If you’re an entrepreneur and small business owner without professional design experience, it can be really intimidating to think about how to make your own logo.
Where do you start? What tools do you need? How do you design your logo and make it look professional?
Even though your logo is just a small image, it has a huge impact.
There will come a point in your business life when you’re ready to hire this out to a pro, but if you’re just getting started or have a small budget, then learning how to make a custom logo yourself is well worth the effort.
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Disclaimer: Third-party logos, names, and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
1. Understand your business and define your brand’s identity
When starting the process of designing a logo for your business, the fundamental first step is to understand your brand and define your brand’s identity.
This means thinking about the core values, mission, and vision of your business, as well as identifying your target audience and the message you want to convey.
A well-defined brand identity provides a clearer direction for your logo design, ensuring that it accurately represents your business and resonates with your audience.
So, before diving into the aesthetics of the logo, such as color or typography, invest time in solidifying the essence of your brand. This step is pivotal in creating a logo that truly reflects your business.
Related: What is a logo
2. Best practices for DIY logo design
Before we delve into specific design best practices, it’s essential to cover some general logo design principles. Here are a few important details to keep in mind when creating your own logo:
- Make it legible and concise: Ensure that your logo is easy to remember while effectively communicating your brand’s identity.
- Use a clear color palette: As a general rule, use a maximum of three colors, and ensure your logo also works in black and white.
- Use one to two fonts: To keep your logo recognizable, it’s recommended to use only one font — two fonts at most.
- Test different sizes: Your logo should look great both on a large sign and on a small business card.
- Watch your balance and alignment: Make sure you are aligning different parts of your design properly. If you’re using design software, utilize tools like smart guides and alignment panels to ensure precision.
3. Brainstorm before starting to design your business logo
Take 20 to 30 minutes before you begin to establish a solid foundation for your logo. Ask yourself these questions:
- What image are you trying to convey?
- How can you represent your brand visually?
- What parts of your name and tagline are essential?
- Where will you be displaying your logo?
What image are you trying to convey?
When you sit down to pick a symbol that represents your company, you have to be very clear on what image you’re trying to put out into the world.
What’s your brand personality?
If you are in a more serious field like accounting or financial services, then a cartoon character doesn’t make sense.
If you sell children’s toys, however, then a cartoon character is a perfect fit.
Creating a custom logo is like choosing how to dress. You head to the office in your business casual clothing, not a clown costume … unless you’re a clown. Take a few moments to think about how your business would dress itself.
How can you represent your brand visually?
Now that you’re clear on the image you want to convey, think about what kind of visual best represents that.
If you run a yoga studio, then a lotus flower or bubbling brook might fit the bill for the relaxing feel you’re creating. If you’re a landscaper, maybe you want to use a leaf or a lawnmower in your design.
There’s no need to get too clever with this. Obvious works. And don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel, either. Take a look at what other businesses in your industry are using to visually represent their brands.
Inspiration is everywhere.
What parts of your name and tagline are essential?
Look closely at your business name. Is it really long plus an accompanying tagline — or is it short? Since logos aren’t just used on websites, you need to plan for occasions when the area it fits into are constrained. Like the pocket of a T-shirt, for example, or the back of a baseball cap.
Printed promotional materials have different needs from digital ones.
If your logo name is long, it’s essentially becoming a wide but short rectangle. What if you need it to fit into a square space?
Consider some variations of your design where the wording is stacked so it fits well into these applications.
Where will you be displaying your logo?
You need to be super practical here. Is your logo going to be on a billboard? Or lapel pins? Or both?
Keep your logo as simple as possible so it’s recognizable from a distance or up close. Big or small.
And if wording needs to be included, make sure the font is readable at all sizes. Display fonts like fancy scripts are sometimes hard to read at small sizes.
4. Analyze your competitors and choose the type of logo you want
When you're preparing to create your logo, it's a good idea to look at the logos of other companies that are in the same business category as you. This can give you a sense of what styles are popular and what might resonate with your customers.
However, it's important to remember that your logo needs to be unique to your company; you don't want to copy someone else's design. Instead, use what you learn from looking at other logos as inspiration to help you come up with your own original design.
So now that you have some ideas on what you need from your logo design, you’ll need to decide on the type of logo that you want. The types of logos tend to fall into distinct buckets, so let’s take a look at a handful of the types of logos typically used.
- Brand mark
- Abstract logo
- Wordmarks
- Mascots
- Emblems/badge logo
Brand mark
A brand mark is a symbol meant to represent a brand. These typically include real-world objects that symbolize your brand or suggest your brand’s values or message. Apple’s logo is an example of a brand mark.
Abstract logo
An abstract logo uses geometric shapes, lines, and colors to represent a company or brand instead of realistic or recognizable images.
