How to Design the Perfect Logo for Your Small Business

If you’re about to launch your small business or looking to take your marketing to the next level, a great place to begin is by designing a memorable and eye-catching logo. While hiring a graphic designer to create a professional design is obviously recommended, you should already have an idea or two in mind when you go to them with your commission, and there are a number of well-known companies where the founder or founders designed the logo themselves. While a logo won’t make a poor business successful or sink a strong one, getting the logo right can help you solidify your brand and create immediate visual recognition for your potential customers. Here are four tips for designing the perfect logo for your small business.

1: Tease Out Your Brand Identity

If you haven’t put much thought into what your overall branding looks like, the process of designing a logo is the perfect opportunity to start. First, think about your small business – What are your company’s values? What area(s) of your business do you want to emphasize in your branding and marketing? What is the desired “vibe” of your business, and what kind of customers do you hope to attract? While you may already have some idea of what your brand is, designing a logo will help to solidify that brand – but there’s also a risk since once a logo is solidified, it can be a marketing step backward to redesign it.

2: Explore Existing Designs Out in the Wild

Once you have a solid idea of what your company’s individual brand identity is, it’s time to turn your focus outward by exploring existing designs and design principles out in the wild. This will both inspire you in your own design journey and help you to understand what makes an effective logo. First, look up some basic design principles such as color theory and typography. Then, look at the logos of companies in a similar industry to yours, both large and small. Pay attention both to their logos and to their overall marketing. Ask yourself what design elements you feel are effective and what elements don’t work for you as a potential customer.

3: Design Several Draft Logos

In this step, take all your research and creative ideas and put them into action! You’ll want to make several draft logos using different elements and ideas that you’ve come up with. This will allow you to figure out what works and what doesn’t when you’ve gotten your logo ideas out of your head and are able to see them. Some people prefer to use a pencil and paper to sketch, while others will use graphic design software. By making several draft logos, you’ll be able to determine whether the fonts you like are easy to read and fit your company, whether the colors you’ve chosen are pleasing and elicit the right emotional response, and whether any symbols or pictures you want to use evoke the values and brand of your company.

4: Refine and Solidify Your Design

Now that you have several different logo options, it’s time to evaluate your options, solidify your design, and refine it to perfection. Remember, a great logo is simple but memorable, unique, but also evocative of your particular company. Once you’ve chosen one option, it’s time to refine it. Make sure that every aspect is symmetrical, correctly centered, and aesthetically pleasing. Make sure that your design will do well when scaled to different sizes – you don’t want your logo to look messy when put on a letterhead or boring when you’ve scaled it up for a sign company. This is a great step to bring a graphic designer in to finalize the design – a professional will be able to give your logo that extra polish that sets it apart as professional quality.