7 Logo Design Tips for Your Blog and Business 0
WordPress themes today are so colorful and full-featured that small businesses may forget that, though they have an exciting-looking website, they still need a business logo. Once they do, they may not know where to start.
Here are 7 tips from a former advertising account exec and PR pro:
1. Hire a Graphic Designer Who Specializes in What You Need
Do not cheap out by letting your child, your draftsman, or your brother the “artist” try to design a logo for you. Logo design is important, and it requires professional skills and knowledge.
Find a real graphic designer who specializes in logos and has a good, varied portfolio. Make sure you like the artist’s work. That may seem obvious, but clients forget it sometimes.
The only other alternative to that is to use a logo design competition. If you do that, remember, all the rest of these tips still apply, especially tip number 2.
A logo will be with you for a long time. So make sure it is a good one that fits your business and represents it well.
2. Prepare Yourself. Then Brief the Artist Well
Think, think, think. Look at the logos of your competitors and of big corporations in your field. What do they have in common? What makes them appeal to customers in your market?
Sit down and write down attributes the logo must convey about your business. For example, a maid service should look clean and friendly. A food logo should be appetizing. And so on.
3. Focus on What Your Logo Needs to Convey
Do not try to convey too many things in one logo. You may be the biggest patriot, a veteran, born on the Fourth of July, but that does not need to go into your logo, and the red-white-and-blue color scheme could be counterproductive. Let the artist come up with colors.
4. Keep in Mind All the Ways a Logo Is Used.
Remember that your log should be used everywhere—on stationery, invoices, business cards—not just on your blog or website. So it needs to be designed by a pro to scale well (large or small) and to print well—not just show up well on line.
This is where your teenage cousin is likely to let you down. They won’t know how to do that.
5. Be Original.
Do not copy or even sort of imitate any other logo. Aside from legal issues, patterning your logo after another company’s logo can cause problems. If they are well known, you lose recognition for your business, because people will automatically think of theirs instead. Plus, it looks amateurish. That reflects badly on your business.
6. Stay Away from Fads.
Orange or purple or blue-and-yellow may be hot stuff this year, but in a couple of years, a faddish color scheme will make your business look dated, out of touch, even tacky.
7. Decide Carefully, but Do Not Dither.
If you have hired a good artist, thought through exactly what you are trying to convey about your business, and then sat down and explained that to your artist, the first few designs will likely be the best. Do not think that if you keep asking for more and more variations, the designs will get better and better.
If the first group of designs does not include at least a couple of winners, you have either hired the wrong artist or not briefed him/her properly—or both. If you cannot make a decision, it may be because you have not prepared yourself and the artist properly.
In that case, discuss your needs and hopes for the logo again, to make sure you and the artist are on the same page. If you are, then make a decision and stick to it.
