10 Logo Design Tips to Take Your Brand to the Next Level [+ Logo Templates]
BY ALICE CORNER, APR 09, 2019
Whether you’re a beginner or just in need of a refresh, follow our logo design tips and tricks to help you make really good logos.
Logos are really important. They can be daunting to design but are a must for any business and are the cornerstone of any good business brand, or even a personal brand. You want your logo to explain who you are and what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. You’ll include it on social posts, presentation decks, marketing materials, business cards and more. That’s a lot of heavy lifting for one little graphic to do, right?
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with a whole load of logo design tips, tricks and walkthroughs from an actual Graphic Designer (i.e. me). Whether you’re a beginner or just in need of a refresh, follow these tips and tricks to help you get started and make a really good logo today.
A good logo should:
- Be eye catching
- Be timeless
- Be memorable
- Work well large or small
- Encompass your brand vibe
What on earth is a brand vibe, and how do I find mine?
A brand vibe is how you want your brand to make people feel. Sometimes you might hear it called a brand personality. It should be consistent across your logo and content, and clearly set out in your brand guidelines.
Just like we want our law firms to feel trustworthy and respectable, we want our yoga teachers to feel calm and gentle, and our party planners to feel organized and fun.
With me so far?
Once you discover your brand vibe, the logo making process gets 100 times easier* (*not scientifically proven). Spend five minutes right now writing down three or four words that encompass how you want your brand to make people feel. Got them? Good, you can scroll down to the logo design tips now.
Learn more about brand:
So I’ve included some of Venngage’s top logo templates. If any feel right you can get started on your design straight away! If you need more inspiration, check out those beautiful company logos from famous brands.
Top 10 Logo Design Tips & Tricks:
- A picture paints a thousand words
- Use empty space to keep your logo design clean
- Use shapes to think inside the box
- Imagine your logo in situ
- Color is key for good design
- Be literal with your logo
- Be authoritative with your logo
- Create visual salience with a pop of color
- Don’t reinvent the wheel when designing your logo
- Don’t be afraid to rejig the wheel
Ready to get started? Check out our top 10 logo design tips and tricks below:
1. A picture paints a thousand words
A logo is a visual representation of your brand, so why tell people what you do if you could just show them? Use simple icons to communicate who you are.
Remember the brand vibe we talked about earlier? The use of the plane and the sun here makes me feel excited and reminds me of warm sunny holidays.
Visual puns are a designers best friend too – here Frost Bites have created a quirky ‘bite’ to show that they are a food company. This is really easily achieved by overlapping two circles that are the same color as the background.
Video Walk Through: How to personalize this logo
My imaginary Taco shop needs a new logo. I love the ‘bite’ design on the Frost Bites logo, but we sell delicious Mexican food – not ice cream!
So instead of a circle I used a taco graphic. Watch how I did it below:
2. Use empty space to keep your logo design clean
Coco Chanel once said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”. The same thing applies with design.
You want to make sure people can read your logo from a distance, or when it’s really small – keeping it “clean” (designer speak for “lots of blank space”) will achieve this. Here we can see how Savant Yoga have utilized blank space to invoke a feeling of calmness.
This logo for a photography businesses takes minimalism to a new level, and creates a camera icon out of two brackets and the letter “o”. This logo proves that you don’t always need a whole bunch of colors or symbols to create a great logo.
3. Use shapes to think inside the box
Shapes are a really great way to make your logo stand out. For this logo for a law firm, we put the firm’s name inside boxes to achieve a professional look.
This also helps with cross platform branding, as a “boxed in” logo works well digitally, as well on letterhead, presentations, and merchandise such as pens or lanyards.
Shapes with interesting gradients or textures can be used to push your design to the next level. Here, FX Technology Co. have used a blue to yellow gradient to achieve a really sleek look. They’ve used a laptop icon inside the circle, but this could easily be changed to a bunch of flowers, a wine glass, or a stack of weights depending on your business.
4. Imagine your logo in situ
Boy, wouldn’t this logo look great on a coffee cup! When designing your logo try make sure you think about its intended uses – are you looking to use it on a uniform, or will it just be for your website design? You can use a Mock Up Generator to see how your logo will look in situ.
It’s also good to think about how you’re going to promote yourself when creating a logo. If you’re going to be doing a lot of networking, create a logo that looks good on business cards. This coral logo from Bird View Photography is arranged in a horizontal manner, and would look great on a card.
5. Color is key for good logo design
Monochromatic doesn’t always mean black and white! Sometimes black and white can seem harsh on our eyes, especially if we’re trying to create a feeling of zen. You can use various shades of the same color to create subtle contrasts within your logo.
By using various shades of pink, Serenity have created a logo that is very calming – much like their spa must be. If you’ve been searching for the answer to, “what is good design?” well now you know.
6. Be literal with your logo
Your name is Electric Box Productions, huh? Have you considered…putting electricity inside a box? Sometimes it really is that easy.
If your name is a thing, make that thing your logo. Don’t be afraid to lean into the obvious, there’s a reason that Apple’s logo is, well, an apple.
Brewery logos are notorious for being literal, like this Cigar City Brewing logo:
Take note that some brands had to protect themselves from competitors infringing their registered trademark because the words at their logos weren’t translated into local languages or the logos literally depicted something that wasn’t translated.
For example, a South Africa-based Jordan Winery that was using an image of a chameleon on their sued one of the competitors, Lovane, for featuring the images of chameleons on their merchandize.
The problem was the word “uluvane” meant “chameleon” in one of the local languages in the country, which could potentially create associations between the two brands. The two brands spent quite a lot of time in court and paid thousands in legal fees, which could have been avoided had Jordan Winery used trademark translation to protect their brand.
Gold Spoon have been really clever with their logo design here, and have used their titular icon (the gold spoon) as a replacement for the letter “p”. This reminds me a lot of the hidden arrow in the Fedex logo and just goes to show that literal doesn’t mean boring.
7. Be authoritative with your logo
Be literal, but make sure it fits your organization. Some companies, such as non profits, demand a level of seriousness that a production company or ice cream shop can get away without.
Ask yourself: if I saw this logo for the first time, would I trust this company? Here Helping Hands have managed to create a logo that is both respectable but uses hands. Muted colors and serif fonts are key here, and stop the logo from feeling too cartoonish.
A font can go a long way to helping you create the right logo – luckily Venngage has huge font library (we recently added 40 new fonts!) and we even have blog posts about font psychology to make sure you nail it.
Video Walk Through: How to personalize this logo
I like how this logo feels and think it really fits my brand vibe, but my organization is called “Head Start” not “Helping Hands”.
So instead of hands, I used arrows. Watch how I did it below:
In our blog post “How to pick colors“ we explained how color is the most valuable tool in a designers toolbox, and it’s no different when making a logo.
In design, we call this “visual salience”. It’s a great term to use in casual conversation to impress your designer friends, and also a great way to create an impactful logo.
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One easy way to create visual salience is to use a ‘pop’ of color.
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