How To Create A Logo For Yourself
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So you want to make your own logo. Well, you've come to the right place. Though often simple in style, logos are deceptively difficult to create. That's because they're not just a combination of pretty graphics with fancy fonts, but actual symbols used to identify a business.
Making your own logo may sound quite daunting if it's your first time trying to make your own logo, but we're here to guide you every step of the way. We'll also direct you to some easy-to-use logo template resources to help you make your own logo. Resources such as Placeit's Logo Maker and business logo templates from Envato Elements will help you design your own logo quickly and professionally.
Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:
Why Are Logos Important?
Before we get into how to make a logo, however, it's worth taking a look at what the qualities of a well-designed logo are. After all, how can you design your own logo if you don't know what makes a logo a success or a failure?
One reason logos are important is because they tell potential clients and customers concisely and effectively what a business is all about. Using very specific, carefully thought-out imagery, shapes, colours, and/or fonts, they make a business instantly recognisable and differentiate it from any other company in their market. Logos are part of a brand's visual identity, and as such, creating an effective logo requires thought, research, planning, and creativity.
5 Qualities to Aim for When You Design Your Own Logo
No matter what kind of business you're designing a logo for, there are five key qualities all well-designed logos have in common, which you should be familiar with and aim for as you start to make your own logo. (Each of these examples is from the Placeit Logo Maker.)
1. Simplicity
This is key when creating a successful logo. A simple logo is easy to recognise and remember, as well as easy to use in a variety of media. Here's an illustration of simplicity in a logo:
2. Relevance
Through the colours and imagery you use, your logo should reflect the image you want your company to convey. You make sure your logo is relevant when it gives viewers a good idea of what your business is all about. Notice the medical symbolism in this psychoanalyst's logo:
3. Timelessness
Your logo should avoid being so trendy that it looks dated 10 or 50 years from the day you put the finishing touches to it. Here's a logo sample with a classic look:
4. Memorability
The whole point of your logo is to identify and differentiate a brand, capture the viewer's attention, and leave a positive and lasting impression. It stands to reason, therefore, that the best logos must be memorable. It's hard to forget the bird symbol on this logo:
5. Versatility
Logos need to be versatile because they need to work across a variety of media. You should be able to scale them down or up, use them in print or on the web, and they should look great under any circumstances.
Now that you're clear about the five qualities your logo should have, let's look at how to make a logo.
How to Create Your Own Logo in 5 Simple Steps
Before you learn how to create your own logo, it's important to understand that logos come in three basic forms:
- An abstract symbol like the Nike swoosh or Apple's bitten apple.
- An illustrative symbol that indicates exactly what the company does, like a vacuum cleaner for a house-cleaning service or a loaf of bread for a bakery.
- A font-based logo like those used by the makers of Coca Cola and Barbie that use distinct type treatments to make the font unique to the brand.
Most companies use a font-based logo to support an abstract or illustrative symbol, a combination which makes logos much easier to remember.
Now let's get down to the nuts and bolts of how to create your own logo. I like this sample from the Placeit Logo Maker:
1. Get Clear About Your Design Goals
The first step you need to take in your do-it-yourself logo design venture is to select a sheet of paper and:
- Write a column of adjectives that describe your brand and the benefits it offers. Think of words like modern, fun, lively, healthy, calming, wholesome, reliable, funky, etc. Let yourself free associate.
- Now start another column on the same sheet of paper and write a list or sketch symbols you think best capture your brand and the benefits it offers. They could be abstract or literal, representing an idea or an object. Again, let yourself free associate. Nothing is off limits at this point.
- Next, pull out your paints, coloured pencils, or pens, and in another column on the same sheet of paper create some colour swatches that reflect the adjectives you used in the first column. For example, if you wrote fun and lively, then select colours you associate with being fun and lively. Likewise, if you wrote adjectives like calming and wholesome, select colours you associate with those adjectives.
2. Study the Competition
Now, study the logos used by your competition and ask yourself what makes their design a success or failure. Think about how to create your own logo differently from theirs.
