How to Get a Good Logo

This is part six of the One Week Blog Challenge series.

A bad logo on a good design is like a sock on a birthday cake

Your logo is often the first thing that people will see when they visit your website. While it’s possible to just use a text header when starting out, I’d highly recommend getting a really good logo from the beginning (bad logo design can actually cost you). Logos help establish your brand and credibility.

Last night I put together a list of 21 Creative and Minimal Logo Designs to Inspire You (also check out more logo resources at the end of that post). I would suggest not following any specific design trend – you don’t want to end up with a logo that looks ridiculous in 2 years. Go with something that is timeless and goes well on business cards and stationary, not just your website. Here’s a good list of critiques of popular logos that you might find useful and a site dedicated to the art.

Here are a few options to get a good logo:

Designing Your Own

Cost: Free

If you have Photoshop or Illustrator skills and are good at design, you can always design your own logo or follow some great tutorials online. If you have the creativity and skills to go this route check out some of these posts:

• Logo Design Process from Concept to Completion
• The Ultimate Guide to Designing a Logo
• Dissecting Logo Design
• 10 Principles og Logo Design Masters

Paying a Designer

Cost: $200-600+

You can work one on one with a good designer (like Patrick Winfield, Joan Pons Moll, or Logoholic) that has a good portfolio or find a Logo Design Shop with a decent portfolio. I prefer an individual since a lot of logo shops just churn out logos without the detail and care you usually get from a creative individual.

You can also go through a site like LogoPond, find some logo styles you like and lookup the designer. Then you can view their profile, which often lists their personal website and contact information and see if they can create a logo for you. This would take a little more legwork on your part, but would ensure you get someone whose work you like.

Putting on a Logo Contest

Cost: $100-300+

This has become a good option with the rising popularity of sites like 99designs, Hatchwise, Crowdspring, and Designers Contest become fairly popular with the. Here are some comparisons of a few services.

With these services, you set a price you are willing to pay, create a design brief (tell them what you want), and have a live competition where designers from all over compete for the prize. You can even suggest tweaks are you go along and eliminate designs you don’t like.

On the cheaper end, you can also use Digital Point forums to put on a logo contest. Once in a while you can get a good design for something like $50 (most often you get mixed results though).

What I’m Doing for HotShotPhoto.com

For now I am designing my own logo in Photoshop. It might be temporary and I might go with a logo design contest depending on the feedback I get from people.

Let me know what you think of this design:

Your feedback is appreciated.

Next up – grab social media accounts