Wordmarks
Wordmarks are text-based logos. While simplicity can make them challenging to execute, they tend to perform better for established brands whose names are instantly recognizable, like Coca-Cola.
Mascots
A mascot logo features an illustrated character meant to represent a brand. Mascots can be a fun way to appeal, especially to younger audiences. Pringles uses a mascot in their company logo.
Emblems/Badge logo
Emblem logos combine both text and image in a crest-style design. They tend to be ornate and lean more traditional than modern. Starbucks uses an emblem logo.
5. Pick a font for your custom logo
When creating a unique, text-based custom logo, consider your font options. You can use a standard, free font or opt for a paid font if you’re looking for something more unique (Creative Market and Font Shop are great places for affordable, custom fonts).
When choosing a font, think about the type that fits your business. Consider what the following fonts convey:
- Serif: Classic, refined, traditional.
- Sans-Serif: Modern, clean, simple.
- Slab Serifs: Vintage, rustic.
- Script: Refined, elegant.
- Handwritten: Bespoke, custom, casual.
- Display (includes fonts like typewriter, novelty, etc.): Funky, unusual.
Once you’ve selected your font, decide how to arrange your logo. Layering elements allows you to move things around easily to see what looks best. Experiment with altering the text itself by trying:
- Thin and thick versions of the font.
- Bold or italic versions of the font.
- Uppercase.
- Lowercase.
- Drop-shadows.
- Outlines (stroke).
- Stacking words creatively.
- Overlapping letters.
- Staggering letters.
- Spacing out the letters.
- Pushing letters very close together.
- Combining items so they share a common letter or line.
Start simple, then slowly introduce new elements if needed to emphasize or de-emphasize certain words in your logo design.
An example of this method is the CNN logo, where the two “Ns” share a common line. This intentional design choice creates a unique look.
6. Choose the colors of your logo
Color is a powerful tool. Research shows that people make a judgment about a product within 90 seconds, and between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.
So, what do colors generally convey to viewers?
- Red: Confidence, youth, power
- Orange: Friendly, warm, energetic
- Yellow: Happiness, optimism, warmth
- Green: Peace, growth, health
- Blue: Trust, security, stability
- Purple: Luxurious, creative, wise
- Black: Reliable, sophisticated, experienced
- White: Simple, calm, clean
When choosing colors, remember that most logos use three colors or fewer. While there are exceptions, brands generally use fewer colors, especially with trends toward flat and minimalist design.
Consider the logos you see regularly — Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest — they’re all single-color.
While playing with color in your logo is fun, be prepared for situations where you’ll need a grayscale version (often for cost reasons, as color can be expensive).
Ensure your logo stands on its own whether in color or black and white. Don’t let color carry the entire design; ensure the design is strong first, then add color.
7. Experiment and test with your logo
Now that you’ve learned how to design a logo for your business, it’s time to test it out. Here are some ideas for what you’ll want to test your logo on:
- Business cards
- Stationery/invoices/receipts
- Store signs/billboards
- Favicon
- Digital displays (social media, website, mobile devices, POS terminals, etc)
- T-shirts, hats, mugs, etc.
Run a “blink test” by showing your logo to someone for just a second and see if they can understand your brand’s message. This ensures your logo effectively communicates its intended message within seconds.
Designing with multiple dimensions and sizes in mind is important. Using a vector-based image editing tool will help keep your logo looking sharp at any size.
Additionally, test your logo on various colored backgrounds, as not all applications will have a white background. Don’t rely solely on color; ensure your logo works in different contexts.
Once you reach this stage, you can also trademark your logo.
Use multiple logo versions & brand sub marks
To ensure your logo maintains its effectiveness across various platforms and contexts, utilize multiple logo versions and brand sub marks.
This includes creating primary and secondary logo versions, as well as sub marks such as favicons, stickers, and monograms.
Having different versions allows your logo to adapt seamlessly whether it’s displayed on your website, social media profiles, merchandise, or printed materials.
Additionally, providing your logo in various formats like Vector EPS, SVG, and PNG ensures it remains crisp and clear at any size or resolution.
Offering resized versions tailored for specific social media platforms can enhance your brand’s online presence and ensure consistency across all channels.
Final design tips for making a custom logo
Following the above steps will set you up for success, but here are a few more tips to ensure your logo is effective.
How to make a good logo
A great logo should be distinctive and unique, making your business stand out and not easily confused with others. It should also be appropriate, matching what the business or brand does or stands for.
Logos need to look good in different sizes, from tiny app icons to large billboards, and shouldn’t be too complicated or detailed.
A good logo should be versatile, working well in various formats, like on a website, a t-shirt, or a business card, and looking good in both color and black and white.
