Art Lesson on How to Make Business Logo by Hand

I call back most of u.s.a. can agree there are generic logos in the world that we hands forget, and so there are great logos that we'll always be able to recognize (fifty-fifty without the brand's proper noun attached).

Merely what is it near a logo that makes you recognize information technology? What is information technology about the pattern that can elicit a retention or even a specific emotion?

If yous're in the process of creating a logo for your company, you're in a unique position to make a powerful impact on how consumers perceive your make.

Everything you do, say, and, brandish every bit function of your new business organization volition tell your prospects more well-nigh your company's identity. It'due south vital to ensure from the outset that you present a cohesive and clear statement regarding your visitor'south message.

And while a logo may seem quite simple to create, designing a neat i isn't always easy. It involves a lot of marketplace research, a deep noesis of your buyer personas, and thoughtful consideration of the principles of logo design. Often, designers find themselves creating many iterations of a single logo before getting it "only right."

Then, where do you even begin to design a logo? Right here. We've cleaved down the nine cardinal steps (with a few tips thrown in) y'all'll need to take to create a logo that not but you honey, but your prospects will also.

How to Design a Logo for Free

1. Commencement With Your Story
2. Begin Words That Draw Your Brand
3. Sketch Ideas Based on These Words
4. Test Your Height Sketches With Your Buyer Persona
5. Refine Your Chosen Sketch
6. Develop Your Logo's Layout on a Free Design Platform
7. Pick Versatile Color Options
8. Cull a Font
9. Ensure Scalability

How to Design a Business, Company, or Personal Logo

Epitome via Coca-Cola

Designing a logo that embodies your brand can help you grow ameliorate, just doing it correct is just equally important. Here's how to design the perfect logo, pace-by-pace.

1. Offset With Your Story

Companies are created to brand money -- information technology's non the most poetic argument, but information technology's the one you demand to kickoff with. And in order to make a profitable business organization, you lot need to be able to sell yourself only likewise 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 yous fifty-fifty think about what this logo volition look like, take some fourth dimension request yourself what the story behind your company is. When we wait at Coca-Cola, we don't meet a brown, carbonated beverage -- we see polar bears and thick, white script letters.

Step exterior 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 color, shape, and typeface of your logo. If your logo were the title of a motion picture, what would it look like?

two. Brainstorm Words That Depict Your Brand

Now that y'all have your story, it's time to take your logo draft from story to setting. Open Thesaurus.com and enter a term that best describes your product into the search bar.

For example, if yous're in the wear industry, you might simply blazon in "article of clothing." You lot'd be surprised by how descriptive the synonyms are that announced. Yous tin even click these results to first new searches and dig deeper equally you lot nix in on the words that best capture your brand.

Epitome via Thesaurus.com

Find five to 10 words that describe non but what you do, but the why from the previous step. Each of these words can fit similar pieces in a puzzle and help guide you to refining a concept.

3. Sketch Ideas Based on These Words

Armed with your why and a few keywords for direction, grab a pencil and paper and kickoff 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 correct -- continue 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.

Equally you're sketching the concepts for your logo, keep these tips in mind:

• Keep the shape elementary. If you tin sketch the virtually symbolic components in seven seconds or less, you're in good shape. You should absolutely avert any popular clip-art artwork or generic symbols like a earth, star, or similar icons that people too easily place from other places. These are hands forgotten at first glance. The more creative you are at this phase, the ameliorate your final logo. Your logo is what your consumers will retrieve the most. Be honest in this artwork.
• Colors can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. You need to include color with your logo, but be selective on which colors you use. Exist mindful of current color trends already being used today and in your target market. As a general rule, don't choose more than three colors. Choose a color or grouping of colors that volition make you lot stand out from your contest. Simply please, for the love of marketing, don't apply the whole rainbow!

4. Test Your Top Sketches With Your Heir-apparent Persona

Once y'all've got a scattering of different sketches on newspaper, take a stride back and pick the top 3 concepts. Don't think too hard about this -- consider the designs your optics keep going back to, and select them to show to others.

Share these drafts with your friends, family unit members, and a colleague y'all trust. If possible, bring these sketches to someone who all-time fits your buyer persona -- or your ideal customer profile. This gives you the most productive opinion on your artwork because information technology can bespeak how customers will receive your brand -- not just the people shut to you.

Exist prepared for honest feedback and don't accept whatever negative comments personally. These criticisms will but make your terminal logo better. Use their feedback to select one last concept to develop into a blueprint.

v. Refine Your Chosen Sketch

Congratulations, you're well on your fashion to having an awesome logo! Once you've identified a sketch to run with, information technology's fourth dimension to refine it and perfect the story you started with in Step i.

To begin refining your logo, expect back at the terms you identified when yous first used Thesaurus.com in Step two. Now look at your called sketch and enquire yourself: Which terms does this sketch non however capture? Employ them to develop your sketch further, and add together back the traits you liked best nigh the designs you didn't end up choosing for refinement.

6. Develop Your Logo's Layout on a Free Design Platform

Now, information technology'south time to get technical and turn your newspaper 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:

• Logo Well-baked
• Looka
• DesignMantic
• GraphicSprings

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. 1 of the well-nigh 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 environs.

Your logo doesn't have to exist symmetrical, but it should exist aligned in different contexts. Chances are, you will meet situations when your logo sits against different vertical and horizontal borders, and it should appear fifty-fifty with these surroundings no matter how you might repurpose your logo and where you might publish it.

7. Choice Versatile Colour Options

Your logo's color scheme might look great against the color of the canvas on which y'all designed it, merely somewhen, your logo volition be placed on backgrounds whose colors you didn't outset with.

Allow's revisit our Coca-Cola example from Stride 1. As yous tin see beneath, the visitor'due south logo tin can work across any colored can information technology sells.

Epitome by Jay Moye

Ever be certain to have logo colour variations for both dark and light backgrounds. That might hateful just having to change the color of your font. Or, in some cases, you might have to alter the color of your entire logo.

Create one of each option to make sure y'all'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 accept unlike color variations of your logo.

viii. Cull a Font

This is the fourth dimension 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 behave if your visitor name ever stands on its ain without the symbol.

Believe it or non, your font choice can say a lot nigh your business organisation. Y'all tin choose a font that'due south either serif (with stems on each alphabetic character) or sans serif (no stems) -- also known as classic or modern, respectively.

Stay away from generic fonts that come up standard on every give-and-take processor. Some examples of generic fonts are Times New Roman, Lucida Handwriting, and Comic Sans. These fonts volition only work against you and your visitor 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 cyberspace every bit your business grows. You lot want a logo that can be blown upwardly super big for a billboard, but also scaled down for screening onto the side of a pen.

Every office of your logo should be legible, regardless of the logo's size.

Whew -- still with usa? Nosotros know this might seem a piffling overwhelming, but take it deadening and don't rush yourself. Information technology'due south amend to follow the process through to completion and end with a remarkable make than to showtime over a few months afterward due to a design fault or alter of heart.

In one case you've completed your logo, how can y'all tell if you scored a winner? Piece of cake: Employ our Logo Grader to appraise the sustainability and effectiveness of your new logo.

Co-authored past: Rachel Begg, Julie Hruska, and Britt Schwartz

Originally published November seven, 2019 11:00:00 AM, updated Oct 26 2020

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Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-design-logo

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