When you think about some of the biggest brands in the world like Nike or McDonald’s, most of the times, you may picture their logos in your head automatically. This is the power of branding and an impressive logo design. Now, there are quite a few ways of designing a logo where you can hire a professional logo designer, a professional agency, or choose to create it yourself.
While you might find designing a logo on your own slightly challenging but in the end, it could be most rewarding. You know your business in the best possible way and can come up with a design that makes a strong impact on the consumers. By designing a logo yourself, you also end up saving money on designers which can be utilized elsewhere.
So, it can be a good idea to make your own brand identity design and here are some creative ways to do it.
1. Begin with Your Brand Story
You might already be familiar with the fact that most of the iconic logos that you see around you have been inspired by their brand stories. The stripes in the logo for Adidas represent a mountain and gives people an idea of the challenges they can overcome. While FedEx has incorporated a hidden arrow in their logo graphics to showcase speed and determination.
Similarly, you can also take inspiration from your brand’s story and build upon it. Think about why you wanted to start the business and what you hope to achieve with it in the future. Incorporate the message that you want to send your consumers within the design.
If you have an organic farm business, you can take inspiration from elements of nature such as land, air or water. This is could help you build upon your creativity and come up with a powerful design that makes a lasting impression on the audience.
2. Customize the Logo Design
When you are designing your own logo, you might come across quite a few impressive designs that you may get inspired by. While there is nothing wrong with that, you have to try and avoid designing a logo that looks like it’s been taken from another brand. As a business owner, you should be as original as possible with your logo and make it custom.
For instance, if you are designing a real estate logo for your agency, then try to stay away from the clichés and work on the design that represents your business and stands true to it. If you are choosing a budget logo generator to design your logo or similar tools, you will find several stock images and templates for logos. Customize the designs and add or remove shapes, images, or icons that do not seem relevant to your business.
3. Design in Black and White
Before you go on to choosing a color scheme for your logo, you should create a version of it in black and white. This will help give you an idea of further improvements which might be required and changes to the design you may want to make. Other than that, with a black and white logo, you can also test out the versatility of your logo.
So look at it this way. On some mediums, the logo might be displayed without its colors and when you begin designing it in black and white, you can see how it appears that way. If the design doesn’t seem that appealing or loses its value in black and white, then you can tweak it in the beginning only and turn it around.
4. Experiment with Basic Shapes
Usually, even professional designers stress upon the shapes in logos and build upon them first. So you can begin to design like a pro by focusing on the basic and simplest of shapes. At the end, this will help bring symmetry to the logo design and you can also create something more complex.
People view shapes in a certain way, particularly in logos and they can be used to send out positive and negative messages. For example, circles and ellipses are considered to be friendly while an angular or jagged edge could symbolize aggressiveness.
In order to design an attractive logo that catches the eye instantly, you can try and experiment with these various shapes. Layer or overlap similar shapes to come up with an outline or eliminate a few lines from some of the shapes to leave a negative space.
5. Work on a Grid
While this may require a bit of technical knowledge, it could help you in designing your own logo. By working on a grid, you may get the desired results without a lot of revisions and draft sketches. Grids are basically a tool for designers that allow them to create appealing and organized graphics which connect with the audience immediately. If working on grids and similar tools is not your cup of tea, you can hire NavaWeb Design to help you out with brand identity designs.
Wrapping Up
These are some of the creative ways that you can make your own logo and in a short span of time. However, keep in mind that you should not try to rush things. Creativity takes time and so does the design process. In the end, you want a logo that requires minimal upgrades over the years and is timeless throughout different trends.