Be consistent
You’ll use your logo across many marketing channels, likely in both print and digital formats. Ensure your brand is presented consistently by using the same messaging, style of imagery, fonts, and colors.
This inspires trust in your customers and aids brand recognition.
Inconsistency, such as mixing different colors or odd font treatments, dilutes your brand and can make it look unprofessional. Keep it consistent.
Create a design that can evolve easily
Keeping things simple is crucial for logo design—and for logo evolution. If your logo is too complex, it becomes difficult to update later.
Keep just a few important elements intact, like the primary color and font, so that if you need to make changes in the future, only a few tweaks are required while the main identifying features remain intact.
Order some swag with your logo printed on it
Nothing makes your new logo feel more real than custom-printed swag. Seeing your logo on bottles, notebooks, and t-shirts helps solidify your brand’s legitimacy.
Order some goodies and grab extras to hand out around town.
Giving clients and potential clients custom water bottles with your logo keeps your brand top-of-mind better than another business card can.
I consider this the celebratory and most enjoyable step of the logo design process.
Ready to create your custom logo design?
Now that we’ve walked through the steps for designing a simple custom logo, I hope it seems more approachable and accessible.
If you want to DIY your custom logo design, follow these steps and create a well-planned logo that works beautifully across multiple platforms and uses.
Check out how easy it can be to create your own logo using GoDaddy Studio:
It’s no secret that eye-catching visual content is non-negotiable in the social media marketplace. But getting your brand to stand out from the crowd isn’t easy, and not everybody can afford a professional designer to make that happen.
GoDaddy Studio exists to solve this problem, making it quick and easy to create stunning visual content — on web or mobile, for online or print.
Think of it as your brand’s own design studio, with you as the creative director.
The secret to GoDaddy Studio’s ease of use is an enormous, ever-growing collection of professionally designed and curated templates, pre-built styles, and extensive icon libraries.
Utilizing AI-powered tools, you can generate and customize multiple logo ideas quickly. Simply pick a template that suits your needs, including logos, and customize it with your own copy, images, and colors — all with a few clicks.
Create a fresh, professional design in minutes, not hours.
If you go through the tutorial and still feel unsure, don’t hesitate to hire a designer. Many people are nervous about collaborating with designers because they don’t know how designers work, or they’re concerned about costs.
However, you can find affordable and approachable designers to guide you. We recommend GoDaddy’s Logo Design Service as a great place to start if you are considering hiring a professional designer.
Logo-making FAQ
We’ve gone over quite a bit, but you might have a few lingering questions about making a logo. Read on to get those answers!
What is a logo & why is it important to have one?
A logo is a graphic symbol that serves as the visual identity of a brand or business. A good logo facilitates customer recognition of a brand, differentiates the brand from competitors, and communicates the brand’s values.
A logo serves as the foundation of your brand’s identity, making it an important aspect of your business that should not be overlooked.
What elements make a good logo?
Here’s a quick overview of what makes a good business logo:
- Your logo is memorable and unique.
- The design of your logo is balanced.
- The type of logo you’ve created fits your business.
- You can use your logo in a variety of formats.
- The colors used in your logo are appropriate.
- Your logo is future-proof for business expansion.
How can I create my own logo for free?
One way to create your own logo for free is by using a free logo maker, such as GoDaddy Logo Maker. With a free logo maker, you can create your logo from scratch and customize it to your liking.
You can experiment with different fonts, colors, shapes, and even icons. Once you’re happy with your design, you can download your new logo for free.
Ready to design your own logo? Dive in and explore our free logo maker to bring your vision to life.
Where can I find logo templates?
GoDaddy’s free logo designer tool includes hundreds of free logo templates, pre-built styles, and an extensive icon library that you can use to inspire your logo design.
Simply search for “logo” inside the GoDaddy Logo Maker tool to view all of the available logo templates.
What is the standard size for a logo?
There isn’t a standard size for a logo; however, you need to consider where you’ll be using your logo and adjust its size accordingly.
From a favicon to billboards, your logo should be flexible. For a full breakdown on image size requirements on various platforms, check out our ultimate guide to social media image sizes.
How can I make my logo stand out?
There are a few options to enhance your logo from good to great:
- Purchase premium graphics. If art isn’t your strong suit, consider buying graphics. Websites like Creative Market are excellent places for this.
- Use a premium font. Standard fonts can feel a bit stale, so if you’re having issues finding a free font that fits your business, a premium font might be the perfect solution.
- Try creating a border. If you want your custom logo design to be more interesting and feel more contained, you can use a border, background, or shape around it.
Ensure that whatever design tool you choose can create crisp designs and save transparent .png files. Additionally, if the tool allows you to use high-quality fonts you’ve purchased, that’s even better.
