How to Create a Professional Logo

Whenever we receive a request for a new logo project, we are instantly excited for the business owner or individual who is taking their brand to the next level. But oftentimes, people think that a logo is a quick, easy image to produce. When they come to us, usually there is an elaborate concept design chock full of colors, shapes and dimensions.  Sometimes the concept makes sense but most times it does not.  In this article we discuss what your professional logo design project looks like for a business. In a different article, we will discuss developing a logo for an individual. Although the development process is essentially the same, the individual logo project may have a longer process and include a narrow target audience.  

To begin, a logo should speak to the product or service you are selling. For example, if you are in the real estate industry, your logo would likely include houses. Logos in this industry tend to be more conservative. Logos for specific industries such as Real Estate, Healthcare, Entertainment, Professional Services, Nonprofit, and Corporate [just to name a few] have different acceptable norms. What does that mean? For a hospital, the logo would be clean, welcoming and speak compassion. An education logo, on the other hand, would be bright and appeal to learning experience. the complete opposite. The logo would be colorful and exciting. In the example below, the client came to us with the existing logo, we transformed the logo to a cleaner design that resonated education.

Second, the concept must make sense to a novice in that it should be a large part of  your marketing plan and sales strategy. The logo should be “advertising friendly” and look great on business cards, on your website and throughout social media. In fact, whenever anyone looks at your logo, they should know what service you provide within 5 seconds.

After the concept is decided, it is time to begin the logo design process. Best practices suggest that the logo not include more than 3 colors with one color being the preferred. If you intend to put your logo on promotional products such as drinkware, gift bags, or other merchandise, you will likely pay a fee of at least $70 per color in addition to the the cost of printing. There are several styles for logos: Abstract mark, Mascot Logo, Combination Mark, Emblem Logo, Lettermark, Pictoral Mark or  Wordmark.

, Again, all of these logo samples have no more than 3 colors. Sometimes white and black depending on what you are having printed, may not be considered colors or colors that will incur additional fees. The final logo output should have several versions, but you should always have a VECTOR version High Resolution JPEG and GIF files and a .PNG file for printing. You will also have low resolution files for your website and email. To learn about what all of this means, look at instructions on setting up art files and the preferred logo format for printing.   To learn more about logo design, please visit the TCA Graphic Design page.