Designing a logo that embodies your brand can help you grow better, but doing it right is just as
important. Here’s how to design the perfect logo, step-by-step.
1. Start with Your Story
Companies are created to make money — it’s not the most poetic statement, but it’s the one
you need to start with. And in order to make a profitable business, you need to be able to sell
yourself just as well as your product. Marketers today tend to agree that buyers connect
much more strongly to stories than they do to the basic facts of your product. What does this
mean to you? There needs to be some story in your logo.
Before you even think about what this logo will look like, take some time asking yourself what
the story behind your company is. When we look at Coca-Cola, we don’t see a brown,
carbonated beverage — we see polar bears and thick, white script letters.
Step outside of what your company does and convey why you do it. That “why” is the root of
your story, and it should come through in the colour, shape, and typeface of your logo. If
your logo were the title of a movie, what would it look like?
2. Sketch Ideas Based on These Words
Armed with your why and a few keywords for direction, grab a pencil and paper and start
sketching every idea that comes into your head. Allow each new concept to evolve on its
own. Don’t get frustrated if the first few aren’t right — keep refining, using previous sketches
to influence the outcome of new ones. You might focus these sketches on a shape, the name
of your brand, or both.
As you’re sketching the concepts for your logo, keep these tips in mind:
• Keep the shape simple. If you can sketch the most symbolic components in seven seconds or less,
you’re in good shape. You should absolutely avoid any popular clip-art artwork or generic symbols like
a globe, star, or similar icons that people too easily identify from other places. These are easily
forgotten at first glance. The more creative you are at this stage, the better your final logo. Your logo
is what your consumers will remember the most. Be honest in this artwork.
• Colours can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. You need to include colour with your
logo, but be selective on which colours you use. Be mindful of current colour trends already being
used today and in your target market. As a general rule, don’t choose more than three colours. Choose
a colour or group of colours that will make you stand out from your competition. But please, for the
love of marketing, don’t use the whole rainbow!
3. Test Your Top Sketches with Your Buyer Persona
Once you’ve got a handful of different sketches on paper, take a step back and pick the top
three concepts. Don’t think too hard about this — consider the designs your eyes keep going
back to, and select them to show to others.
Share these drafts with your friends, family members, and a colleague you trust. If possible,
bring these sketches to someone who best fits your buyer persona — or your ideal customer
profile. This gives you the most productive opinion on your artwork because it can indicate
how customers will receive your brand — not just the people close to you.
Be prepared for honest feedback and don’t take any negative comments personally. These
criticisms will only make your final logo better. Use their feedback to select one final concept
to develop into a design.
4. Develop Your Logo’s Layout on a Free Design Platform
Now, it’s time to get technical and turn your paper drawing into a usable digital format. To
bring this design to life, you have many free design platforms available to recreate your
sketch in digital format. Here are a few free solutions:
• Photoshop
• Pixel Lab
• Corel Draw
• Canvas
• Illustrator Etc
The platforms above can help you put your sketched logo in digital format, but bringing your
concept to life for a business audience requires a bit of technical direction. One of the most
important things to get right is the layout. Make sure all of your text and shapes are perfectly
spaced and the logo itself is aligned with its surroundings.
Your logo doesn’t have to be symmetrical, but it should be aligned in different contexts.
Chances are, you will encounter situations when your logo sits against different vertical and
horizontal borders, and it should appear even with these surroundings no matter how you
might repurpose your logo and where you might publish it.
5. Pick Versatile Colour Options
Your logo’s colour scheme might look great against the colour of the canvas on which you
designed it, but eventually, your logo will be placed on backgrounds whose colours you didn’t
start with.
Always be sure to have logo colour variations for both dark and light backgrounds. That might
mean only having to change the colour of your font. Or, in some cases, you might have to
change the colour of your entire logo.
Create one of each option to make sure you’re prepared when ordering promotional
products that will display your logo. T-shirts, stickers, notepads, and coffee mugs are just a
few of the many items for which you’ll have different colour variations of your logo.
8. Choose a Font
This is the time to combine text with imagery. If you’re chosen sketch is primarily a shape or
symbol, rather than text, begin to factor in the written name of your company. Consider the
typeface this text will carry if your company name ever stands on its own without the symbol.
Believe it or not, your font choice can say a lot about your business. You can choose a font
that’s either serif (with stems on each letter) or sans serif (no stems) — also known as classic
or modern, respectively.
Stay away from generic fonts that come standard on every word processor. Some examples
of generic fonts are Times New Roman, Lucida Handwriting, and Comic Sans. These fonts will
only work against you and your company by making you less memorable.
9. Ensure Scalability
Logos are meant to represent your company on multiple platforms — in print, on your
website, on each of your social media business pages, and across the internet as your
business grows. You want a logo that can be blown up super large for a billboard, but also
scaled down for screening onto the side of a pen.
Every part of your logo should be legible, regardless of the logo’s size.
Whew — still with us? We know this might seem a little overwhelming, but take it slow and
don’t rush yourself. It’s better to follow the process through to completion and end with a
remarkable brand than to start over a few months later due to a design error or change of
heart.
Once you’ve completed your logo, how can you tell if you scored a winner? Easy: Share your
logo with us lets Review it