The Basics of Logo Design

Tools & Resources

Get the Full Course

Create your free Business Center account to get access to the complete Small Business Startup Course and all the worksheets.

Get Started Now

Resources

• Budget Freelancers: Fiverr
• Free DIY Design Software: Canva
• Professional Design Software: Adobe
• Create Your Free Moodboard: GoMoodBoard.com
• Best LLC Formation Service: Northwest

Understanding the Essentials of Modern Logo Design

Much like how fonts and colors play a role in determining your business’s personality, the type of logo design you choose will ultimately help customers identify your business’s brand story.

Your business’s logo should be more than an image – it should be a recognizable cornerstone for your customers to remember you by. Whether you have prior graphic design experience or none at all, you can get started creating your logo yourself with a few simple steps.

The Basics of Logo Design – Transcript

Hey everybody, we're working through defining your company's branding decisions, and in this video, we're going to be using all of the decisions that we've made so far – your brand adjectives, your font, your color palette – all in an effort to create the perfect logo for your small business. No graphic design knowledge needed. 

Hey everybody, Will Scheren here from Small Business Startup Guide by TRUiC. This video is part of a larger course dedicated to helping small business owners cut through the noise and get to the essentials of starting and operating their business. If that sounds like it would be really useful to you, be sure to like and subscribe.

Logos are important. They can be daunting to design, but they're a must for any business, and they're the cornerstone element for how your customers will recognize you when identifying your brand. You want your logo to introduce four things to your customers: explain who you are, explain what you do, explain why you do it, and explain how you do it. You want your logo to communicate value, look nice anywhere you put it, and be able to use it for the life of your business. 

There are way too many things to consider to teach you everything that you'd need to know about graphic design, to design a logo in a course about entrepreneurship. So in this video, we're going to tackle the task of creating a logo for your small business by learning the following items: 

We’ll gain an understanding of modern logo design and some related vocabulary so that you can better speak on what you'd like with your logo. We'll create a mood board of logos that you like. We'll discuss organizing your brand assets and identity and how to communicate them effectively to someone who you would like to design a logo for you. We'll discuss where to get a good designer and how much you should pay for a good design, and some options for tackling how to design your brand logo yourself. Let's dive into it. 

Learning point one – gaining an understanding of modern logo design and related vocabulary to be able to speak on what you would like in your logo. 

We're going to take a look at some logo examples that have been celebrated in the last few years, and we'll categorize them with some key vocabulary that would help you communicate what's great about these logos. This will simultaneously help make your eye for logos better and help you describe what makes a great logo. 

A negative-space logo is a design that uses the background of the image to create another image. Negative-space designing is a unique and ingenious way to convey multiple thoughts and visions. 

Minimal logos make for modern and chic branding that elevate your brand identity. While it's easy to get caught up in overdesigning a concept, the best designers are famed for their ability to take things back to the basics. By focusing on only the very essentials, you can create a stunning, minimalist design that is both eye-catching and timeless. 

Literal logo design reinforces a company's brand and products by having the logo take a literal embodiment of the brand or products. 

Also known as logotypes, wordmarks are purely letter-based and feature the name of the business. We're talking no images, icons, or even emblems. 

Letter marks are logos that are made of letters – whether you call them monograms, initials, or acronyms, they're all in the same category. 

Pictorial marks are the opposite of wordmarks – they're symbols without words. Most easily recognized pictorial logos start out in a lockup that featured the pictorial logo and the company's name. Over time, though, through repeated exposure, the symbol became synonymous with the brand. We'd strongly suggest avoiding pictorial logos if you don't believe that your company has very high brand recognition. 

An abstract mark is a specific type of pictorial logo. Instead of being a recognizable image like an apple or a bird, it's an abstract geometric form that represents your business. If you plan to go with an abstract logo option, be sure to include a wordmark until your brand is very recognizable. 

Mascot logos are logos that involve an illustrated character. Often colorful, sometimes cartoonish, and almost always fun, a mascot logo is a great way to create your very own brand spokesperson. Mascot logos have trended up with personal brands and viral streaming channels in recent years, but they've been a valuable design choice for brands for decades. 

