A huge part of brand identity is influenced by the logo, which greatly impacts how customers perceive any brand. However, there are many factors to consider when creating your very own logo, as it isn’t that simple. Designing a logo takes skill, experience and knowledge while also ensuring you can communicate your brand’s identity through the logo.
All successful brands, from Starbucks to Nike to McDonald’s, capitalize and define themselves using their famous logos. However, many thought processes and strategies go into creating a logo before it achieves an iconic status and recognisability.
Hence, we have gathered a few tips and tricks to keep in mind when creating a logo for your very own personal business. Read through our handy guide about creating the perfect logo, making the right design choices and navigating through the confusing process.
Tips for Creating the Most Impactful Logo
With hundreds and thousands of brands competing for customer attention in a saturated market, it is natural that you need to differentiate yourself visually. The most important aspect of brand building can be done by creating a unique and attractive logo. You will need a range of elements that will work together to create a distinct picture in mind of your brand by using a logo.
- Define Brand Identity
Before you start the creative process, it’s important to conceptualize what you want your logo to look like. This should be based on your brand’s core personality, which will give you an idea of what makes you unique and authentic. Thus, defining the brand itself first will guide you in creating a huge part of its identity through the logo.
While doing that, some important values and questions would be the reason for starting your business, the ethics and beliefs that the company stands by, and the vantage point when it comes to competitors. Further, look into what makes your brand special, try defining it in 2-3 words, use the first adjectives that come into mind, and ask for customer opinions. This should give you a clear picture of what design choices you will be making when defining this picture of your brand you’ve managed to draft.
- Create Mood Board
The next step is finding inspiration for your unique design. For this, a mood board is the best visual practice to get inspired. You can get your creative juice flowing by cutting out and printing real pictures of logos, designs, colors, and themes or by creating one on your digital tablet. Some apps can be utilized for this, including Pinterest, Behance, and We Heart It, which have hundreds of logo ideas to browse and explore.
Adding to that, creating a mood board will help you pinpoint which aspects of the design you are gravitating towards. Whether it’s classic, retro or vintage, modern and minimalist or fun and quirky, a mood board will help you narrow down your abstract ideas into a concrete ones. You can also browse through the different types of logos to find which one you would like to go for, such as letter marks, wordmarks, pictorial marks, mascots, and emblems.
Colors are also important in the conceptualization process as they symbolize meanings regarding brand logos. For example, red, orange and yellows are usually used for vibrant, youthful and energetic start-ups such as smartphones and audio device brands, while greens and blues are usually adopted by sustainability-based brands or those connected to nature. Thus, it is very important to select colors that can symbolize what business you’re running or what genre it falls into, although it is not completely rigid.
- Start the Creative Process
Once you have all the ideas in one place, it’s time to dive into the creative process. Whether you have decided to use digital tools or a conventional sketchpad, start recording your design ideas into as many drafts as you can. We recommend using a sketchpad to give you complete freedom to explore without any digital experience.
We also recommend starting on black and white, as color can sometimes be a distraction when the basic concept of a logo is coming to life. Leaving the coloring process for later can allow you to create the design more easily. Then, once your idea is structuralized, a palette can be changed as many times as one wishes.
- Avoid these Design Mistakes
As you work on your design project, make sure you do not fall into these common traps that can hinder your process. Avoid cliches based on very generic logos, no matter how unlikely it seems that your logo design will become recognizable. Keep the design simple and avoid complex graphics, as your ultimate goal is to create a memorable design as well as keep it print-friendly.
Lastly, it’s very important not to settle for a low-quality logo at the expense of investment. Since a major part of your business success will depend on its presentation and brand identity, investing in a logo is of extreme importance. Take extra care about the fonts and other design elements so they can match your brand story and purpose.
These are some of the tips to make a cool logo for your personal business. Alternatively, make sure you take second opinions from not just your close associates but also the customer base. Latest branding schemes utilize social media platforms to receive public opinion to gain some positive criticism that could be worked on.
Hence, if creating your logo seemed like an insurmountable task before, you can get started on the process using these few tips and tricks. A good and minimalist logo can professionalize your small business with simple and easy researching, identifying and designing.