Importance of a Good Logo
Your logo is the identity of your brand. A good solid logo is important for the image of your business. If people see a tacky logo that looks like it’s been created on MS Word, they most likely won’t trust the company.
Here are some reasons why your logo is important:
- A good logo makes a great first impression.
- It can attract new customers because it sends the right message to customers.
- An opportunity for you to stand out from your competition. So make sure it’s different.
- Keep customers loyal. As long as you look professional, it won’t matter who opens up next to you.
- Earns trust with professionalism. By looking professional, people will trust your company.
- Reveals your identity. Can tell the world immediately why you are and what you do.
- It can be everywhere. With the internet, your logo can be all over the world. As well as on all your products, packages, website and so on.
What Makes a Good Logo
There are four important elements that a logo needs to stand the test of time and make it look professional.
- Simple – We see way too many small businesses with crazy complicated logos. The best logos are usually simple, simple, simple. In fact, some of the world’s leading brands (think Coca Cola, Ray-Ban, IBM) just stick with stylized type. If you do add a symbol, it does not have to mimic what you do. Mercedes – doesn’t have a car. Amazon– doesn’t have a book. Nike – doesn’t have a shoe. Your logo does have to convey the spirit of your brand and speak to your target customer.
- Practical – Your logo needs to fit well in all kinds of spaces. It should be legible in sizes ranging from about an inch to a full billboard. It should be clear in black and white. You need your logo in an assortment of file types to look good online and offline. Make sure you have the “vector” file in case you want to make changes to your logo (usually EPS or PDF file). For your website you will usually want to use a PNG file; Facebook or most places you would use a photo a JPG and print probably a PDF.
- Unique – Look at what’s out there, particularly in your space. Make sure that your logo stands out from your competition. It doesn’t have to be flashy (remember, simple is usually best), but it does have to be different and recognizable in your marketplace.
- Protected – Even as a small business, it’s good to protect your logo. At a minimum, do extensive searches for similar business names and marks before you start using them. Buy the URL matching your name. If it’s not available, who has it? Check with the US Patent & Trade Office to see if anyone has trademarked your name. Hire a lawyer to do an official check for you and, if it’s available, consider applying for the trademark.
(Source: bplans)
Here are some reasons why your logo is important:
- A good logo makes a great first impression.
- It can attract new customers because it sends the right message to customers.
- An opportunity for you to stand out from your competition. So make sure it’s different.
- Keep customers loyal. As long as you look professional, it won’t matter who opens up next to you.
- Earns trust with professionalism. By looking professional, people will trust your company.
- Reveals your identity. Can tell the world immediately why you are and what you do.
- It can be everywhere. With the internet, your logo can be all over the world. As well as on all your products, packages, website and so on.
Designing Your Logo
As a small business owner, it doesn’t make sense to spend thousands of pounds on a logo. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a top logo. There are two affordable ways and one free way of creating a powerful logo.
- Free option – Online Logo Creators
- Freelancers
- Crowdsource
Your logo is only one element of your branding but will be on display everywhere. Make sure it’s different. Not similar to other logos with some minor changes. And it has to be high quality with your colours.
The most affordable way is to use an online logo creator. Some charge you a small fee and some are free.
The best website we highly recommend for any design work is Canva. It’s a free website, which provides lots of free templates to choose and design easily – such as logos, business cards, social media posts, ebook covers and much more.
Here’s a list of logo creators online:
You can search for others on Google and try them out.
You can find people online that will design you a logo. It can range anywhere from £5 to £99. The top places to find designers are;
- Fiverr – this is a good marketplace for many other services. It’s worth checking this website out.
- Upwork– you can request a project on Upwork and designers can bid for your logo.
- Gumtree (UK) or Craigslist (USA) – you can find people who advertise their services on these advertising platforms.
Freelancers will work alongside you until you get the logo how you want it to be. But you can’t see what you’ll get upfront and the costs vary.
A good website is 99designs. This is a little bit more expensive. The way it usually works is you pay a set fee. And you’ll get between 30 to 60 (depending on the package) different logo concepts from different designers. You select the one that you like and then work closely with that designer to finalise the logo. If you don’t like any, you can get your money back.
