How to Create a Logo
(Step-by-Step Guide)
Why Create a Logo?
After or even before you create your own website or set up an Online Store, or start your business idea, you will likely think of creating a logo to create brand identity for your business..
After all, logos appear in a number of places:
- On your website, usually linking back to your Homepage
- As a Favicon or an App icon (typically square)
- On your business card
- On social media (Facebook pages, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter)
- On marketing materials - on PDFs (free downloads, paid reports or ebooks, presentations)
In this in-depth guide, I'll show you how to create your logo, even if you have no design experience.
Logo Design Considerations
What to consider when creating your logo:
- What emotions are you trying to evoke? Are you a company selling fashion, a sports company, a digital company, a financial company, or a non-profit, charity?
- What font you will use to evoke these emotions?
- Do you use a text based logo, or one with an icon? What icon will be suitable?
- What color do you want your logo to be? What color conveys the emotions you want to represent?
- Have you considered light vs dark background? Do you have your logo in color, but also in black and white? Are your logo in transparent PNG format?
Thinking through the above questions, referencing some logo examples is a good starting point to creating your own logo.
I'll also share with you some practical ways you can get your logo up in a short amount of time.
3 Ways to Create a Logo
I will assume that you are not familiar with photoshop or adept with design skills, so the recommendations below will focus on easy to use tools, or engage external help.
(1) Create a Logo with Online Graphic Tools
Canva
Canva is one of the better known online graphic tools. Through their platform, you can create a myriad of images, typically catered towards social media.
The platform also allows you to create a logo, which I'll show you below.
Select one of the prebuilt templates that is closes to what you have in mind, and customize from there.
You can change the font and text easily.
You can also search for and replace the icon.
Note that some of the graphics are premium though, so you'll either have to purchase those graphics or upgrade to a pro plan.
You can duplicate the image and create versions of the logo, so you can export them at the same time.
You can either pay for the image or upgrade to Pro.
Ideally, I'll like to export the images with a transparent background, unfortunately that's part of the Pro plan.
Make edits to the text, images.
I'll also suggest to make duplicates of the logo you created, to create versions for different scenarios.
It's also super helpful to create versions of your icons with NO background, so they could be used for website favicons, on dark backgrounds, etc.
Once you have created the various versions, it's time to export.
When exporting, export the PNG transparent version of it.
This is so that if you had created logos with no background, they can be used in a number of scenarios (like dark webpage, marketing materials with dark background.
Here are some of the icons I created and exported with Crello.
(2) Use a Logo Generator
What's a Logo Generator?
These are web tools that takes the work out of creating a website on your behalf. Instead of you finding the assets (icons, fonts, colors) and designing them yourself, these Logo Generators create numerous options based on your preferences.
There are both free (Hatchful by Shopify, Squarespace Logo Generator) and paid options (MyBrandNewLogo, Looka).
Why Use a Premium Logo Generator?
They incorporate good design concepts, iterate NUMEROUS logo combinations and options based on your inputs, takes into account your design inputs, and most importantly generate your logo in various formats.
These logo generators also usually have a very easy to use interface to get you started in no time.
Hatchful
Hatchful is a logo generator created by Shopify.
Whether you have built a Shopify Store (Online Store Guide), or just want to make use of this logo generator, Hatchful is a simple and basic option available to you.
To get started, fill in some of your preferences from the step by step wizard.
Add in your business name.
Several options are automatically created for you.
Once you pick one, you can still edit the Fonts, Colors, Icons and Layouts.
Once you have your desired design, you can download your new logo.
You'll be required to create a free account to download the logos.
Once you have downloaded the logos, there will be several formats created for you.
Overall, I found Hatchful to be fast, and easy to use.
The icons and fonts available are pretty basic though, and I didn't find them particularly professional looking.
Then again, it is free so feel free to give it a try!
Squarespace Logo
Squarespace has a Logo Generator that is also free to use.
