You’ve been checking off your list and there is that one line item that you have not been able to focus on – your logo. While your logo is not in itself a brand, it does play an important role. A logo stands out to your customers and prospects, while creating a visual identity for your business and what it stands for. Because of the importance that a logo plays, it’s important that it’s created correctly.
How to Create a Logo from Scratch
A logo is a little bit science and a little bit art. Maybe the left side of your brain is whip-smart and highly efficient, but its counterpart on the right has trouble knowing exactly what to do. How can you get your creative juices flowing enough to take on the big, important task of designing your company’s public-facing mark? And how will you know if it’s designed well?
If you can’t hire a pro and still need to check this task off your list, here are some tips to help you create a logo from scratch.
Getting Started: What Makes a Logo Great?
You know a great logo when you see one. It helps to know what makes it so good. Here are five things the stand-outs typically have in common:
- Distilled: They are simple and easy to get, especially since you only have about three seconds to grab someone’s attention.
- Different: They stand out from the competition. They hit you harder because they’re unexpected. They relate to customers like no one else can.
- Authentic: They speak visually with a clear, true voice. They accurately bring the company’s personality to life.
- Adaptive: They work well big and small, in digital or print media, and in all different advertising vehicles.
- Timeless: They stand the test of time with classic good looks, even when the hottest fad goes stale.
What’s the Difference Between a Logo and a Brand?
People often confuse these two terms. In a nutshell: Your brand is a broad umbrella of all communications with your customer—from an ad campaign to how your company answers the phone. Your logo is one visual piece of the brand. When designed thoughtfully, a logo can set the right tone and integrate with all the other parts of your brand.
Anatomy of a Logo
A logo is usually made up of one or all of these components:
- Logomark: A design element that can be used alone or together with the company name to symbolize it. Starbucks has their siren and Target has their bullseye.
- Logotype or Wordmark: Typography is a great tool for turning the company name into a unique mark. A thoughtfully crafted combination of letter shapes might need nothing more. Examples: Google’s easy, friendly multi-colored letters and FedEx’s blocky, tightly-space ones. Ever notice the arrow shape created by negative space between its “E” and “x”?
- Full Logo: This is the combination of the mark and typography. They should be designed to work together as one cohesive unit.
Since a variety of media opportunities means a variety of different formats, most companies design versions of the mark and typography together and separately, so they can be used in everything from packaging, to social media, to favicons, and more.
Related: Establish Brand Consistency the Easy Way.
How to Create a Logo (in 10 Easy Steps):
Roll up your sleeves and let’s get started!
- Perform a Brand Audit: Before you can dive into designing, you’ll need to have a deep understanding of your brand. A brand audit explores the pillars of your company, defining the values, vision, goals, audience personas, competition, positioning, and communication strategies.
This is also the time to identify all decision makers who will need to approve the final logo. Gather as much information and insights they can provide. Include them in the formulation process as early as possible so you don’t have to return to the drawing board when you thought you were done. As you complete many of these steps below, get approval from all important stakeholders before investing time in the next step so you’ll have an easier time reaching full buy-in at completion.
- Write the Creative Brief: With the audit in hand, you can write a creative brief that provides goals, parameters, tone and focus for the logo design. The information you compile should culminate into a single, specific, clear line of direction that you will use to explore many visual solutions. Keep this direction to one sentence. It’s tempting to write a long, complicated one that covers everything. Don’t. Your work will be better for it. As you proceed through the next steps, keep referring back to this single creative focus to stay on track.
- Get Inspired: More than just a useful hack, this step can be a lot of fun! Explore art galleries, trendy urban neighborhoods, visually stunning movies, anything that inspires you creatively. Study the design choices, color, and typography. Turn to online resources for inspiration, like Pinterest and design competition annuals like Print and Communication Arts. By pouring through the best work you can find, you’re setting a high bar and warming up your brain to think that way. It’s like getting ready for a tennis match by hitting with Serena Williams. You’ll simply perform at a higher level. Find your category and see how other people solved their own marketing challenges.
- Brainstorm Ideas: How you brainstorm best is entirely personal.
- If your style of thinking is to talk things out, grab a creative partner and start sketching your thoughts together. You’ll help each other see things from different angles and springboard off each other’s ideas.
- Do you work better alone at first? Find a quiet hole where no one will find you and work your head off. Don’t come out for a long time. Give yourself enough time to find every expected solution and then throw them out. Only at that point will you start finding the interesting stuff, perhaps even a gem or two. Then, you might find it helpful to bounce your ideas off a creative partner and brainstorm together further.
- Do you like brainstorming with others? Find creative directors, project managers, designers, and ask across departments. Pick their brains!
Whatever your brainstorming style, here are a few ideas to try if you’re stuck: list all the words that describe the brand and then try to find every visual way to say them. Make unexpected visual connections between your product and its unique benefits. Now is not the time to edit your thoughts. Let them flow freely. You’ll spend plenty of time editing later.
- Sketch and Play: Pick up a pencil or marker and a sketchpad. Draw your ideas and see how they take shape. Let your imagination run wild. Don’t use a computer unless you absolutely must. Your brain might enjoy a new space to frolic and play.
If drawing isn’t your thing, remember a strong logo can start with a very simple shape like a circle or square. Look at the shape of the letters in the name of your brand and see how they fit together. What if you turn one letter sideways? How does that affect the feel of everything else? What do the negative spaces look like? Is there a letter that has an interesting shape when you try different fonts, like a “G” or a “Q”? Can you customize one letter to make it special?Convert your best hand-drawn ideas into vector files with Adobe Illustrator or your app of choice. Continue to explore, craft, and edit your designs with a whole new set of digital tools.Remember to check your compass—the creative brief—to make sure you haven’t veered off track from the creative focus.
- Just Walk Away: Make sure to leave time in your schedule to step away and just forget about it all for a while. Then come back and you’ll see your ideas with fresh eyes. You’ll gain a new perspective and see things you couldn’t see before. You’ll find better ideas than you had originally. You’ll see what’s working and what’s not. Trust your instincts. Your uniqueness is your strength.
- Get Feedback and Narrow Down: In an ongoing refinement of ideas, ask your colleagues for feedback. Refer to your creative brief to help determine together which designs align and work the hardest. Decide which logos to eliminate and which to present to the ultimate decision makers.
There’s no hard and fast number to present, but aim for three or four. Too many gets overwhelming quickly. Edit hard. Cut anything that doesn’t feel exactly right. You can always revisit your runner-ups later if you really need to.
- See What Sticks: Now it’s time to throw the spaghetti against the wall and see how your designs look in the real world. Put the logo in mockups of a landing page, a mobile app, the side of a truck—to see what it looks like in the wilds of advertising. You can run tests by creating similar landing pages with only the logo as the variable, per Steven Cook’s brilliantly easy idea that was created to test names. Run an online ad to your target audience and track which page converted best.
- Unveil the Winner: Hopefully you have a clear top choice at this point. Clean up any small changes and add all of its iterations with instructions on how to use it to your brand guidelines. Now it’s time to celebrate the birth of your logo-baby and share it with the world!
Related: Case Study: Senior Helpers’ Brand Management
Find the Logo You Love
Logos are a special blend of science and art, as you’ve seen from the psychology behind them, their constant refinement, and the magic that is the final art. When you land on the right one, you’ll know it both intellectually and physically, since it will just feel right. Need help with brand strategy, a new logo, or a logo refresh? For over 60 years, we’ve helped companies learn how to develop their brand and find the logo that captures their spirit. We’d love to help you find yours.