3. Get Inspired
Study the logos of successful brands that you like outside your business area and ask yourself what makes their logo stand out.
- Does the logo use lines, shapes, images, or illustrations? What do they communicate about the brand? How do they communicate their message?
- If the logo is font-based, is the font serif or sans serif? What makes the font interesting or different? What does it communicate? Fun, stability, innovation, or something else?
- If the logo is a combination of symbol and font, how do the two work together? Does one frame the other in some way, or are they overlapping, stacked, or adjacent?
- Look at the colours used and note the effect they have on you as a viewer. Are they vibrant and exciting, serious and sedate, or calming and down to earth?
- How is negative space used to complement and show off the design?
- How can you incorporate the best qualities from these brands into your own design?
4. Design Your Own Logo
Now it's time to focus on how to design your own logo. Review the notes you made in step one and circle the best ideas from each of the three columns. Select one idea from each column and do a rough sketch bearing in mind everything you've learnt from researching your competition and inspiration. If you're proficient in Adobe Illustrator, at this point you may want to switch to this program to resolve your ideas there.
Unfortunately, this step is where most people get stuck. So if you do, don't worry—later on, we'll go through a couple of simple tools and templates you can use to create a unique, beautifully designed logo with little to no design skills required!
You could make your own logo similar to this sample with the help of a logo maker tool:
5. Reflect and Revise
When you think you've finished your design, put it away and take a break for an hour to a few days. Return to your design after your break with fresh eyes. Remove any elements that don't fit with your logo design goals and make any tweaks to the design you deem necessary. At this point, you can have a trusted friend or colleague look at the design and give you feedback. Ask them:
- What business do they think the logo belongs to?
- What adjectives they would use to describe the business based on the logo?
- What values do they think the logo communicates about the business?
- How do they feel when they look at the logo?
These are all questions designed to uncover whether you've achieved your objective with the logo or if you need to make some adjustments.
Make any additional changes that are necessary to help your logo communicate effectively. And once that's done, you're ready to go live.
How to Design Your Own Logo Online
If you don't draw or in spite of the ideas and prompts you jotted down in step 1, you find yourself staring at the blank paper not knowing where to start, a logo maker can help.
A logo maker like this one at Placeit is a do-it-yourself logo design generator:
This tool was created specifically for novice logo designers who may not yet have developed the skills needed to know how to make a logo or for more experienced designers who need a bit of help with fast-turn-around jobs.
A logo maker provides you with a wide choice of logo templates which you can easily customise by tweaking the graphics, fonts, and colours to make your own logo.
Say you want to create a logo for your or a client's photography business. Well, just follow these five simple steps to discover how to design your own logo online in a matter of minutes.
1. Navigate to Placeit.net and sign up for FREE!
Once you've signed up for Placeit, you can create an account and log in to it:
2. Browse the Logo Templates
Enter the name of the business you're creating the logo for and search for your industry by clicking the drop-down menu in the search bar that says All Industries.
Say you're creating a logo for a photographer called Mona Smalls. Just type her name in the bar and select Photographer from the drop-down menu. All the templates designed specifically for photographers will appear with the name Mona Smalls on them.
Browse the templates and select the one that most appeals to you:
3. Open the Logo Maker
When you click on your chosen template, it'll open up in the logo maker. For my example, I chose the Design a Photography Logo template shown here:
4. Customise Your Logo Template
You can now customise your logo template as much or as little as you like, based on the adjectives and colours you identified in Step 1. The adjectives I'm using for this photography business are feminine, modern, and calm.
Starting with the controls on the left and working from top to bottom, you can add text and change the font style and colour. I changed the business name to Mona Smalls. Then I changed the font to a more feminine style. Next, I changed the colour of the font to a lavender hue, which I consider both calming and feminine:
Moving to the controls on the right and working from top to bottom, you can change the background colour, the graphics, and their colours to ones that better reflect your goals for your logo.
