What is a Logo? A logo is more than just a static picture. It holds the importance of a brand’s visual identity. Without it, a brand loses its meaning, and the audience can’t identify it.
An ideal logo explains what your business is and what it does. It represents all the values a brand upholds. It delivers the right message, helps people trust you, and sets you apart from the competition.
To leave a good, lasting impression on a customer, having an exceptional custom logo design is crucial.
What Things to Consider Before Creating a Logo
In the era of digitalization, social media platforms play an important role in the idea of building brand recognition. On these platforms, the logo is the only aspect that is always visible.
However, every designer should consider these 16 factors before starting a logo design process.
1. Research And Analyze The Goals Of Your Business
Before designing a logo, you should conduct a comprehensive research about the needs and goals of the business. One way is through a discovery call or brand questionnaire.
Your brand concept must reflect the brand’s ethos and goals. So, write down your core values and create an outline of your brand voice.
To start visualizing what a logo can look like, craft a mood board or mind map using keywords about your brand. Then list possible visualizations like shapes, icon ideas, and letterforms.
Do some research into your niche and business market.
- How do the logos of your competitors look?
- Do they inspire you, or are they just bland?
- Do you see a similar trend in all logos, or are they all totally different?
Look into your target market – Get to know who your customers are, what they do, and what their hopes, dreams, and goals are.
2. Visualize The Value Proposition
When creating a custom logo design, it is also essential to visualize the brand’s value proposition. This means you should find the brand’s uniqueness factor and all its visual touchpoints.
The logo is the foundation for all this work, and it is what makes your logo unique and special. Don’t copy other logos, and find your own way to represent your brand.
A huge reason for being unique is that it gives your logo timelessness and longevity. No matter how much time passes, the logo will always be relevant to your brand and target audience.
So, how do you do this? In the previous point, part of your research was to do a market analysis of other brands in your niche and business.
Look for the gap in pain points, messages, and visualization from other companies. Tap into those spaces and find the perfect connection with your brand.
Also, create another brain map to find your brand’s uniqueness factor.
3. Don’t Rely On Design Trends
Being a trend, design trends just come and go. Some trends remain as periodic fads, while some stay for a long time. While it is necessary to keep up with the new trends, you should not completely rely on them as it leads to your logo and brand becoming dated quickly.
It is better to use your imaginative abilities, consider a unique idea, and make your logo timeless.
4. First, Create Your Custom Logo Design In Black And White
Since the possibilities of picking certain colors are infinite, selecting the right color palette can be overwhelming for clients and designers at the project’s beginning.
For this reason, it can be beneficial to create a custom logo design in black and white at the start of a project and then move it into other colors.
5. Use Negative Space
Negative space is one of the best design techniques that can make a logo tick off all the boxes.
Of course, like every visual creation, it needs to be well done and make sense of the story. The world’s most memorable logos, such as NBC, Adobe, and FedEx, use negative space.
To create a negative space logo, select two solid shapes or letters or icons. Use the small visual to create the negative space effect inside the large element.
6. Consider Scalability
When designing a logo, the idea of scalability plays an excellent role. You may add it to promotional items such as business cards, social media posts, posters, and billboards. So, your logo must work well in all these sizes.
Scalability is just as necessary as the responsiveness of a custom logo design. Meaning how the logo changes or adapts to multiple sizes and orientations. Some brands even animate their logo, so this can be kept in mind too when creating the logo.
Therefore, you will have to ensure it looks good in every possible and relevant format. For this reason, you need to test your logo in both large and small-scale formats or create different versions for different use case scenarios.
7. Make It Versatile
Scalability and versatility go hand in hand – They work together to make your custom logo design look fascinating in any use case, from merchandise to business cards. The core of versatility is to have two or three versions of your logo.
This is where the distinct types of logo work in unison to make a set. The first iteration of a logo set is two versions: one light and one dark theme to use over their complementary background. This way, you will always have a suitable logo, no matter the background’s color.
Similarly, if the logo is horizontal on your website navigation bar, this will not be suitable for a social media profile picture. In this case, you will need an icon or lettermark to fit inside a circle.
