Why Simple Logo Design is Difficult to Create

When clients inspect a simple logo design work submitted by a designer, they tend to take it lightly. Their usual reaction is to dismiss the design as too simple and react by saying that even they can draw such a logo. But, in practice, a simple logo is the most difficult task to accomplish. A client cannot actually draw an effective design without any professional background. So, why is simplicity of the design harder to maintain?

First, thousands of simple logos can be seen everywhere, which means that a designer has to come out a unique simple design every time. To ensure a creative work with simple lines, shapes, few colors, and one or two fonts is certainly hard. An uncomplicated design that you have not seen before requires the designers to do more research about the client’s business and its customers. It is the research that gives hints about the use of design elements in a unique way.

But what makes creating simple logos even more difficult is incorporating a business message. A logo is not merely an emblem or symbol of a particular company, but more than that it conveys a message to the targeted customers. So, if a client’s business is to run fast food restaurant, the logo must invite the young people to the food and so the logo will have colors and other elements for message of energy, aggressiveness and appetite.

Simple logo design examples include logos of Google, Samsung, Nike, Ikea and Apple. Their use of one color, easy fonts and shapes are exemplary. But each such design is from highly qualified professional logo designers, emphasizing the fact that an easy shape and look of a logo requires rich experience behind the efforts put into by the designer.

Understand the client’s brand before working on logo design

Do not take your company logo as a simple image. More than that, the viewers or customers take it as an introduction to a brand and so they will form an opinion of your business based on the impression they get from your logo.

Keep this in mind that the logo you are designing is intended to reach to a specific audience. This tip must guide you prominently in every stage of creating the logo.

[Photo Source: Designhill]

So, do what most of the professional and reputed logo designers are known for. They first of all know all that is to be known about the brand. Many of them will even create a mood board to sketch some imagery in order to remind about the brand’s ideology. There are websites dedicated entirely to the tips for inspirations.

However, when sampling the logos for inspiration, you should not lose your focus by overemphasizing on their aesthetics. Instead, it would be more useful to know the deeper meaning that a great logo has designed in it.

So, when researching your brand for logo design, find out if the brand is more driven by utility or is it focused more on evoking some emotions from the customers? Find out how much the brand is contemporary? You must also know about the customers’ expectations from the brand and what are the aspirations of the company? You can make a quick brand personality assessment of your client’s brand here to get more help.

Another important aspect is to understand what your logo means. Talk to your client and know about the company history and purpose. This should be reflected through the logo design. Every global logo has a meaning. A logo may be a simple design but it should not miss the purpose of its creation.

Your excellent logo design takes time to make an impact

Do not be fooled by the advisers who say that you will start reaping benefits right away from your excellent logo design. A logo is supposed to bring more customers due to its power of catching your customers’ attention. You must keep this aspect of marketing in mind that the customers take their own time, which is generally a longer one, in building a faith in a company’s products or services.

A logo starts working for your company right away when you print if on your stationery, business card, website, leaflets, billboards etc. The logo remains in the memory of the people if the design is impressive with right choice of colors, fonts and other design elements. So, when a new logo is launched in the market, the people just look at it and have an impression on their mind. It is through a gradual process that they start associating your logo with some attributes of your business.

Moreover, your logo design will be as popular as your business is with the people. Those companies that handle business the world over and have presence in many countries, their logos are popular and have attained an iconic status. For example, logos of companies like Apple, Samsung, Nike and Coca-Cola are well known to the people since business of these organizations has spread through the world. So, do not expect your logo design to do some miracle or get an iconic status if your business is restricted to local market.

So, while you have hired professional logo designer and created a great looking logo for your company, you need to take other effective marketing steps also to expand your business. The more your company expands, the higher will be your logo’s popularity with the customers. But it is also true that a great design of your logo helps in getting the attention of the targeted audience. We can say that it is a combined efforts of your logo designer and your company’s expansion plans that a logo gets noticed by increasing number of people.

Guiding Principles of Logo Design

There are some guiding principles for designing of logo and it should be followed by the designers. These principles are essential to make an impact on the market through a logo. Here are some tips to create cutting-edge logos.

Right Concept: Your logo concept must be appropriate in keeping with your business. But to come across the right concept is not easy and hence the designers should look for inspirations, make search, mind mapping, brainstorming etc.

Sketching Is the Key: The designers should prefer hand sketching of the logos instead of using software on computer. The benefits of sketching should be known to the logo creators. You can easily and quickly sketch your ideas whenever they cross your mind while sketching on pc takes time and by then the idea may fly away.

Know Clients' Requirements: The designer must know about the client's requirements from the logo. So, ask all the questions to the client and get the answers. The information should cover all that the designer needs for selecting right elements for a logo. Inquire about company background, business, targeted customers etc beforehand.

Simplicity Rules: A simple logo design is always preferable over complicated one that has clutter of colors and fonts. The people like the design that they can quickly understand without putting any stress on their mind. Follow the rules of creating a simple design with minimal use of colors and other elements.

Testing a Logo for Text: Logos are usually with some text incorporated. Most of them have a tag line or some text written near them or beneath.

Custom logo design and what it means to your business

Logo is one of the most effective marketing tool for your business. This is because your company logo is everywhere right from printed on your products and services to brochures, business cards, leaflets, websites and many others. Advertisements on billboards, newspapers and electronic media are incomplete without displaying your logo. But which type of logo is the most effective?. The answer is that only the logo which is custom-made for your company and business will serve the purpose of achieving the goals.

But what is a custom logo design? This type of logo is the one that is specially create in keeping with the nature of your company and its business of manufacturing or selling of products or services. So, a customized logo means that emblem has been specially tailor made to suit business needs of that particular company. Going by this definition, it is clear that there is no scope for use of stock images and clip arts when you wish to have a custom logo design.

