A great logo shows the world who you are, makes people remember your brand, and helps potential customers understand if your product is right for them. Logos communicate all of that through color, symbol and font choice.
Use a mood board to get inspiration for your design. Collect images that speak to you, whether they’re other logos, colors, or illustrations.
Colors
The colors that are used in logos express a lot of information about the brand. Different hues evoke different emotions and send specific messages to consumers. For example, red is associated with passion and courage, but it can also trigger appetites (which is why you see so many food brands using red in their logos). Brown is often associated with earthiness and luxury, while orange is associated with change and the changing of seasons. It can be difficult to get the right colors for your logo, but a good online logo maker will have preset color combinations that you can try out.
Using a color wheel pairing technique can help you decide which colors work well together. Analogous schemes are a harmonious selection of colors that are next to each other, while complementary color schemes are a contrastive selection of opposite colors. The gestalt theory, which suggests that the eye perceives groups of colors as belonging together, should be taken into account when selecting logo colors.
In addition, it is important to remember that colors carry different symbolic meanings in various cultures, so if your brand is going to be international, you should research more thoroughly the cultural associations of certain colors (like traditions, cuisine, myth, etc.). This way you can avoid expressing unintended emotional triggers to the audience of your target market.
Symbols
Symbols can be very powerful tools in logo design. Each symbol has its own history, invokes associations, can have lovers and haters, and can sometimes even have multiple meanings. While they’re not a replacement for text, symbols can help to communicate brand personality in ways that words cannot.
Moreover, they can work across cultural, linguistic and national boundaries. This can be particularly helpful for brands that wish to develop a global presence. Carl Rylatt, a designer at UnitedUs suggests that “there’s nothing more universal than a meaningful symbol,” citing the example of Amazon’s smile icon beneath its name, which communicates both the company’s brand personality and a sense of customer happiness.
As a result, it’s important to carefully research the symbols used in logo designs. Make sure they’re not simply pretty pictures, but rather clear and concise representations of the company’s products or services.
Also, consider how the symbol will look at different sizes. It should be able to scale from the tiny icons in social media posts to the massive billboards of the real world and maintain clarity and legibility throughout. Finally, it’s crucial to gather feedback before settling on a final symbol. This will allow you to refine your design and ensure that the chosen symbol is truly effective in conveying your brand’s story. This is particularly crucial for newer companies and startups with little brand recognition.
Typefaces
While colors and symbols convey a certain tone to your brand, the font that you use in your logo can also help to communicate your message. Fonts are a form of visual language, and they can convey different meanings depending on their size, shape, and style. For example, large, bold fonts can convey a strong and confident tone, while small, serif-based fonts can communicate subtlety and elegance.
Choosing the right typeface is crucial to making your logo recognizable and memorable, but it’s just as important to consider its readability. If the text in your logo is hard to read, it will distract viewers from understanding the meaning of your logo, and may even cause them to ignore it entirely.
The alignment of your font is another important factor to consider. Whether you want your font to be left-aligned, centered, or right-aligned can affect how your viewers perceive the logo, and can also impact its overall balance and harmony.
As you create your logo, it’s essential to keep in mind how it will be used in the future. Your logo will likely appear on a variety of different platforms and devices, from websites and social media to printed materials and packaging. Creating a logo with adaptable typography will ensure that your design remains legible when scaled down to smaller sizes, and will still be readable on screens with various resolutions.
Backgrounds
Choosing the background is a crucial part of logo design. It needs to complement your logo mark and give it the right context, but not distract from it. For example, if your company is an outdoor adventure brand, you might want to choose an image that evokes nature and the outdoors. But if your brand is all about luxury, you might opt for a more refined background like a simple gradient or solid color.
Once you’ve chosen your background, make sure your logo has a transparent version to use on your website and other digital applications. PNG files are the best option for this, as they allow your logo to be seen on top of any color without looking clunky.
You should also consider how your logo will be used in print, as some printing processes can’t reproduce complex backgrounds well. If your logo will be on merchandise or printed on t-shirts, for example, you might want to choose a simpler background.
Once you’ve gathered all of these considerations, it’s time to create some draft designs. Getting started is easy with our online logo maker. It’s intuitive, and allows you to drag and drop icons, fonts and colors to create a custom logo that will stand out from the competition. You can even see what your logo looks like on different types of backgrounds using the mockup tool. And if you’re not happy with any of your drafts, our polling tool, Poll the People, lets you gather actionable feedback from users to get you closer to your ideal logo.