I wanted a graphic that had a modern touch, so I chose the clean, geometric graphic of an eye with a camera shutter inside it, which gives me a modern spin on familiar camera iconography. Then I changed the colour of the icon to reflect my colour scheme. Finally, I removed the background colour from the logo as I wanted a transparent background that I felt would be more useful on a number of different media:
Scrolling down the page, you've got two additional options:
- You can see your selected colours applied to different logo styles for more design inspiration.
- If you get stuck and need even more logo ideas, you can try one of the presets offered.
Here's a look at some of the photography logo presets:
Best of all, as you design your own logo, you can make use of the state-of-the-art mockup tool at the bottom of the page, which shows your logo in a range of real-life scenarios:
5. Download Your Logo
Once you've completed your customisations and are satisfied with your design, hit the Download button at the top of the screen and download your design for a small fee. Or if you regularly need to create logos, flyers, posters, social media banners, etc., then the monthly Placeit plan may be the best deal for you. Here's a look at my finished photography logo with a transparent background:
4 More Logo Samples Designed With the Placeit Logo Maker
Here are a few templates for other businesses to give you an idea of the range of designs available.
1. Online Logo Maker for HR Recruitment Agencies
Customise your own logo in minutes with this do-it-yourself logo design template. With the Online Logo Maker for HR Recruitment Agencies, you've got a choice of colourful gradients, backgrounds, several graphics related to business and human resources, and a good range of layout options to help you create a logo that will stand head and shoulders above your competition's.
2. Coffee Shop Logo Maker with Coffee Grains
If you run a coffee shop and need to know how to create your own logo, the Coffee Shop Logo Maker is a terrific template that offers a wide selection of beautifully illustrated logos that will help you create your own distinct style.
3. Logo Maker for Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is quite the rage these days, and if you're looking to create a logo for your cryptocurrency business, take a look at the Logo Maker for Cryptocurrency template. Customisation is easy, and the template offers a range of great graphics to choose from.
4. Red Carpet Party Planner Business Logo Maker
Setting up a new business can be quite demanding and stressful, but figuring out how to make your own logo doesn't have to be. The Red Carpet Party Planner Business Logo Maker is specifically designed for party planners and includes a wonderful range of graphics with you in mind. Using the logo maker, in just a few minutes you'll have created your own brilliant logo and can move on to the other tasks on your list.
Do It Yourself Logo Design With Envato Elements
As fabulous as Placeit's logo maker is, it isn't the only option for great logo templates. If you've got a bit of experience working with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, then Envato Elements has tons of great templates to help you create the perfect logo:
Now let's look at the logo template designs from Envato Elements:
1. Car Wash Logo
The Car Wash Logo template is a great option if you're wondering how to make your own logo for a carwash business. Simply download the template, open up the EPS and PSD files in Illustrator or Photoshop, and customise as needed.
2. Vivacity Logo Template
Vivacity Logo Template is a great abstract logo template that you can use for a variety of businesses. The package comes with customisable AI and EPS files that make it easy for you to change the colours, shapes, text, font types, positions, and size.
These are just a couple of the many great logo templates available at Envato Elements, and you can download as many as you want for one low monthly price.
Design Your Own Logo Today
Learning how to make a logo from scratch is quite challenging, but like everything else in life, practice is the key. Use the tools at your disposal like the logo maker from Placeit and the ready-made templates at Envato Elements to help you design your own logo. Between the two, they offer hundreds of beautiful templates that will help you create beautiful logos in no time. And don't forget to check out our article on 2021 logo trends to get some of the latest and greatest logo design ideas.
Follow the steps outlined here, check out the templates, and let us know in the comments below if you've found the perfect logo for your company and which one it is. We'd love to hear from you.
Copywriter
Nona Blackman began her freelance copywriting career with Envato in 2017. Since then she has written over 400 articles for the Envato Tuts+ Design & Illustration, Photography & Video, Web Design, Code, Music & Audio, 3D & Motion Graphics, Business and Computer Skills sections, as well as the Envato Blog and the Envato Medium account. Blackman holds a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of the West Indies, a Master's of Fine Arts in Photography, Video and Digital Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Westminster in London.
How To Create A Logo For Yourself
Source: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-make-your-own-logo--cms-32276
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