There is a huge importance and impact of custom logo design for your business. Such a logo aims at creating a unique business message. For example, the swoosh logo of sports shoes global company Nike carries a business message of high quality and perfect shoes for sportsmen. The logo is the sign of right and has a certain movement that symbolizes progress and fast pace. Nike's logo is an excellent example of custom logo design as this logo was particularly created for the company.

When you create a logo with the purpose of incorporating a business message through certain design elements of colors, shape, fonts etc., it means that you are targeting certain customers. In order to address an audience through your logo, you need to create it in such manner that the audience gets the message clearly and easily. So, the point of custom logo design is in creating a business message in the logo.

We can say that for an effective logo design, first of all your message for the customers must be unique. Therefore, select your aim and message of your business carefully. Know what exactly you want to do with your company and its business. How will you be useful to the customers and how different you are from your competitors.

Discuss your business plans, customers' lifestyles, products and services you sell and your ambitions for future with your logo designer. A professional and experienced designer understands how to create a custom made logo with the intention of conveying a message and to build a brand image.

What do you mean be an effective logo design?

There is no one in the market who would not like their logo to be the best. For this, it is very important that you know about the classification of a good and a not so good logo design.

Before defining a good logo, it is very important that we are clear with all the basics of what a logo actually is. For a company, a corporate logo is one of the most essential part of its branding process. It is very important that the logo that has been designed for your firm is able to broadcast the identity of your firm along with the general attitude that your firm wants to keep in the market. It is also very important that your logo builds and image that is positive, strong and long lasting.

If you still are unsure about the effect that a good logo has on the minds of the consumers, just think of the logos of some of the successful brands like Nike, Mc Donald’s etc. even in their black and white form, they strike immediately to you. It is very important that you think of all the prospective mediums that may get the broadcast of your logo. The logos are not medium specific, they can be used in any mediums are the same time. You should always convey to your designer about the possible mediums that will get your logo.

It is very important that you tell about the complete nature of your firm along with the industry that your industry falls into to the designers. This way your designer can conduct effective survey and tell you about the design trends that are being followed by your competitors and also the effect that it has on the general populace. If you have any theme color in your mind that you want your company to be represented with, you just have to tell your developer in advance.

Last of all, it is very important that you take assistance of professional service for the results that you desire. Hiring of amateurs will further spoil the image of your company which may be irreparable. It is believed that the logo of the company is its best tool for effective promotion. This tool is so valuable that it can turn the whole image and reputation of a business in the market. The meaning of the logo is not always symbolic; it also represents the aims, aspirations and the roots of the company.

So, it is very important that you think of all the prospective mediums that may get the broadcast of your logo. The logos are not medium specific, they can be used in any mediums are the same time. You should always convey to your designer about the possible mediums that will get your logo.

So, go through from this important guide made for you and be able to know what exactly an effective logo design is?

Logo Designing: The best way of business promotions

It is believed that the logo of the company is its best tool for effective promotion. This tool is so valuable that it can turn the whole image and reputation of a business in the market. The meaning of the logo is not always symbolic; it also represents the aims, aspirations and the roots of the company.

The logo of an organization gets immediate attention from both the competitors and the potential customers. People are seen to easily align themselves more with the logo of the company other than the other promotional and marketing strategies.

It is very important that along with portraying your business, the logo also makes it seem extremely good and hence increase your overall market presence. Not only in the brand positioning and the establishing strategies, the logos are also an extremely important part of the overall image of a firm. The logo should be simple and should have the ability to clear all the doubts that the customer has regarding the product.

You can expect such an output of a logo from the professional designers and companies who in a longer run have earned their name by effective execution of projects. For a logo to have all the desired features, the role of both the designer and the customer is equally important. The customers should brief about their companies in the most detailed manner and the designer should be well recipient of all the information.

It is always a matter of contemplation that is a logo a necessary part of the branding and marketing strategy of a business. The answer to this will be an undeniable, yes, as the logo has now become the first representation of the business in all parts of the market and expo. The logo is able to provide you with a distinctive edge over your completion and also a branding edge which is unique in all senses. In the present time, due to the increase in the number of do it you, companies and freelancers that deal with logo creation and branding, getting a unique and cutting edge logo is now very difficult. A good design company is not that hard to find these days. People are seen to take the help of designers from abroad to create an all new design.

We can definitely say, without conviction that when it comes to marketing and brand value, the logo of the firm is the very base of the company. An ineffective logo design may lead to damage of the image of the business in the market, which could be catastrophic for it.

On the whole, we can say that in order to promote your business and want to see it as a big hit, what all you need to do is to make use of the best logo and logo designing which can simply enhance your business and let you live in a better and efficient way as well.

Latest trends for the designing of the logos

Business brochures and fliers that carry the logo of a business are some of the most important parts of the marketing strategy of any firm. To get the best out of their stationaries, it is very important that a logo is designed which can go on all the products and follows all the latest style and trends that are there in the market. Here are some of the trends that are there in the market in the present times.

• Transparency
  It is very important that you maintain the proper transparency of the logo. The logo should be eye catching so that the attention of the customer gets diverted towards them.
• Design technique
  One of the most popular techniques that is present nowadays is the Web 2.0 in which the WWW technology is used to create logos that are stunning in all senses.
• Font
  Sci-Fi fonts are much into use these days. These fonts basically have straight edges and simple shapes; while some designers tend to make changes on these fonts to create new designs.
• 3D images
  The trend using 3D images on the logo has been followed for far too long. Earlier the designers used to face difficulty while creating the replica of the image exactly on the screen, but now they use organic components for the creation of 3D images.
• Color scales
  People have long going fascination with colors and rainbow, the use of these themes in the logo can also prove to be very effective. Shifting of shades and the use of vibrant colors also ensures that you get the maximum attention from your customers.
• Use of leaves
  The use of the leaves is quite popular when we talk about the trends of logo designing. The leaves can also be used for businesses that have nothing to do with agricultural products as they depict originality, creativity and innovative thinking.

