We’re often asked by our friends and clients (and friends who are also our clients) what they should do when getting a logo for their business. Because logos are often simple, as they should be, it can be tempting to go the cheapest route and make it yourself, or have your cousin’s nephew’s friend build it. While we are all for saving our client’s money and have been extremely pleased with the work of self-taught employees, we wanted to share a few things you should consider when deciding how to get your logo.
1. First Impression
It’s hard to reverse the first impression of a person or business and first impressions are incredibly important in the world of business. Your logo and company name are usually the first things a potential customer sees. It’s been said that customers decide on a business within the first third of a second of the first encounter. A well-designed logo is an opportunity to get noticed by a potential customer and set great expectations of your company’s quality and service. Your logo brings attention to what you offer, gives a snapshot of your brand, distinguishes your company, and gives your business a specific, unique identity. Conversely, a poorly designed logo can leave a lasting impression of poor quality or dated services.
2. Longevity
Professional designers will conduct research on your industry to understand the psychographics of your clients, and they will understand which colors, shapes, and designs will resonate with your clients best. If a professional designer creates a logo, it will give your mark a much longer shelf life. In creating a logo for you, designers create an original piece of artwork – which should be high quality and lasting. Professional designers help prevent common design mistakes such as making your logo feel out of date or “clunky” or overly extravagant. They will match modern artistic trends with your specific industry.
3. Effective Branding
The logo communicates your brand’s promise. It is a well-known fact that branding is critical for businesses. Designing a good logo is essential for any business. Is your logo bland, forgettable, overly complicated, or ineffective? If it is, you should invest in professional logo design as soon as possible to improve your brand overall. To sum up, a professional logo promotes your brand.
4. Trustworthy
A professional logo design generates trust. A strong brand identity attracts the specific clients which you want to reach. A brand that has a professional logo design as a component of its identity instantly produces trust with your clients. That enables you to generate more sales, traffic to your site, and solid networking opportunities. Therefore, it is crucial to hire a professional designer as high-quality design encourages trust (the foundation of all client relationships).
5. Research-Based
After conducting research, a professional logo designer defines your mission, values, and target market, and examines competitive spaces to design a logo. The designer will utilize this research to create the best logo design for you. Making logos requires knowledge of design principles. A logo created by a professional logo designer will look better, communicate quality, and connect to your business in the best way possible. Therefore, it is essential to hire a professional designer to create a first-rate logo for your product.
6. Multiple Formats That Are Relevant to New Media
Logo Creatives should be delivered in multiple formats that can be used in various social media, web, and email formats as well as print formats.
Professional Designers usually create several versions of the logo, including black and white, possibly grayscale, and provide various layouts such as horizontal, vertical, and minimal abbreviated versions, etc.
Versions with transparent backgrounds allow you to use the mark with different backgrounds while maintaining the attractive colors and layouts of each design.
Various resolutions should also be provided such as high-resolution print projects, or a low-resolution symbol to be used as your icon for your website menu bar.
7. Costs/What to expect
Costs for logo design vary greatly. Large corporations may spend tens of thousands on a new design since it will be viewed by hundreds of millions of customers. Smaller design firms may range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and may provide several versions to choose from.
8. Where to start
The first step in creating a logo is to look at your specific area of business to get a “lay of the land.” Begin understanding what type of art and colors are currently used. You may want something very different, but it’s good to know your competition. After this, you can contact graphic designers who you know, or who have created other marks you like. Providing them with 2 or 3 samples of logos you like is a good way to get your new logo in the ballpark of your vision.
