An effective business logo is your unique identifier – a graphic mark, symbol, emblem, or stylized name, that sets you apart from your competitors. Abstract or figurative, it communicates a brand’s story, and ethos in a visually compact way.
Do you need a logo to start a business?
Let’s be clear. You don’t need a logo to start a small business, but it’s highly advisable.
Investing in a well-thought-out logo design at the onset is a key part of your overall branding, and even a focal point of its identity. It makes your brand easy to recognize, as well as lays the foundation of your brand identity.
Your logo stands in for your business’s brand, at every touch-point your customers come into contact with it- web, social, and local. An effective logo becomes a readily-identifiable symbol of the brand, which helps keep your business front-of-mind for the people you hope to turn into customers.
How to design a logo for your business?
There are several ways to create a logo for your business or brand. Digital tools and increased online connectivity are enabling entrepreneurs and lean businesses with limited budgets to DIY logos for their business. You can create a simple logo design for free on Canva, or on platforms like Logo Maker, but it does require some familiarity with graphic design at the very least. Plus, a logo design created on Canva is not ideal, as you cannot create a vector file (desired logo file type) on it. Additionally, you have to be familiar with the usage rights of your designs on Canva.
The scalable vector graphic file that you need is possible in Adobe Illustrator or open-source, free alternatives like Inkscape editor. In order to bring your brand to life with the right colors, fonts, and emotions, you can also collaborate with freelance graphic designers, barter services, or hire an agency.
Hire or Collaborate- Find Graphic Designers right here on Maroon Oak!
Before you create (or recreate) a logo design for your company!
Whether it’s a new logo or a rebrand that you seek, before you even begin on a design, there are two core ingredients you need to have at hand.
- Maintain an inspiration log – save pictures, colors, ads, logos, competitor logos – anything that catches your eye. Cluster your findings every few days and you will see patterns emerge – what attracts you and what doesn’t. This curation of logo inspiration on Pinterest is a great place to start.
- Analyze your objective – what feelings do you want to evoke in the audience- comfort, security, confidence, joy, hope, power? Clean and crisp or warm and fuzzy?
You might also like to read Make it Better – 5 Point Cheat Sheet for non-Designers.
Armed with this research, whether you DIY your logo in Canva or work with a designer, here is a simple lens. This is your ultimate, concise, no fuss guide to nail down the logo for your business.
Follow these 7 rules for logo design to elevate your brand!
Let these tips on logo design be the footprint on which you base your brand decisions. 7 rules of effective logo design that come together, to elevate your logo, and serve as your brand’s memorable signature. Plus, great examples of logo design to inspire you.
1. Determine Style – identify your preference.
Wordmark, Lettermark, Pictorial mark or a Combination mark, there are several types of logo categories to choose from. Work with the one that best represents your brand, design aesthetic and vision.
Also watch From Simple to Great – 8 Design Tips & Hacks from a Pro
The Newsette uses wordmark or all typography while The Penny Hoarder uses a combination of a brandmark or icon along with the wordmark or type. Daily Worth uses monogram or initials along with type.
2. Consider Shape – form does matter.
Along the same lines, consider web and social media protocol to determine the overall shape of your logo. At the very onset, your logo will be used across the top menu of your website and within square and circular social media profile pictures. A tall vertical logo as an example, might not be ideal for any of those.
Grab this Free e-Book to Design like a Pro that shares some of the best, easy to use free tools available to you today!
The Ivory Mix creatively places the image over the words to avoid a long-span logo. Natalie Hands Studio, on the other hand, has a fun, whimsical emblem like logo that even rotates.
For Maroon Oak, we chose a horizontal style, combination logo with both imagery and text. This gives us the flexibility to use the logo in different ways. We use it as a whole on our website or stationery. For social media, or a favicon, we use just the icon as an alternate logo that stands on its own and yet remains recognizable and meaningful to or audience.
We also use the icon for optional branding memorabilia like this image.
3. Strive to Simplify – easy and impactful
A logo is a symbol of your brand, not the entire mission statement. If you want your logo to be memorable and impactful, don’t sweat the small stuff trying to incorporate everything that your brand represents. Simplicity wins since it’s only the broadest of elements–color, rough shape–not nuance (or even the name!) that consumers recall.
Aim for recognition at a glance with minimal and distinctive elements.
Get Uplift has a clever play of symbolic iconography within its wordmark.
