How to Design Effective Business Logos like a Pro

Outlining the brand identity

The logo you design has to perfectly communicate the personality of your brand. But for that to happen, you need to have a clear idea about the core personality of your brand. What makes your brand stand out? What is it all about? 

Here are some of the questions that’ll help establish your brand identity:

• Why did you start the business?
• What makes your brand special?
• What values do you believe in as a brand?
• What makes you better than your competition?
• What are the three words you would use to describe your brand?

Finding inspirations for the design

Searching for logo inspiration is the most difficult part of the designing process. So, the first thing you need to do is to brainstorm ideas by bringing in people from each department. Call up even business partners and friends to get all the perspectives you can. The key is to think out of the box and be a bit different, rather than generic. 

Next up, you need to think as your audience does. Write down all the words that can describe the brand and how you hope it should be perceived. In doing this, you need to think like your target audience and keep in mind what’s significant to them. 

Create a mood board for visual thinking

A mood board is what you need for inspiration if you are someone who needs visual thinking. You can choose to have an actual board where you cut and pin printed images, or you can create one on Pinterest. Keep collecting all the images that attract you – be it graphics, color combinations, or other logos. Go crazy with image collection!

At the end of it all, you will see that your mood board will show all the designs and styles that you get attracted to. It will give a definite direction to your designs.

Keep an eye out on the competition

Your competition is the best place for you to borrow ideas. Take stock of what is out there already and what works/doesn’t work for your audience. When you stalk other businesses, consider all that makes you different from them, and highlight all the positive differences in the logo design. 

The point is to set your brand apart from the competition. They might all be going for monochrome, which gives you all the reason to use some color in your logo. If all the other brands are taking the traditional route, a modern and fun logo might be all that you need.

Select the design style that works

You now have a clear idea about brand personality and source of inspiration; it is time to begin translating all that into your design. Loads of different elements come into play here, from typography, graphics, shapes to colors. In this regard, you can start by picking the correct aesthetic for the brand. 

For instance, you can create a design that is classic and sends out the message that you are rooted and down to earth. On the other hand, vintage or retro logos are all about nostalgia and should only be used if your brand is supposed to evoke those feelings. Is your brand made for a young target customer? Then, let your design be quirky and fun. 

Remember that you don’t need to stick to one aesthetic, and you can mix and match things to come up with something that works.

Moving on to the color palette

Color psychology is complex, and each color conveys a ton of different ideas. The long and short of it is that colors have particular emotions and meanings attached to them and need to be used carefully.

Brands tend to gravitate towards blue (35 percent), red (30 percent), and grayscale (23 percent) in their logos. In fact, 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have the color blue in their logos. But do not let that give you the idea that blue is the only color that works. You can choose monotones or mix and match colors as per your preference.

The endnote

And that’s all! You can now take the right steps and get on with your logo design. Mix your own creativity with these tips to deliver something amazing. Let the world see the brand-new face of the business through its logo.