A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Logo That Captures the Essence of Your Brand

Creating a logo is one of the most crucial steps when building your business. Your logo, after all, is the face of your brand. It represents your essence — what your brand does, what your brand can do for your customers, and what traits can people associate with you.

However, simply creating a logo is not good enough. Business owners should aim to have a great, memorable, and well-designed logo that perfectly encapsulates what your brand is all about. 

It sounds easier said than done, but don’t worry. We have prepared a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to help you in designing your brand logo. Let’s dive in!  

1. Steps To Creating A Logo

Your logo is your main branding point. It will be placed across all your marketing materials — from your website to business cards to Facebook Ads, so it’s important to get it right. Aside from being visually appealing, it should be unique, memorable, timeless, and of course, clearly get your brand’s message across. Here’s how you can design your perfect logo: 

• Get to know your brand and target audience

The first thing to do is to get a clear understanding of your brand and an in-depth knowledge of your target audience. After all, you won’t be able to design a logo that captures your brand if you don’t know your brand in the first place.

To do this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Why did you start your business?
• What makes you unique from your competitors?
• What problems of your audience that your products can solve?
• What values do you stand for? 

Then take a look at your audience and determine the following:

• Their demographics (age, gender, location)
• Their psychographics (motivation, goals, interests, problems and issues they encounter)
• Their buying habits and patterns (how often they purchase items, what factors influence their decisions, what brands they like, etc.)
• Their digital presence (which social media platforms they use, what kind of online content they watch, what sites they visit, etc.)

By having all of this information, you should be able to form a clearer idea of what your brand is all about. It will also help you in creating a logo that appeals to your target audience. 

• Research about logo types

There are various logo types available. Each type has its own characteristics and unique “feel” associated with it, so choose the one that best suits your business. 

The logo types are:

• Wordmarks – This consists of the business or brand name, written in a specific typeface. Some wordmark logo examples are from Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, Crate & Barrel, and Vimeo. 
• Pictorial marks – These features a symbol or icon that can reflect the brand’s name or identity. You can see these in the logos of Shell, Apple, Target, and Domino’s Pizza. 
• Combination marks – As the name suggests, this logo type combines both text and symbol in their design. For example, the Burger King logo and Mastercard logo. 
• Abstract – These are pretty similar to pictorial marks, except the symbol is not based on a real-life object. Instead, it is more metaphorical and creative. An example of abstract logo design can be seen in Pepsi and Slack. 
• Emblem – Usually features an intricate imagery inside a geometric shape. They give off a very traditional and old-school feel. Some examples are the NFL logo, Harvard logo, and Harley Davidson. 
• Mascot – Mascot logos consist of a character that is meant to represent your brand’s personality. These can be anything from an animal, person, or other fictional character. Popular examples include KFC, Pringles, Cap’n Crunch and Michelin. 

• Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm! 

By now, you should have an idea on the direction of your logo design. So, the next thing to do is to brainstorm for the design itself. 

Some tips to get started: Think of words you want to be associated with your brand. Do you want to be seen as friendly and warm? Grunge and edgy? Reliable and hard-working? Coming up with these words will give you an idea on what the design will look like.

Instead of words, you can also start with a shape. For example, start with a circle. Next, what color do you want the circle to have? Do you want to add gradients, or perhaps a plaid pattern? How about texture? Would the circle look better if it had a thicker outline? What if you add a shadow effect at the bottom right part? And so on.

The important part of brainstorming is to just get ideas out there. Quantity matters over quality here. It’s alright even if the idea is not perfect yet, or if it’s wrong. You can always revise and refine your design. The key thing is to get started. 

• Create a moodboard

Being inspired is important in order to create a good design. And the best way to do this is to create a moodboard or a design board and place all your ideas on there. There is no right or wrong here, and not everything that you place on your moodboard needs to be added in your final logo look. It’s meant to get your creative mind flowing, and to help you spot patterns of things that you like that will be helpful in deciding your final design. Additionally, brand storytelling may boost your design process by creating a meaningful narrative that ties your visual aspects with the heart of your brand.

For your moodboard, add everything that you like and feel inspired by. These can be existing logo designs, color swatches, illustrations, photography, unique typefaces, quotes, patterns, and many more. 

• Decide your color palette and typography

At this stage, you should think about the color palette and typography that you’ll use for your design. Both can affect how your audience perceives your brand.

For example, the color green represents nature and wellness. It’s no wonder that eco-friendly products mainly use this color for their logo designs. On the other hand, yellow symbolizes fun and energy, which is why it’s the common choice for brands that are aimed for kids.

Your typography will also matter. Cursive fonts can give a more elegant and luxurious feel, while clean, sans-serif fonts are perceived as more modern and minimalist. And typography is not just limited to font style. How your layout is (are the letters close together or spaced out, are they slanted to left or right), the size of your letter, is it bolded or underlined, etc., will have an effect as well. 

The key to creating a great logo design is to choose the color and typography that best suits your brand identity.  

• Start designing

Now for the exciting part – let’s get to designing your logo!

There are many ways to create your design. One, you can do this on your own using various editing softwares available. 

However, if you don’t have graphic design experience, you can also try logo maker tools online to help you out. These usually come in premade templates that you can modify, so you won’t have to start from scratch.

Another way is hiring a freelance graphic designer. This is a great option since you can have a professional to design the logo for you, without breaking the bank. Of course, remember that you do get what you pay for, so make sure to still look for quality designers instead of cheaping out. You also need to make sure that you properly communicate what you want to see in the design, so that the final look is in line with your vision. 

2.Wrapping Up

Your logo is your brand’s starting point. It will dictate the overall look and tone of all your future marketing materials, so it’s important to create a design that is not only beautiful but can accurately represent your brand. And we know that sounds like a lot of pressure, but it doesn’t have to be! Just follow the steps outlined above, and you should be on your way to creating the perfect logo of your dreams. 

Author’s Bio

Janella Malapad is an outreach specialist at DesignCrowd. She spends her free time playing volleyball on the court, carrying enthusiasm, and embracing the love of the sport when she’s not lost in the captivating landscapes of poetry. You can reach her through Linkedin or her email janella.malapad@designcrowd.com