4. Be mindful of Scalability – contraction and expansion
Imagine your logo on almost every potential item – from a pen to the side of a truck. That’s why it’s important to have the design in a vector format. It simply ensures that no matter how big the image gets (or how small), it will keep its sense of proportion without getting blurry or distorted.
Create and Cultivate even created a Tattoo!
5. Prioritize Readability– squinting not accepted
A complex design sacrifices legibility when crunched to smaller sizes, especially on mobile devices.
You could counter that by using an element of your logo – a wordmark or marquee icon that is identifiable standing by itself. Eg: Audible uses only their icon on the mobile version of their website, while its the full logo on the desktop version.
Find Sisterhood uses just the icon even as a button on their app.
6. Contain Color – augment, define
You know it’s a strong logo design when it works well in black and white, and does not need color to carry it forward. Your brand colors then, serve to enhance its strength. Your logo then, can easily be used for non-conventional applications like creating a stamp or etching where color usage may not be possible.
There is also a good case for having a light and dark version for use against any background.
Yellow Co. creatively uses a straight line of just one color to anchor the asymmetric letters.
This is how Zola uses color and variations to modify the logo for website and social media. Notice how solid, varying tones of the similar colors are used to create the perception of shadow.
7. Honor Balance– better visual management
The juxtaposition of colors, varying typefaces, and their size and weight influences the overall balance of a logo. Font pairings that contrast, but don’t conflict, as well as words and icon pairings that harmonize and don’t individually steal attention, contribute to a better balance.
In the logo for Making Sense of Cents, see how regular, italicized and all caps text has been combined with impact. It’s all You Boo combines color and bold lettering to counter the asymmetric text.
Logos can also be iterative and for most businesses big or small, they evolve over time. Before settling on one, take feedback from multiple sources – peers, family, social media groups and forums.
Have a website? Then you should read How to Design a Small Business Website your Customers Love
Here’s a cool tip.
If you decide, after careful consideration, to revamp your logo, then share it with your audience as a post or a blog, with a credit to the designer. Behind the scenes and why stories are always endearing and it serves as subtle advertisement and hype around the change. Khan Academy did just that when they changed their logo, with a detailed explanation for the reasons that led to the change.
Conclusion
These are only guidelines to help you create or elevate your logo to highlight your brand or business.
Whatever design you finally settle on – Serif or Sans Serif, stoic or flowy, bold or light – you can rip up the rule book and still win.
A good logo enhances brand image and appeal when it’s both a work of heart, and creative business strategy.
And ultimately without a good product a logo can only carry a brand so far.
You can’t use up creativity. The more you create, the more you have.
A Designer and Entrepreneur, Aditi graduated from a top design school and subsequently started her own design and merchandising business. Co-founder at Maroon Oak, she has over 17 years of business experience with Two Dotts, her design consulting company and an Etsy store which serves as an outlet for her gifts and patented product designs.
A mother to a teen and a tween, she enjoys running, dancing and raising her newest baby, a Bichon named Miltie.
Wow, been planning to reinvent my I am glad to stumble upon these blog. Thank you so much for these tips, I will definitely apply it to my new design!
Business logo design is an important tool when it comes to promoting a company’s products or services. But the logo must have a unique design that incorporates a design concept and colors etc. elements in a special way. Such a logo makes a lasting positive impression on potential customers. Anyway, Nice blog. Thank you for sharing this blog.
Wow, fantastic list. Thanks.
I’m a graphic designer too, and all these points are so relevant to consider. Love your designs
Thanks for sharing this nice post on the usefulness of logo, which I agree and have designed quite a few now for my own blog.
These are fantastic logo tips. We are always trying to improve ours.
These are wonderful tips for creating a brand logo. Many business owners forget how important this is
Logo’s are so important! I have two – one for my professional business and one for my blog. Both times, I hired someone and send them a whole bunch of logo’s I liked to take inspiration from 🙂
Thank you, I am working on a website. This post is going to help me for sure. I learnt a lot from it.
It is really important that the logo grabs attention and makes a strong first impression!
These are excellent tips. I will share this with my designer friends.
A very thorough discussion of logo designs. I’m starting a new website and will definitely take this information into consideration. In fact, I am going to save the link to this post in my business folder. Actuallu, I’m subscribing to your newletters. Thanks! Amy Aberasturi capturingcash.com
These are excellent tips. I need to work on legibility and color! Thanks so much for this!