It is a fact that some of these trends are into the market, you can also consider your own personal preferences for the designing of the logos. The main thing behind a logo is not only that it should be visually pleasing but also that it should convey the right message to the customers. The logo of an organization gets immediate attention from both the competitors and the potential customers. People are seen to easily align themselves more with the logo of the company other than the other promotional and marketing strategies.

It is very important that along with portraying your business, the logo also makes it seem extremely good and hence increase your overall market presence.

On the whole, we can say that one should always go through from this important guide whenever he/ she need some tips about the latest trends for the designing of a logo because it is the logo which can help you get your website more popular and a successful website in the entire world.

Tips to get the best logo customized for your business

Designing of the logo is one thing that is equally essential for all businesses, especially for the businesses that have an online presence. It is very important for a business to have some stand out features, these logo provide such platform where the business gets a chance to stand out from its competitors. For the logo to get all the desirable things, it is very important that the perfect design goes with the custom logo. Logo designing may sound easy but it is exactly opposite to what it sounds. For people who want to design these logos on their own, it is very important that he/she has some technical and art skills. For the people who lack in these things, the best option for them to get the best logo would be to hire a professional service provider.

Here are some of the tips that would enable you to get the best customized logos for your business.

• Get logos that are really customized
  There are many types of designers that are out there in the market that will provide you all the offers in which instead of choosing to make a custom logo, you can select a logo from the database of the service provider. It is always advised that you should never go with these kinds of the services as the chances of corporate complication along with undesired results is always there.
• Examine the past design projects
  It is very important that you go through the portfolio of the service provider before hiring them. The most important part of this portfolio is the work history of the organization. For new companies that don’t have any history, you should go instead for the design templates that has been created by the designers.
• Price comparison is very important
  After checking the features of the company, it is very important that you compare the prices of the services and then shortlist them according to the price that they are offering for a particular service.

For a company, a logo is one of the most essential parts of its branding process. It is very important that the logo that has been designed for your firm is certainly able to broadcast the identity of your firm along with the general attitude that your firm wants to keep in the market. It is also very important that your logo builds and image should be positive, strong and long lasting.

So, given above are some of the most important, successful and best tips which can surely help you get the best logo customized for your business because it is the logo which can make your website seem to be a professional one.

So, go ahead and make use of the best logos on your website and make it your website a successful website where a large number of people visit and get some relevant information for what they are searching for.

Common mistakes to avoid in logo creation

Logos are the identity of any business when it comes to branding and market presence. Here are some of the common errors that the designers should avoid for effective and perfect logo designing.

• Designing the logo without knowing about the requirements of the client
  It is very important that you jot down all the requirements of your clients before starting any type of logo designing. Not only it saves time, but it also saves effort and helps you in improving and maturing your initial idea. The briefing also ensures that you stay on the right track and end up with the best possible results.
• Designing the logo for your own use
  It is not always necessary that what seems visually perfect is good in all senses. It is very important that you have a good understanding of the needs and requirements of your target audience. You have to remove your likes and dislikes from your perspective and think from the mindset of the potential consumers as to what are there likes and dislikes. But is also not true that you should blindly follow the likes of the audience, you as a developer have the job of finding innovative ideas out of all the data that is made available to you.
• Not understanding the USP of the customer
  Every business has a unique selling point also known as the USP. It is very important that you are aware of both the USP and the practical side of your client’s business before you design the logo.
• Disregarding the brand positioning
  To improve the present identity that the item has in the market, it is very important that you work upon the present brand positioning of the firm. Brand positioning is the correlation of brand in question with other competitors in the market. You can do so by drafting a perceptual mapping diagram of the different brands and the one you are designing a logo for.
• Not doing all the research that is needed for effective completion
  Brand positioning and USP analysis of the firm is not all the research that you need to do. There is a lot more that you need to do.
  First of all, you should start with getting to know about the primary and secondary competitors in the market of the firm and then also know about the primary target of the company. It is seen many times that the logos are created without thinking where their actual application will be, this if gone wrong can permanently damage the overall image of the firm. It is very important that you have proper communication with your client.
• Disregarding the limitations of reproduction
  It is very important that you consider all the aspects of application of the logo and make it dynamic so that it can do whatever the client wants to do with it in the future.
• Showing off too many options
  Many designers think that more the number of designs, better will be there impression on the client, but in reality, it is quite opposite. All that the client desires is the fact that they get one perfect logo which they can use instantly.
• Using digital trickery methods
  If you have to rely on digital trickery then that means that you are not a good designer. Avoid these practices as they may ultimately lead to corporate complications.
• Not having the ability to explain the design of the logo you created
  This is the worst thing that a designer could do. If you are not able to explain the design of your logo, how do you expect your client to approve it.

Create an impressive brand image with unique logo design

In the modern world of business, competitiveness is the key to survival. If you can take on hundreds of competitors by putting in place a meaningful marketing strategy and quality products or services, then your chances of staying in the market for long term are higher. While you will be covering varied aspects of marketing your company and business, your company logo is one of the most effective tool to lure the customers and also to build a reliable brand image.

But you need to ensure that your logo design is unique. By a unique design it is generally meant that no other company has this design and that it solely belongs to your company and business. A unique logo is based on a concept that the designer has imagined and implemented exclusively for your organization. This means that there is no use of clip arts or stock images in creating a unique logo. Clearly, the customers get attracted to such a logo since they have a unique viewing experience which they find attractive and associate it with high quality of the company's business. This in turn helps in creating a nice brand image for the company in the market.

