How to Create a Professional Logo for Free

You are starting your company and want to create a professional logo. The best option for those with enough resources is to hire a professional designer. Even though people assume that designing a logo is easy, it requires a lot of work.

This explains why designers charge good money for their services. However, some business owners lack a budget to hire professionals. They design their logos on their own.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to design your logo, this article is for you. Here is a guide on how to create a professional logo for free;

Understand Your Brand

The first step when creating a professional logo is understanding your brand and the goals of your business, something known as business discovery. You will not find a one-size-fits-all process for logo creation. Your logo will be judged by how well it represents your business.

This means that you will not create an effective logo if you do not understand the goals of your brand. If you have already created a design brief, then you will find most of the information you need in it. If not, then understanding your brand better gets important.

In addition, evaluate how you feel about your business. How do you want your customers to interact with your business? What do you want them to feel when they see your logo? Answering these questions will help you understand your brand and create a great logo.

Check Out Your Industry

Brands do not belong to a vacuum. When starting a business, you need to look at the standards set for your industry. These are the standards that will guide you when creating your professional logo.

You, therefore, need to look at the logos used by your competitors in the same industry as your business. The most important thing is to ensure that you have not created a generic logo or one that might end up seeming like it belongs to another industry.

Checking out logos in your industry will help you identify the logo techniques that suit your industry. It also helps identify overused, ignored, and rare logo design techniques. This way, you will create a professional logo that stands out and helps you get and keep the attention of your audience.

Decide on the Design Pattern, Color Palette, and Fonts

This is one of the most essential yet challenging steps when creating a professional logo. As discussed above, this step will be easy if you have a design brief. If you do not, then start this process from scratch.

Which design pattern are you going to use? How do you want your logo to look? You also need to think about the colors you are going to use. Ensure that the colors reflect what you feel and want customers to feel about your business.

Part of what makes a custom logo stand out is the style of font that is used for branding. But how do you create a font that reflects the personal brand and aesthetic of your customers?

Brand personality: Check your brand personality and create a font that aligns with it. This will make it easy for your customers to remember your logo.
Font classifications: Understand different font classifications. These include decorative, handwritten, script, serif, and sans-serif. Knowing these classifications will make it easy to generate different font styles for free.
Pair fonts appropriately: Different fonts have different personalities. If you will be using different fonts, do not use more than two. In addition, ensure that the fonts complement each other.
Create legible font: Finally, create a font that is easy to read. Your customers will not understand your brand message if you choose or create a font that is not legible.

Evaluate How You Will Use Your Logo

You will use your logo in different spaces. This influences the design choice of the logo. Even though you might not have an exhaustive list of all the places that might need your logo, simple research can help you identify the most important ones.

This is because such places might influence the design software used or the shape and color model to use. Unfortunately, this might be difficult to identify if you are just starting your business.

Some common spaces where you might use your logo include product packaging, banners and signs, websites, social media platforms, advertisements, letterheads, business cards, emails, and marketing campaigns.

Create and Ask for Feedback

The final is creating digital drafts and asking for feedback. This is important since it gives you insights into what other people think about your logo.

Getting feedback from other people will help you refine your logo. This way, you will create a logo that stands out. Creating a professional logo is not a walk in the park. However, you will find the design process easy if you follow the guidelines discussed in this article.