Logo Design for Non-designers

The main purpose of this article is to help non-designers understand the logo design process, general terms, requirements and things to remember when ordering a logo.

When you decided that your company needs a logo you need to think if you need a completely new logo or redesign the old one (of course, if you have it) before searching for a designer. Redesign of the existing logo is often cheaper than design of a new logo.

There are a huge number of companies which offer logo design services. All of them have different prices, number of concepts and revisions offered. Some of them can design business stationery for you. Let’s talk about every point in detail:

Price is important factor; it is very unusual to receive high quality at low price. But Internet is the place where designers work from all over the world and logos are going down in price. You can buy logo of satisfactory quality for $100 (yes, one hundred dollars). One of the very important factors affecting the price is whether design company uses clip-art (premade pictures or graphic elements) or creates unique logos. Be sure to find out this. Custom logos are much better because you will have exclusive logo nobody has.

Number of concepts is a number of ideas for logos which you will be offered after answering the logo design questionnaire. It is good to have more than one idea for logo because you will be able to choose. Usually, you will receive a couple of ideas in different styles. When you choose a concept for your logo you will be able to change it using revisions.

Number of revisions is a number of possible changes which you can request for a chosen logo design concept free of charge. You can change everything including color, font, graphic element, arrangement of the elements. The more revisions you have the more chances you receive a logo of your dream.

Turnaround time is an amount of time needed for work on your logo. Usually design process takes from 3 to 10 days. There are companies, which can do urgent orders but the cost of logo will be higher.

Number of designers – recently design companies started to indicate number of designers working on your project. Big number of designers should guarantee diversity of the concepts, but this factor is difficult to control and it is difficult to find out how many designers really worked on your project.

Stationery design – it is good if your logo design company will design business cards, letterhead and envelope for you. Usually, you will receive a couple of concepts of business stationery to choose from.

Things to remember during the communications with logo design company:
1. Number of colors of your logo. The more colors you have the more expensive will be cost of printing services.
2. Files optimized for print. Be sure to request files optimized for home and professional printing (tif, pdf, jpg, eps).
3. Source files of your logo (ai, cdr). Be sure to request source files of your logo; you may need them in future.
4. Use of photos in logo. It is very bad idea to use photos in your logo. Such logos are overloaded with graphic elements and have non-professional look.
5. Logotype with abbreviation or without company name. It is very difficult to advertise and promote your company with such logo. Logos with acronyms are good for very big companies which have a lot of money for marketing.

Logo is very important for each company and serves the crucial role of successful marketing. It is vitally important to have good logo from the beginning because redesign of logo will cost you a lot because of need to inform you clients about rebranding, change business stationery and logos on signs, cars, etc.