But how do you create a unique logo design? The client must provide all the relevant details of business and company background to the logo designer. A professional graphic designer will do additional research to find out some minute details beyond your design brief. These details go a long way in determining some crucial design elements that can communicate your business message to the targeted audience in a meaningful way.

A unique logo design is based on a unique concept. So, when a logo designer submits a concept or rough sketch of a logo for your review and approval, make sure that it is unique. If the concept is routine or borrowed from elsewhere, merely colors and fonts are not going to turn it into a unique logo.

Choice of colors and fonts is usually common as these elements are the same everywhere. For example, if you need a logo for your fast food business, most of the colors used will be the same as other competitors have. So, while colors are attractive and clever use of them is required, it is the concept of the logo that you must pay attention to in order to create a unique logo design.

Only such a logo is capable of leaving a lasting impression on your customers and can help in building a brand image for your business in the market.

How logo design influences customers

Modern markets are tough places to handle and companies, both new and established ones, have to make renewed marketing strategies to deal with the competitors. All such strategies aim at attracting the customers for more business and better market share. When it comes to marketing strategies, logo of a company is one of the most effective ways to catch the customers' attention. In fact, logo design impacts the customers' mind in many ways.

It is basically the art of logo design that influences the customers. We know how art has its impact on our minds and lots of our behavior is guided positively by aesthetically designed products that may be ancient or modern. When customers see at a logo, its design starts making an impact on their minds. But only a professionally designed logo can attract the customers and general people.

One of the biggest elements that influences the customers is color. When the audiences sees the colors they get different impression. Each color has a power to evoke emotional response and the designers use this power to good use of attracting the customers and sending a definite business message. For example, red is a color for energy and also for anger. So, a logo designers will incorporate red in the logos that target youth. So, a fast food company usually have red in its logo in order to convey the message of energy. Similarly, a company producing organic foods in a natural way is likely to incorporate green in its logo for message of consuming a healthier food.

Besides colors, the logo designer also make strategic use of fonts and white space to influence the targeted audience. Almost every logo has some text and it is choice of the fonts that can make or break a logo. An influential font is the one that is pleasing on eyes and also matches with the personality of the company's business.

Keep in mind this glaring fact that the customers are influenced the most by simple design. The can easily understand and appreciate a simple looking logo and are fascinated by its power of conveying a message. So, learn from examples of simple logos such as of a swoosh logo of Nike, Apple logo and many others and create a simple looking logo for positive impact on your customers.

Branding your dental practice with medical logo design

Are you planning to open a medical office or dental clinic? Then, know that you are actually in the business of treating the dental patients and so you must market your practice since there are other similar clinics in your area and you need to attract the patients. The importance of logo design for dental clinic business is well known and many such brands have benefited from logos.

A Simple Concept
Your medical logo design should follow a simple concept so that the customers can clearly understand the message behind the design. To have unique concept, make sure to study your competitors' logo and see how yours can stand out.

Make right choices of elements
Make it sure that your medical logo design has right colors and fonts. These are two main elements that can make or break a design and a business as well. Find out if some colors are more used for logos related to your profession of dental practice. Leave the choice of colors entirely to the experienced professional designers who understand how to use colors to express your business through logo. Use simple fonts as they can be read easily from a good distance.

Use of graphics
There is a wide array of graphics to choose from when you plan medical logo design. However, avoid using tried symbol for medical professionals. For dental offices, you can use graphics depicting toothbrushes, teeth or something more creative. There is unlimited number of graphics and symbols available but ensure that they are unique.

Take help of professional logo designers who have experience of doing lots of work in dental logo design. Provide some information about your marketing plans, business and the type of patients you will treat so that the designer can use the details to incorporate right elements in your medical logo design.

Logo design as a tool for business promotion

Business promotion is an essential activity for a company that wishes to enhance its market share. The promotional tools help companies in creating awareness about the products or services they have newly launched or need to augment sales. But can logo also be a tool for promotion? The answer is that yes the design of a logo makes a lot of difference to prospects of a business in the market.

In fact, professional logo designers have it always in mind that the emblem should enhance a company's presence in the business. They visualize and imagine how the customers will react to the logo that they often see on varied media such as billboards, websites, brochures, business cards and many others. It is only trying many concepts that an experienced designer will finally take a logo to the client for approval.

Elements of a logo are specially selected for the purpose of promoting a business. Choice of colors matters a lot as the people get different messages from different colors. Power of colors in evoking of emotion is well established now through varied research. So, blue, green, pink, purple, yellow all major colors carry certain message and the designer selects them to promote a business. For instance, for promotion of food business of a company, the logo may have green predominantly.

Similarly, the designer will incorporate fonts carefully in order to send an appropriate message to the audience. Simple fonts are the greatest looking fonts as well and so they are mostly in use by the logo designers. Some texts near of beneath a logo is also a way to promote a business.

Given the importance of logo design for business promotion, a company should hire professional logo design services to accomplish the job. Provide all the necessary information related to your business to the designer so that it reflects through your logo.

How a website designer helps your cause

When you hire a website designer, it is not merely to create a site for your online business or information. The designer in fact helps you in many ways by meeting your requirements from a website. But you should be aware of the fact that a professional web designer is more than just a creator of your site on the web. So, what exactly a web designer does for you?

Before you offer your website design job to a professional, make sure that you know about the purpose of the site. Your website may be entirely for personal purpose or for business use, it can be for your family members or to advertise a service. The site can be purely informative in nature to pass the knowledge to the visitors. Will the site be selling certain products or you simply want your business to be seen at the number spot on search engine result pages?

In case you do not have a business logo, a professional website designer service company can create a logo for your business. The logo holds important for creating awareness about your business in physical and virtual market. So, you can ask a web designer to design some impressive logo if you do not have it or need to redesign the existing logo.

A web designer can incorporate your choice of colors in your website. With the experience the designer has, you can expect help in getting only perfect quality colors that match with your business and industry. If you have seen a good website that you think will be great to have for your business, the designer can work on your such a feedback.

