs to improve your online presence or logo, here is a great post for you. We have consulted with some of the top logo creators, read up on tips from the experts, and just added a few of our own ideas to help you brainstorm to create the best logo your brand could have.
Your logo is critical to your business both online and offline. It is often the very first thing people see when they enter your site. It makes an outstanding first impression in your mobile app. And it serves to portray the image of your brand to visitors, who will decide if it is enough to compel them to look into your company further or not.
Here are 50 gainful tips to think about concerning your logo design that you can consider, whether you are doing it yourself or hiring a professional design team to get the work done.
1. Focus on the image. One of the ways you can focus in on how your logo should look is to focus on the graphic image you wish to have for your logo. When it comes to graphics, you should try to keep it simple, while communicating the essence of your brand.
2. Make it memorable. Think of a logo you just can’t forget. Think of one that you automatically associate with the product or company that it represents. One example is CBS’s logo. You can see that circle with the dot in the middle, and it doesn’t matter whether the letters, “CBS” are interlaid within the graphic or not. When your logo graphic is so much a part of your brand name that you don’t need a brand name, that’s when you can say you’ve found it!
3. Sketch the idea on paper first. Steve Jobs used to say, “Plan in analog.” If you sketch out your idea first, you will have a better idea of how it will work and look in digital form, or whether it is even worth doing.
4. Do your research. Take some time to look at what others in your niche area are doing for their logo. You want yours to be unique and never to copy anyone else’s. But you also want it to follow the fundamental values inherent in your type of business.
5. Consult with fellow business owners to see what their logo looks like. Again, don’t copy any ideas, but brainstorm and talk to other business owners to get a sense of what is popular with the masses.
6. Do a survey. You can perform experiments with Google Analytics as well as studies with sites like surveymonkey.com to find out what you need to know about how people are taking to your logo. This is a major step so that you don’t waste time in design and application when it’s not what people respond to most.
7. Share your idea on social media. You could create a focus group (make it a closed group) dedicated to the purpose of getting opinions on your proposed logo.
8. Look at specific brands like Adidas and Apple and think about their logos. Consider why their logo seemed to work for them and try to figure out the factors that made it successful.
9. Think of universal symbols. In art and life, there are universal symbols for specific objects. Light bulbs, for example, illustrate a new idea. This is a universal symbol that you could use in your logo if your brand has anything to do with ideas.
10. Experiment with different images until you find one that seems to fit your brand.
11. Hold a contest to design a new logo for your company and offer a prize to the best one.
12. Consider a mascot. An animal or character mascot often works well for some brands.
13. Use mathematically grids to sketch your graphic and make it geometrically correct.
14. Don’t overemphasize perfection or sacrifice artistic design for systematic methods.
15. Focus on font types. Choose your font type carefully. Don’t just choose the first font you see.
16. Use color carefully. Don’t use cheesy color combinations.
17. Make it aesthetically pleasing.
18. Consider unused space. Think about the space around your design and how it could best be used.
19. Add a sense of movement. The Twitter bird is one example of this.
20. Clean up the image. By clearing some of the clutter of your design, you will make it more user-friendly to users, especially in the mobile app version.
21. Make it responsive. It needs to have a certain warmth and human appeal to attract people on social media that make them want to share.
22. Create different sizes of your logo. You don’t know what it will end up on.
23. Make it easy to read.
24. Make it evergreen. Like web content that you include on your site, you need your logo to be future-proof by making it something that can be used in the future, even if you change it over time.
25. Know your market. Make your logo appeal to your target audience primarily. That’s who matters the most to your brand.
26. Let it evolve. While you want to create something that can last over time, there will be subtle changes and evolution that your logo may undergo that should be allowed to occur to fit the current times.
27. Don’t mind the naysayers. If you change your logo design, the initial reaction may be negative from your regular customers. That doesn’t mean it won’t succeed over the long run. And it may be the best decision you ever made.
28. Make it unique. This will protect you from plagiarism charges and also make it harder for others to copy yours.
30. Make your social media logo fitting for social media platforms. Facebook has a free template that’s available now for social media versions of your logo. It’s goog to use this when placing it on specific platforms, to ensure usability.
31. Consider acronyms. Though they are not always appropriate, it sometimes helps people remember your company better.
32. Choose colors wisely. Different colors mean different things. Learn what these universal means are and think about what effect the colors you choose will have on your intended audience.
33. Try it out and see what happens. Sometimes, you just have to experiment and try out a logo to see how it will go over.
34. Try the same logo in a variety of color combinations. Try green, red, and blue, for example, and see how people like each one. Do surveys to see the results.
35. Use your best judgment. In the end, only you can decide if the logo will work for your brand. So look at it and use your best judgement when deciding what is best.
36. Avoid cliches. While they sometimes work with your web content, you don’t want to use cliches in your logo. It’s just too obvious and not original.
37. Use geometry to your advantage. Draw simple shapes then enhance them with great color and design.
38. Be classy. Consider the BMW logo. It’s just three simple letters on a round background. But it gets the point across. And it’s about status.
39. Use free association. Like Sigmund Freud did with his patients, just draw the first thing that comes to your mind, then expand on that.
40. Just do it. Like Nike’s, “Just do it,” you should not overthink this. Just go with what works best.
41. Make it compatible with black and white in case you decide to do a black and white version of it.
42. Don’t use photos. Use a graphic design instead.
43. Look to nature to find your logo. A bird, the sun, and even water can be a real inspiration for a great logo.
44. Watch people. Get inspiration from things people do or what they wear.
45. Watch social media discussions. Often people will share and talk about things they like.
46. Outsource it to a freelancer to see what they can come up with, then buy the rights.
47. Take an online design class to improve your design skills.
48. Ask a coworker or employee to draw a logo illustrating what they think the company is about.
49. Don’t rush it. It takes a long time to create a winning logo. Give it some time before you decide.
50. Hire a professional design team to do it for you.
Design Tips are Great. Design Professionals are Better!
These great logo ideas were discovered by reading the blogs of logo designers, as well as researching what has worked and what has not worked for various companies in the past.
We hope you will think about these ideas and consider them as you brainstorm your idea for your company logo. It’s an important decision, and it should be done carefully. If you want professional help with your design, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thinking ahead in terms of trends and time. We aim to create designs which will remain unique and iconic, in other words – timeless designs. You want it, we’ll give it to you. Give us a buzz here!
