An outstanding logo is done, of course, by really creative folks. But logo design is not something you can expect a logo company to just churn out automatically everyday. Great logo designs are often created with days, sometimes even weeks, of work. There are plenty of factors to think about when designing a logo, from color scheme to brand image. So design prowess aside, here are the basic pointers that will help you along the way of your logo design journey.

1. Ask about your client’s budget. I don’t mean how much the client is willing to pay you. But how much is the client willing to pay you as well as the printer to get the logo printed on letterhead, billboards, business cards and products? A logo that includes a rainbow in color is going to end up costing much more to be printed than a logo with one or two spot colors.

2. Design with vectors instead of bitmaps. Seasoned designers already know this one, but it’s so important that I want to mention it for any newer designers reading. Vector art is saved as lines with coordinates, while bitmaps are saved as pixels. The biggest reason to save your logo as vector art is because there will be no distortion when you enlarge the logo to billboard size or reduce it down to fit on a pin. A bitmap, on the other hand, will become blurry and pixilated when enlarged.

3. Keep your font choices limited to two. Any more than two fonts will make your logo look messy. You also risk losing a sense of consistency if you use more than two fonts – consumers won’t know which font reflects your brand best and will be confused by your logo’s message. And, remember that fonts can make up the logo itself (look at FedEx as an example).

Use at most 2 fonts on your logo

4. Design your logo without any color at first. Great logos work well whether they are in color or black and white. Your shapes, lines and font choices should stand on their own without leaning on color for recognition. Yes, Target’s logo is associated with red, but even if you saw a black-and-white bulls eye on a package, I bet you’d know it was from Target.

5. Stay away from photos. The best logos do not include photos. That’s because photos are not vector images, which means they get distorted at the slightest enlargement.

6. Get feedback from others. I’m sure whoever created this logo thought that the red sun behind the building was beautiful, but getting a second opinion might have shed the light on the phallic look of The Institute for Eastern Studies’ logo.  

Make sure to get feedback about your logo