An emblem logo consists of a font inside of a symbol or an icon – think badges, seals, and crests. These logos tend to have a traditional appearance that brings about feelings of heritage and history. This logo choice can have a striking impact, so they're often a choice for schools, long-standing organizations, or government agencies. Men's products and the auto industry are also very fond of emblem logos.

Now, take what you've learned and seen in this video and go search for some great logos. As you find logos, create a mood board of 5 to 10 of your favorite logos. A mood board is an arrangement of images, materials, or pieces of text intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept. You can create a mood board for free at GoMoodboard.com. This site will allow you to neatly arrange as many images as you'd like and will provide you a link that you can share with designers so that they can see your favorite logos side by side. 

Learning Point three – how to organize your brand assets and identity and communicate them to someone who you want to design a logo for you. 

Like I said earlier, designing a logo is tough, and you'll likely have a better logo outcome if you solicit the design services of a professional designer. But you will need to manage that relationship well, ensuring that you effectively communicate your brand information and what you like about logos that you've seen, will be a key factor in getting the perfect logo for your brand when working with a designer. 

Below this video, I’ve provided a link to a template that you can use to communicate with designers what it is that you want them to create for you. Download this template and fill in the blanks to communicate everything that you would need a designer to know to effectively design a logo for your brand. 

Learning point four – where you can find a logo designer and how much to pay for a design. 

When it comes to what a great logo should cost you, you can sometimes get lucky with a designer for as little as $10 to $20, but at those prices, it's unlikely that you'll get someone who's actually invested in learning about your business. They're likely designing from templates and will also likely charge you whether you like their work or not. 

Starting at about $100, you can begin to work with the design professionals who are willing to guarantee their work and are willing to invest in learning about your business brand and customers before providing you with design options and revisions. As you near the thousand-dollar mark, you'll begin to work with the agencies who have teams of designers ready to provide you with exceptional work and dozens of options – all of which are well-thought-out and impressive. Setting your design budget is up to you, but know that you will likely get what you pay for. 

Finding a designer is easier than ever these days. For an inexpensive logo, Fiverr.com and Upwork.com are great bets. On these sites, there are thousands of designers that you can reach out to for logo work from all around the world. Using the script that we mentioned earlier will greatly increase your chances of getting a solid logo for cheap when working with low-cost providers. 

When looking to get a logo at the $100 and above price point, it may be best to look for a designer in your own city. One who has their own website where they keep their body of work. Start by Googling “graphic designer” and the city you live in. Skip any ads, Yelp, Upwork, or Fiverr links, and find designers who have created portfolios online. If they've taken the time to make their own websites, they likely have the professional skills to guarantee their work and give you a great logo. If you're looking for a logo that will be a cut above your competition, you'll likely need to pay for it. 

Working with an agency is the only way that you can guarantee that you won't spin your wheels in creating a logo and that you'll get a logo that's doing more than meeting the minimum professional standard. To find a great agency, a Google search should do the trick, but be sure to stick to the templated script we provided when reaching out. This will help position you as an easy client to work with and will streamline your communication. 

Lastly, if you're wanting to design your own logo, you can certainly do so. If you already have knowledge in the Adobe Creative Suite, that is the industry standard for logo design, and there are thousands of courses on the internet to help you improve your skills. But if you're not ready to dive into Adobe, you can use our TRUiC logo generator to get a free and clean logo fast. Just enter your business name and follow the prompts to unique logo options designed for your business. 

So there you have it, guys – that's our take on getting the perfect logo for your brand. In the next video, we'll use the template that we mentioned and linked below this video to go to Moodboard.com to create a mood board and then use Fiverr.com to secure a logo for the imaginary barbershop that we've been planning in the course. 

This video is part of a step-by-step course that gives small business owners all the essential information they need to start and operate their business. We've provided a link where you can get access to all of the free and discounted business tools that we mentioned in this course below this video. 

Be sure to like to like and subscribe to get more of this content. We'll see you in the next video, and if you have any questions, let us know.