Another assistance that you can have from website designer service company is to get domain name. If you have not registered a domain name which is the actual address of the website, then the company can take care of this requirement. Some of the website designer companies charge a yearly fees for registering a domain name for your website while others offer this service free of cost.

If you are undecided on how many web pages should your site must have, then the service can help. The designer can suggest some crucial pages such as Order Form pages, besides regular About Us and Home pages. But make sure that your website does not have more pages than required.

The designer also helps in incorporating your choice of graphics and photographs on your website. The designers know how to make pictures look highly professional on websites. So, scanned photographs are usually not the right way to include the pictures in the site. Instead, the designer can suggest use of digital camera for taking the pictures and then to have them designed within the website for a professional look.

To conclude, you can get all the assistance and even valuable tips from professional website designers so that your site looks competitive and useful for the visitors.

How to protect your company logo design copyright

Logo is something very precious to a company and its business. Without this emblem a company simply does not exist for the customers as they cannot identify its business without knowing or seeing the symbol. Therefore, you must be extra cautious in protecting your company's logo design copyright to avoid disputes which are sometimes damaging to a business.

To safeguard your business interest it is necessary that you protect your copyright over your logo. But remember that there is a difference between copyright protection and trademark protection. While both of them protect your brand identity, copyright protects and trademark defends the logo as used in the marketplace.

To protect the copyright, according to the US copyright office, the logo must have sufficient authorship. This means that commonly used symbols and logos containing texts with mere variations in fonts etc are not given copyright. The logo should have certain degree of innovativeness and creativity.

You should ensure these steps to protect copyright of your logo design

1. Make sure that your logo is marked as copyright. This way you can avoid mistakes that other may make to copy your logo and forewarn people about consequences of copying the logo.
2. Register your logo. Once you have registered your company's logo or any other artwork, you protect it from any infringement with the country's copyright services.
3. Produce sufficient evidence. When you register your company's logo for copyright, product all the evidences that shows the process and steps taken for designing of the logo. Mention the author of the logo and why it is a unique work.
4. If you run a joint venture, you should agree in advance as to who will own the logo in case one partner leaves the company.

By taking these steps you can get rid of plagiarism which is a serious threat to the creativity. Do not delay safeguarding your logo copyright and ensure these steps right away.

Brand awareness through logo design

Several small-sized businesses struggle to generate some brand awareness since big players usually get attention from the customers. Though advertising and promotional activities are good strategies for small businesses to sell their products and bringing the attention but it is also an expensive option. At the same time, marketing will not work much if logo design fails to create brand awareness.

Brand awareness is crucial for any business specially if it is smaller. The customers do not have much faith in the products and services if there is no assurance of quality. It is brand identity and awareness that helps in assuring the customers that the services and products from a company are reliable for quality. Once the customers have made their mind about good quality of the products, they can make the purchasing decision.

How logo design ensures brand awareness? The answer is simple, by continuously catching the attention of the targeted audience. As the consumers notice the logo more often, they take notice of the business it represents. It is gradual noticing of a company's presence in the market that ultimately results in branding of the business. Logo is the symbol that the customers see so often and hence is one of the biggest tool of brand awareness.

However, not every logo can help in brand awareness. Only an impressive logo design with a purpose is capable in accomplishing this task. A logo is not merely a symbol but also an introduction to a business. So, smaller businesses should pay extra attention to designing of logo. The aim behind selecting a particular logo design should be to get repeated attention of the audience which is important to creating brand identity and awareness.

Therefore, ensure that your logo design work is in professional hands. For more design concepts, you can also depend on crowd-sourcing sites such as Designhill to get several logo designers working on your project within your affordable budget.

How professional logo designers work

Professional logo designers work in a different way when compared to the amateurs. A professional logo is always distinctive so that the brand it represents is unique and memorable. Clients from across the world look for this kind of work and pay handsomely to the professionals who know their job well.

The first thing they want to ensure is to know more about the client's business and company values, people and culture. Therefore, professionals start on the project with quality conversations with the client with the intention of knowing more about the company, its business and the customers it deals with. This helps them in selecting right design elements. The designer must clearly know what message the clients intends to convey. Also, details of business helps in not creating a totally strange logo.

Professional logo designer will always inquire about the audience of the logo and the competitors. The client can provide some clues about where to take the logo design. For instance, a logo for teenage market will probably require some catchy and loud design.

Researching a client's competition is another major aspect that professional logo designers will ensure. Knowing about the competitors logos will help in avoiding creation of similar looking or worse logos or doing something identical. A professional logo design stands out and sets the client apart from everybody else. So, a professional designer will always know as much as possible about a client's competitors.

The designer will also ask a crucial question to the client about the use of the logo. How and where will the logo be used? This is essential to know because it helps the designers to what should be or should not be done with the logo. For example, airline companies require specially created logos to print them on tail fin of the airplane. The designer has to avoid ideas that do not fit in that large but narrow space and need to draw separate graphics.

Professional designers draw lots of sketches. This is because they want to come out with as many ideas as possible. With lots of ideas available from the sketches, it is easier to pick up the right one that fits in the scheme. They will draw dozens of sketches during the brainstorming phase and then pick only few of them to take them to the client for approval.

Why hire a professional web designer?

Your business website is an essential part of reaching out to the customers. Even when your company caters to the customers in a smaller area such as a city, still you need a website since the people prefer searching online for the products and services. A professional web designer not only creates a site specifically for your business but also for search engines so that your targeted customers can easily locate the site on the search pages.

The importance of a professional web designer is two pronged. First, the designer will incorporate all the features that your customers help in shopping for your services and products easily. An experienced web designer understands the importance of some pages such as home and about us page, contact page etc and creates them with special care. Secondly, the designer will ensure that proper coding and all technical aspects are in place so that search engines can index the site. This helps in making your ecommerce website or any other type of website visible on the search pages when customers look for the products or services on the web.