To get started, enter your business name.
You can change out the by searching for a suitable one.
Fonts and colors and sizes are editable.
When you are ready, click "Save Logo" on the bottom left of the page.
You'll be required to create a free account.
3 versions of the logo will be downloadable - Color PNG, White PNG, Black PNG.
Overall, this was easy to use and fast, and great to use for basic, simple logos.
What it lacks are premium fonts and colors, logo suggestions, and ability to download in more than 3 simple format.
If you want to use your logo in various situations (e.g. business card, social media page, website), you might have to create all these assets manually.
Again, this option is free so feel free to give it a try.
Using a Logo Generator like MyBrandNewLogo is one of the easiest way to get a professional looking logo without breaking the bank.
The fact that you get to customize the colors, fonts, icons ensures that your input is always considered in the logo design.
Start by entering your company name.
Enter up to 3 keywords to help MyBrandNewLogo suggestion suitable ideas.
Select colors that suit your brand, or let MyBrandNewLogo do the work.
NUMEROUS options will be generated.
Change out the keywords to help you get icons that are a better fit for your business.
Once you have decided on your logo, it's time to create an account and save it.
Purchase your logo for EUR 50.
Numerous assets types will be created for you which are social media ready - taking out all the work that you will have to do.
You will get a whole package of icons in different formats - colored, black/white, transparent background, icon only, icon with text. (extracted from the sample package below)
They also include automatically sized logos for various usage - Facebook Page, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, email and Favicon for your website, so you literally do not need to lift a single to resize/format them for the different use cases.
It's plug and play!
Pick your industry to help with icons and colors.
Select options based on the "feel" of your desired logo.
Select colors.
Select icons via search - up to 5 options.
NUMEROUS options will be made available, which you can futher customize.
Once you select a design, they continue to be easily customizable and suggestions continue to be provided to you.
Once you are happy, click "Download".
You'll be asked to upgrade to download the logo (this is the best part, check out what's available).
A whole array of files will be provided to you - for all sorts of scenario you can think of.
This is one of the best reasons to go for a premium logo generator like Looka. You save a lot of time and manual work, and your logos are professionally created!
Sign up for the premium option at $7.99/mth to download all these available formats.
Why pay monthly? Once you signed up, you can go in, download all the assets, and cancel the membership. All the assets you download continue to be yours!
There is also the option to pay a one-time fee of $65 instead for all these files, but the option above is far more economical.
Looka is an AMAZING premium logo generator tool which takes all the heavy lifting out of logo creation.
You don't need to have design sense, or navigate various image editing software. Professionally looking suggestions will be made available to you, and you can simply select and customize.
A small fee for this one time logo creation of ALL the branding assets is a small price to pay for this level of convenience. I cannot recommend Looka any more highly!
(3) Hire a Designer
The last option is probably the traditional way to create a logo.
This is usually the costliest option (with some exceptions), as this means someone is dedicated to customizing a logo based on your requirement.
There are obviously numerous design agencies out there, and it may be difficult to sift them out if you don't have a recommendation.
Below are 2 great options at different price points.
Fiverr
Fiverr is one of the cheapest place you can engage a designer, or a freelancer for any task for that matter.
When I started BootstrapWebsite in 2014, I took this route to create a logo since I was design challenged.
This was my original logo (I've since changed the design).
It does take time to sift through all the various online options.
This could be a viable option if you want to engage somebody. However, if I had the option available to me then, I would probably go for a logo generator like Looka or MyBrandNewLogo.
99Designs
99Designs is a company that connects you to numerous designers.
The price point is quite a bit higher, and the Logo & Social Media pack starts at $399.
If you pay $399 for the Bronze level, after you specify your requirement, you will get up to 30 design concepts to choose from.
These are custom made from designers, and you pick your favorite logo among these designers.
This option is the most expensive, but also the most customized, if having a "perfect" logo is critically important to you.
