3 Great Ways To Design Your Business Logo
A quality logo is an essential part of any business’s marketing and brand-building strategy. Think of McDonald's: any individual in a variety of countries who sees the golden arches recognizes McDonald’s instantly. Although achieving that same level of brand recognition is a long shot, a quality logo can certainly increase your small business’s exposure and reach.
There are three main ways to design your logo. We explore those three options, explaining how the process works and the costs associated with each.
1. Use a DIY Logo Design Service (Logo Garden)
Estimated cost: $20-50
Estimated time invested: 1-2 hours
Time Until Logo Is Ready to Use: 1-3 hours
Pros/Cons: The nice thing about using a DIY service like Logo Garden is that it is quick, easy, and cheap. However, the graphics are pretty generic and you are limited by the design and editor that Logo Garden provides which only allows for basic customization.
How It Works: Logo Garden and other similar DIY logo builders allow you to design your own professional logo using their logo design tools and predesigned templates/graphics. The service itself is technically free (of course, you have to pay to download the image). You pick your industry and then choose from a huge variety of graphics for your logo. You can also search specific terms, like “lightbulb,” and get all graphics related to that term. Once you have picked your main graphic, you can then drag-and-drop your text and graphic around until you are happy with your custom logo. Of course, if you want to download a hi-res image of your logo, you have to pay, generally around $20-$50; this is where Logo Garden gets its cut.
2. Do a Logo Design Contest (99designs, crowdSPRING)
Estimated cost: $400-500
Estimated time invested: 3-4 hours
Time Until Logo Is Ready to Use: 1 Week
Pros/Cons: The main pro of using a design contest like 99designs or crowdSPRING, is that your logo is going to have a level of originality to it that you could not get through a pre-populated DIY business logo design service. Also, you can establish a relationship with a designer that you can use on future projects as well. The main con is the price tag, which generally runs around $400-$500. Also, if you need a logo ASAP, you are in trouble, because the contest takes around a week or so to complete.
How It Works: To begin, you submit a competition brief, with the words you want in the logo, a description of the images/graphics you want to include, the style of the logo, and several example logos similar to the style you are looking for. Then, designers start submitting designs. At first, they will be a little rough, but you are supposed to provide feedback so that the designers can help tweak them. If you get a design you like, you pick the winner and pay the contest fee. If there are none you like, then you do not have to pay. Read "How To Get A Great Logo Design," an interview with 99designs CEO, Patrick Llewellyn, for more info on to get the most out of logo design contests.
3. Hire a Freelancer -- (Upwork, Fiverr)
Estimated cost: $30-250
Estimated time invested: 3-4 hours
Time Until Logo Is Ready to Use: 3-4 days
Pros/Cons: If you find a good logo design freelancer, you have the potential to get a good custom logo at a cheaper cost than a design contest. You have a huge pool of talent to choose from and oftentimes you'll develop a relationship with a designer for further projects. However, you have to wade through a lot of resumes/profiles that are not very good, which is a pain. Also, you do not have the guarantee of a classy end result or your money back, like you would with a design contest.
How it Works: Basically, sites like Upwork (formerly ODesk) and Fiverr are middlemen, connecting people who need work done with people who can do the work. So, if you want a logo designed, you join the site (free), fill out a profile, create a new project with all your important logo information, and then post it to the site. Once it has been posted, freelancers will start submitting/bidding for the job. If a candidate looks good, you can message them and get some more info on their work history or request samples of their work. You can also set a project lump-sum price instead of paying by the hour (i.e., logo design needed for $200). Then you work with the designer to get the look you want via messaging. When finished, you simply pay the designer through Upwork or Fiverr, the site gets its cut, and everyone is happy (or at least that is the goal).