When shopping for professional web designers, do not forget to ask for their quotes and some basic questions. Though you would prefer to settle for the designer whose costs are the lowest but concerns towards quality standards also are genuine. So, ask the designer, individual or a firm, to provide client references and get in touch of them to know the reliability and quality of the service provided by the website designer. Make it sure that the designer trains you in editing your own pages without taking help every now an then. Ask if the website is entirely search engine friendly.

How many web design concept will the designer submit to you? This is important question to be asked to the designer. A professional designer will provide you three-four concepts and revisions so that you have a better choice to make for final website design to work further on the project.

Avoid templates
There are sites that advocate use of template as a tool for website design. Template websites are closed systems which is too hard to use or understand. Moreover, all the template based websites look the same which means that your website will not stand out and your competitors will benefit from such a routine website of yours.

Why you are a logo designer?

If you are a logo designer, did you ever ponder over the question that why you are in this profession? But, for many professionals such a query simply does not exist as they do not simply care about it. However, most of them can provide a specific answer if questioned about their choice of profession. Here are some of the possible answer to this question and you may be fitting in one of them.

To make huge money
No doubt that money is a leading motivator and there must not be any doubt that many logo designers are in this failed for the sake of earning big bucks. Graphic designers, specially logo designers earn a lavish salary, or at least that is the perception of many. In fact, once you are highly experienced and have some name in logo designing with some really good logos in your name, you can surely demand your high fees and you will get it.

To earn awards
Some people have fascination for awards. No surprises that some logo designers may be in this profession to earn awards and reputation. But they work hard to get awards and hence their ambition for earning rewards and reputation will demand high knowledge and dedication. People who hunger for reputation will find this professional satisfying.

Satisfaction
There is another set of logo designers who find this profession highly satisfying due to their deeper interest. Self-satisfaction is their sole driving force. This is the chief reason for many logo designers to choose it as their career for life.

Designing is in your family
Some logo designers naturally adopt this career as this has been their ancestral profession. They see their father, brother, cousin from their childhood creating graphic designs and they pick up the professional naturally, learning crucial tips in the early years of life. But your own interest in logo designing is also crucial to continue with the career.

Influence of famous designers
Many logo designers choose to be in this profession due to the influence of famous logo designers such as Paul Rand and want to emulate them. This is very natural for the young designer to be under influence of famous personalities of the field. The influence works as a driving force for quality work and you also want to become a famous designer one day.

So, what is your reason for being in the profession of logo designing?

Logo design for strong lasting impression

The global and local markets are today full of competitors in whichever business you are interested to make a mark. The consumers have lots of choices to make when it comes to selecting a brand. Therefore, gaining quick attention of the customers is crucial for every business if it wants to stay in the market. To address the problem of getting the attention, the businesses often design their logos in such way that it not only stands out but gives a specific message also to the consumers.

But to have a logo design that leaves a strong lasting impression, the business owners have to ensure that it carries some professional touch. Without the help of professionals it is usually difficult to create a great logo since the experienced designers know what works well for businesses through a logo. Hence, find out an experienced designer or you can crowd-source your logo work to get many design ideas.

Any logo that should catch the busy consumers' attention must be simple in its appearance and message. In fact, a simple symbol can connect with the audience easily. Examples of simple logos that help selling products to global audience include that of Nike, Apple, Samsung etc. One of the reasons for simplicity of logo being a preferred design is that it is memorable and the customers can promptly recall the business. So, Macdonald's simple M letter in yellow becomes a symbol of some quality restaurants with desirable food. Assess your existing logo for its simplicity and redesign if you find it bit complicated.

A strong logo evokes quick response from the targeted audience by clever use of colors. Since colors make a psychological impact on our thoughts, the designers make strategic use of specific colors. This is the reason that food industry uses green, social networking industry blue, women's clothing business uses pink in logo.

So, make sure that your logo design is capable of creating an impression on the customers.

How to run a successful logo design contest?

Logo design contest start gathering popularity around 2008 and since then they have become inevitable part of designing corporate logos specially for small business. There are instances when even globally established companies also opted for crowdsourcing their logo design work by launching a contest for the designers.

One of the advantages of launching of logo design contest is that you get vast array of the design concepts to choose from. You can tap into a global market of logo designers instead of depending on one or two designers with few sample concepts offered to you.

But not every logo design contest is capable of attracting highly talented logo designers. You need to follow some tips to have many more designers attending to your contest. Here are some tips.

Read the sites terms and conditions
You must be aware of the terms and conditions that a website has set in order to offer its services. Read their FAQ to know more about the use of the site before you launch a logo contest. For safely getting attention of many designers, you can opt for established crowd-sourcing sites such as 99 Designs, DesignCrowd and Designhill. These sites have hundreds of graphic designers who can be of good use to you.

Set a higher prize
It is advisable to set a higher prize when you launch a logo design contest. Higher prize is a sure way to attract highly talented logo designers who are experienced enough to create a unique logo for your business. A generous prize amount is more likely to result in greater number of design entries in response to your contest.

Guarantee your contest
You should guarantee your logo design contest which means that you will be selecting a winner design and guarantee the prize to a winner. Absence of any such guarantee discourages the designers in participating in your contest.

Write a Clear Brief
Make sure that your design brief at the time of launching your logo design contest is clear and states all the requisite details. Let the designers have some more insight into your business by giving them the details about your products or services and your customers. You should also provide references of other logo designs that you like so that the designers can have an inkling of what you really want from the logo.

These are useful tips that you can follow to have attention of more logo designers in response to your logo design contest.

