How to Make a Logo for Your Business

We’ve written extensively about what makes a good logo, whether you should design your own logo, and whether you even need a logo design in the first place. If you’ve missed any of those articles, take a few minutes to catch up and read them now.

So if you’ve decided you do need one, here’s how to make a logo.

Fortunately, there are plenty of options. Before we delve into how to use our logo design software, here are a few other options you can choose from when you’re ready to create a logo.

4 Ways to Make a Unique Company Logo

1. You can hire a design or advertising agency.

You’ve seen Mad Men right? Once upon a time when companies of any size needed design work to support their brands, they called men like Don Draper to do the work. These advertising and design gurus would put together a few ideas, mount them on presentation boards, then sit with you in a conference room and talk through their ideas and thinking. Actually, some still do this.

Working with a design agency is a very good way to get a few good design ideas. Ad Agencies pay professional designers big salaries to create attractive logos and sell them to their customers. And if you have $5000-$10,000 or more, it may be a good option for you.

2. You can hire a freelance designer.

Often times hiring a big agency (or even a small agency) just isn’t possible. Maybe you don’t have the budget, or several weeks for them to do the work. Lucky for you, there’s another option. You can contact a freelance designer. That’s how Nike’s Phil Knight made his swoosh logo.

There are literally thousands of designers (some very good, others less so) who know how to make a logo and are willing to work with you. When done right, they’ll meet with you, discuss your expectations and needs, sketch several designs (the more work they do, the more they charge), and walk you through their thinking. Then, they’ll work on revisions and deliver something that meets your needs.

For many small businesses, this can be a good option. But again, you’ll need some money to get the design you are after—project rates tend to start around $200 and go up into the thousands, depending on experience and how much work they do. And, you’ll need to do your homework. Some freelancers put up websites without any real experience. Buyer beware.

3. You can hold a logo design contest.

Okay, we mention this only because you’ll see these sites online, but honestly, they are not a good option for most small businesses. These websites promise to send your project to dozens or even hundreds of designers to make a logo so you have hundreds of designs to choose from.

So what’s not to like? Well, it is well-documented that these sites don’t pay the designers who create the bulk of the options you are presented with. Only the winning designer gets paid. Experienced designers don’t work for free. And that creates an incentive for inexperienced designers to post plagiarized work, or to spend very little time on the designs they create. If you choose to create a logo using a contest site, be very careful. We don’t recommend it. The better option is to…

4. You can make a logo using an online logo maker.

First, let us say upfront, we have a bias here. We believe that our logo maker software is the best option for many people just getting started in business. If you’re not sure if a do-it-yourself logo is right for you, read this, then decide.

Why consider making your own logo? A few reasons: You can do it in as little as seven minutes. You have thousands of icon options to choose from (far more than you can get working with an agency, designer, or contest site). And you call the shots. Perhaps most importantly, using our software, you can design up to six different logos for free (you only pay if you decide to download high-resolution files).

In fact, while you might ultimately decide to hire a freelance designer or an agency to create your logo, why not try to make a logo on your own first? If you don’t like the results, then go to one of the other options.

What it takes to make a logo with our LogoMaker

First, before you begin, you need to have an idea of what you want to create. You could just launch the Logomaker application and play around, but if you know what you are after, you’ll save a bit of time and effort creating your logo. We have a free Beginner’s Guide to Logo Design that will help you think through the process.

Once you know what you want to create, the next step is to launch the online logo builder.

Once you’ve opened the application, you’ll see more than 30 different categories of businesses to choose from. If your business fits into one of these categories, click it. If not, enter a word or two in the search box to see icons related to your business.

Now you’ll see dozens or even hundreds of professionally designed icons that you can choose from. We have nearly 10,000 to choose from, so the results that match your search may be displayed on several pages. Pick the one you like best.

Next you can add up to two lines of text. And you can arrange them any way you want as you make your logo. Then you can add colors by picking them from our palette. The number at the top tells you the HTML code for the color you pick so you can match it to other parts of your logo (or to your website).

Lastly, you can rotate, flip, and arrange the elements of your logo in any way that makes sense. Then click save. It’s that easy.

It may not seem like it at first, but knowing how to make a logo takes less effort (and money) than you might believe. Try the LogoMaker app (or one of the other online apps like it) and see what you come up with. If that doesn’t work, find an experienced designer who can customize a design for your business. One way or the other, you’ll end up with a logo you can love. Good luck and let us know how it goes.