8. Get 3D Dimensional
The 3D trend has been growing in all design aspects, but it has always been a thing in logos. A 3D logo has something extra that a flat one does not, and it is not that difficult to do.
There are varying levels of 3D logos, from a full-scale effect on every letter to a simple angular design in the icon.
9. Strive For Minimalism
Having a one-of-a-kind custom logo design does not mean it should be visually complex.
- To avoid complexity, you should rely on the concept of minimalism.
- Only add and eliminate those design elements that make your logo look simple.
- Use a minimal color palette.
- Select shapes, icons, symbols, and font styles that don’t make your visual message too difficult to understand.
Know that less is more. So, the more elements you add to your design, the more complicated it becomes.
10. Make It Relevant
Your logo is prominent on all visual assets. It is what everyone sees when they interact with your brand’s touchpoints.
But if no one understands how your logo matches your brand’s name or story, your brand will not seem relevant or powerful. Therefore, remember to consider both your brand strategy and target audience, as you don’t want to alienate the latter.
To make your logo relevant, you need to know the communication point between your brand and target audience.
Relevance is evident in the colors, shapes, and fonts you use.
- What fonts make sense for your brand style?
- Do the colors represent the feeling you are aiming to convey
- Does the overall shape tell the relevant story of your brand?
These are the question you need to ask yourself when figuring out your logo’s relevance.
11. Make It Memorable
A memorable logo helps you build brand equity and brand loyalty.
When the target audience can tell your logo apart from thousands of others they see every day, your only brand stays in their memory. Just ensure the memory is a positive one!
To make a memorable logo, use timeless colors and fonts that don’t follow current trends. Use visual methods to avoid your logo looking like a simple word with a good font. Another crucial aspect of memorability is the uniqueness factor which we have mentioned above.
Use relevant and exciting visuals to accompany your brand’s name in a font that stands the test of time.
12. Think Outside The Box
The goal of your finished logo should be tied to your brand’s value and aesthetics
- Be creative and think differently until you get something really new.
- Experiment with various styles, such as negative space, and design something that is absolutely innovative.
- Consider hiding elements or telling a story within the custom logo design.
13. Test Your Logo On Multiple Mediums
While scalability plays a vital role in a logo’s success, you should also ensure to test your logo on multiple mediums. A logo on a pamphlet or a business card will look different from the one on a website.
Since there is a huge difference between mobile, desktop, and print-based platforms, test out your logo’s appearance on all of them. It must look great no matter what format it is: printed, digital, or as an app or fav icon.
14. Your Custom Logo Design Needs A Core Concept
The meaning a logo conveys is what makes it effective. A logo expresses the vision, values, and message a certain brand upholds.
The logo design should be memorable and unique, by having a core concept and a simple message. However, don’t fall into the trap of showing exactly what your business does.
15. Get Inspiration From Others
There is a saying by Pablo Picasso, “Good artists copy, Great artists steal.”
So, you can always get inspired by the work of other businesses, but it is not good to directly copy the work of others. This is really no way to stand out from the crowd.
Learn from the success of others, emulate them, and improve on what they have done. Inspiration is necessary for brainstorming innovative ideas because if inspiration is key, then so is creativity.
16. Break The Rules
Once you are aware of the rules, don’t hesitate to break them.
Logos don’t have to be just static pictures. They can change, adapt, and form into anything they want, as long as they tie into the brand’s ethos and goals.
Conclusion
A well-designed logo has the ability to increase customer retention rates, bring in more revenue (indirectly), and allow people to trust you as a credible brand.
Branding campaigns and great advertising are not created overnight. There is a wise saying, “Practice makes a man perfect.” Thus, by considering these 16 factors, you can create an excellent custom logo design. It will build your brand’s visual identity as well as drive business growth.
About the Author!
Design Alligators has repeatedly proven itself to be a reliable and trustworthy digital marketing agency. With an extensive track record of success, there’s no surprise why they are one the best in the biz. If you want to start beating your competitors, become their partner today and take advantage of everything they offer, including logo design services, web design, SEO, content marketing, and much more.
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