How to ensure professional logo design

Majority of businesses and their companies prefer professional logo design and not ordinary logos. But what is a professional logo design and how is it different from other types of logo? Why should your company logo be designed only by professional hands?

A professional logo design is the one that comes from the hands of experienced logo designers who take into account every aspects of the graphic design. They will lay emphasis on certain design rules and abide by them to create a logo. Though there is always a creative freedom that the designer enjoys but deviation from design theories and rules is very rare. This means that the professional designer has always a justification for use of particular color, font, space, size, shape of a logo.

A professional logo design carries many benefits for a business. Since the designer selects the elements after careful study of your business, its targeted market and customers and other aspects, such a design can successfully carry a business message for the customers. When a logo design can communicate with the customers, it helps in creating a brand identity for the business, which in turn is an assistance in establishing a company name in the market.

To make sure that your company has a professional logo design, you should find out a well qualified logo designer. You can personally interview a designer and check his or her credential after going through portfolio.

Once you have offered the logo design task to a professional designer, do not interfere in the working of the designer. Do not give many instruction as the designer wants creative freedom assured from the client. Since the designer is experienced professional, you can rely on his or her capabilities to deliver you properly designed logo for your company.

Reduce your cost of logo design

Logo design is a highly specialized job that only professionals can perform to the satisfaction of the clients. This is the reason that experienced logo designers are too expensive to hire and majority of small and medium business owners cannot afford them. However, still there are many other proven ways that these businesses can explore to reduce cost of logo design.

A way to cut the costs is to search for a local freelancer logo designers. Many freelancers look for graphic design jobs and they will do the one for a very low fees. Since your smaller business is still in its nascent stage, a good quality logo design will serve the purpose. Majority of freelancers will work within a given budget and submit the designs as per your specification.

Another major source of knowing about affordable logo designers is the web. Since freelancers and logo design companies work through online, they put a website to showcase their logo designing skills. Just type some keywords regarding logo design on Google and you have access to plethora of designers waiting work from your end. But do not forget to compare their logo design packages and select the minimum package that can cover your basic design requirements.

If both the above mentioned ways fail to meet your requirements for low cost logo design, then crowdsourcing is surely an excellent solution. You will come across with dozens of graphic design crowdsourcing sites such as 99 Designs, DesignCrowd and Designhll which have hundreds of logo designers registered with them.

As you become a client with these crowdsourcing design online platforms, all you need to do is to launch a logo design contest. You will be providing a design brief for the guidance of the designers. These sites offer you different packages which are created specially for small and medium companies. You will receive dozens of logo designs with varied concepts by the designers from the world over. At a very low cost, you will be selecting a winning design within a week for your business.

These solutions will surely help you keep down your cost of logo design.

Importance of custom logo design for your business

There are many services on the web to create a logo design for your business. However, many of them will simply use software in order to produce colors, fonts and other elements from a wide range of choices to make a logo. But such mechanical use of software and elements is generally not good if you run a serious business and wish to establish your company amid tough competition. This is where importance of custom- made logo design comes to the fore.

When we talk of custom made logo design, it means that the design is as per the specifications provided by the client or business owner. The graphic designer or logo designer will do all the necessary research about business of the company and its targeted audience. Such a research is basis of creating a customized logo design since the designer wants to send a business message to the customer.

So, what exactly a client should be providing to the logo designer? The client must write an effective design brief for the designer or discuss face to face about the requirements from logo. The business owner should not force a choice of design elements such as fonts and colors while discussing or writing a brief for the logo designer.

Instead, the emphasis should be on providing information for the knowledge of the designer. For instance, the brief can include details about your company and its functioning over the years.
 Describe your ambitions and targets of business. Give information about your competitors also so that a designer has them also in mind to make your logo impressive and visible.

Your customers matters to the logo designer a lot. A logo design targets your customers and tries to lure them into buying your services or products. A memorable logo lingers in memory of the targeted customers and they can make quick buying decision when they intend to have the products or services. So, provide customer related information such as their financial background, social status, gender and age etc.

All such information is helpful in creating a custom made logo design that is specially meant to represent your business and company. Only such a logo is capable of establishing a brand identity for your products and services.

How to create trendy and cool typography logos and posters

If you want to create an impressive profile as a designer to impress clients or you may be working on an existing logo design or poster design project, then here are some tips that will lead you to creating amazing designs.

First, open up a new canvas size 300px high by 600px wide size of new canvas and use the color picker tool.The tool helps you in picking up a right color for your canvas background as per the requirement of your project and its style.Then select the text tool to choose a trendy looking font and set up its size appropriately. You can choose color white.

Now you can start customizing the type by selecting the eraser tool and use brush to erase the edges of the text, its size and style to give it a desired effect. To make the image look cool and trendy, you should add some cool brush strokes and have some retro style dot art brush and spiral brush sets in creative manner to enhance your design.

Add a little color finally by using a diagonal color gradient. You have now a simple and easy way of creating a funky and cool typography for logo design and poster design.

You can engage people in more activities when they visit your Facebook fan page. To do so, you can connect them with YouTube videos, Twitter feed, email sign-up forms, notes and certain accounts. Also, you can monitor all of your activities on the pages to ensure that you have a right marketing strategy in place.

Regular changes in logo design is key to business success

One of the things that mesmerizes the customers or viewers when they look at famous logos of global brands is that they are so powerful and influential that many of them become part of our cultures. We all know that it takes many years of marketing before a brand gets its reputation and name at the global stage. They get reputation only after going through different growth stages.

As we look at famous logos of Nike, Coca Cola, McDonalds and others, we know that we are witnessing a rich heritage. Their logo tells a story of corporate success which is the result of customers recognizing their business.

Another thing to remember about these well established logos is that their companies made changes whenever it was necessary to do so. Smaller companies and business should take this lesson from global brands that there should be change in logo design to suit the changing times and current design trends.

Take the examples of logo history of Nestle, BP, BBC, Google, Walmart and Wikipedia. These global brands have been making required improvements without any hesitation and attachment to old logos. Timely and regular changes in their logo design within a short span of a decade or so is the reason behind success of their business. Imaging a company trying to do business in the changed circumstances with old logo. That is unlikely to work for most of the companies aspiring to grab larger market share.

Menu Design Should Reflect Your Restaurant Personality

As a restaurant owner or as a graphic designer, you should not take your menu design lightly since it has the potential to make or break your restaurant business. Menu is like an introduction to your restaurant or hotel to the visitors. When they look at your menu card in the restaurant table or online, they get the impression about what is going to be served on the table in terms of taste of the food and style of serving.

When creating a menu design, it should be kept in mind that the design should look like an extension of the restaurant brand. A menu represents and creates the reputation of a restaurant. This means that a clean, trendy and sleek design is desirable to make a good impression on the food lovers.

One of the ways to create a great menu design is to incorporate certain elements of the interior design of the restaurant into the menu design. A menu card that has design elements similar to that of the restaurant design style will boost confidence of the visitors in your business as it highlights a professional approach.

Bringing your restaurant interiors design elements in the menu card design is always a winning combination. You can also experiment with colors. For instance, if your restaurant caters mainly to families, you can create a menu design with warm colors such as red, yellow and brown. For such an enviornment fonts choice also should be made carefully. You can settle for sans-serif fonts to give a feeling of family environemnt through menu design for your restaurant.

How Brochures Help in Making Purchasing Decision

Brochures appear as a simple printed sheet. But they serve a crucial purpose of introducing and marketing a company’s products and services to the customers. Hence, it is important that brochures address all the issues that are usually seen as hurdles in converting the visitors into buyers. Brochures should help the customers in making purchasing decisions.

Make sure that a brochure design compares the products and services well with the offerings from the competitors. The content should discuss pros of the company’s business and products for the customers while giving details about cons of the same type of products from the competitor company. This will help the customers in making their mind about purchasing your products. The comparison should provide a list of reasons for buying your products.

A brochure must also answer critical questions that customers usually have about the products and services. Answering the questions will help in eliminating the doubts that customers have in mind when taking a look at products for the first time. A brochure design that clears all doubts for the customers helps in selling the products.

Another tip for turning a brochure into an effective marketing tool is that its design should be capable of retaining the recipients’ attention for a longer duration.

To achieve this, brochures should be printed in pleasing colors. In addition to printing, the designers should make judicious use of negative space or white space which is crucial for brochures to create a feel of luxury about the company and its business.

Printing Cost Also Determines Choice of Logo Colors

Colors play an important role in creating a logo design. When a designer is planning to incorporate various design elements, careful choice of colors gives a distinctive appearance to a logo. However, since logos are printed on all promotional items, cost of printing also plays a role in selection of colors.

To reduce printing costs, a logo design should preferably have minimum numbers of colors. Cost of printing a logo on promotional items and apparel only goes up if the logo has several colors. A company’s cost of screen printing also goes up because of logo design using many colors. Ideally, a logo should avoid having more than two colors. Besides printing costs, logo designers should use minimum number of colors also to ensure that logo is clearly visible to them. Shading of colors is not advisable as it will only create some confusion for the viewers. Make sure that if two or more colors are in use, they all are separated from each others for clarity.

Shades of colors also contribute to enhancing of printing costs. Note that most of the non-digital printing processes are capable of printing only solid colors and not color patterns that are multi-colored. So, avoid shading a color that fades or shades into darker colors so that the logo does not face printing issues.

Generally, printers have ink colors such as black, dark green, yellow and red. But when the printers need to make specific colors that have been used in a logo, they charge extra, which escalates the cost of printing the logo for the company.

Typography Trends for 2014

Each year we see new website design trends changing. With these changes come the new trends in the elements that help in creating the sites. Typography is one of the most important design elements. In this year, we are going to be witness to some exciting changes about how the designers use fonts. Here are some of the trends developing in the current year.

Use of handwritten fonts on social media is steadily picking up. These types of fonts are being used for breaking the monotonous appearance of conventional fonts. With unclean lines and irregular size of the letters, the handwritten fonts create human touch to the text in logo design, brochure design etc.

Mix and match of fonts are likely to be a new trend this year. Careful combining of different fonts can create artistic look of a site. The designers mix the fonts to achieve a combined impact of different personalities of fonts for web pages.

Large fonts are likely to emerge as a new trend. This is because of emphasis on content than aesthetic of the web design. Increased screen resolutions have already made standard 12 point font irrelevant. So, web page headings may have large fonts for quick and effective communication with the viewers. You can clearly mention about your choice of fonts in design brief when you launch website designer contest on a crowdsourcing site.

Remove Distractions from Your Web Pages for Better Conversations

Is your website facing the problem of having a high bounce rate i.e. the visitors leaving the web pages immediately? This is a serious problem as the whole aim behind creating a website is to bring visitors, making them stay at the site and converting them into buyers of your products or services. But if the visitors leave your site quickly, then there may be many errors in webpage design. One of the usual problems is that such sites have many distractions for the visitors.

When users visit these sites, they come across various buttons and numerous colors splashed around the pages. These tabs distract the visitors and they ultimately leave the page in frustration. So, keep the webpage design neat and clean with few icons displayed.

Your site may be offering too many action options and visual inputs, which confuses the visitors. So, remove unnecessary links and product information from the website pages. If you cannot remove the less important buttons on landing pages, minimize them.

For a better conversion rate, shrink the menu or remove it completely. Big headers and side bars are no longer important to the modern users. So, remove them right away to cut the clutter. If your website has irrelevant images, get rid of them.

Find out how much of this clutter can you remove from your web pages. You will get a better conversion rate by ensuring these measures in webpage design.