3 reasons why you shouldn’t design your own logo!
You’ve just started your business, you know you need a logo and marketing materials, money’s tight, you’re looking at ways to keep costs low. Why pay a designer when you can create your own logo, you can do just as good a of a job right? After all it’s only text with your business name and a bit of clip art….
WRONG
A logo is sooooooo much more than a bit of text and an image. A good logo will convey the core ideas of your business and what your business does. Designing your own logo is a false economy that in the long term will come round to bite you in the bum! If you value your business and are aiming for success, then DIYing isn’t the way to go. When you hire a professional graphic designer to create your logo, you’re investing in their knowledge as well as aesthetic abilities. Designers have studied and researched their field and are experts in it. In the long run creating your own logo can cost you more money in sales and/or business than paying a little bit to have one created by a professional. Why?
1. Unprofessional vibes
Every business wants to come across as trustworthy and experienced and your logo is the face of your brand; it shouldn’t be something you pass off as unimportant. Hiring a graphic designer to create your logo will give you a professional edge compared with a DIY job. Obviously it will be more expensive than creating one yourself, but you’ll be investing in the future success of your business by doing so. You’ll be surprised by how many people can now tell the difference between a logo that has been created by a professional and one that you have either done yourself or got your neighbours son who is taking Art A level to create for you. The question is do you want to give off a professional, or unprofessional vibe with your business?
2. Can you use it anywhere?
It’s important that when you have a logo made, you can use it anywhere and everywhere. This includes large banners, over the top of images, on your website, business cards etc. If you’ve created your logo in Microsoft Word, for example, you won’t be able to size this up to use on a billboard. A professional graphic designer will work with vector rather than raster graphics. Vector graphics allow your logo to be increased to any size needed without losing quality. This is vital when you want signage or posters printed, they will also provide you with your logo in all file formats for use on web, black and white adverts etc.
3. Questionable choices
A professional graphic designer will have years of experience creating logos, a bank of purchased fonts for use with their designs, they will know which fonts and colours look good together and the ones to avoid. They can create unique graphics and illustrations to use in your logo and they will understand the connotations of all these elements applied together. If you’re creating your own logo, your knowledge in the area won’t be as vast and this will come across in your work.
It can be tempting to put too many elements in your own logo but a graphic designer will know exactly what elements are most important. They are masters at creating an eye-catching and meaningful marks to express your brand in a simple way. If you try and design your own logo and end up adding too much, the wrong font, clashing colours etc people will be confused. A graphic designer knows the feeling that different colours, type and icons give to an audience. If you’re targeting toward a specific group of people, there might be a colour or font choice that they’ll associate with. These decisions create trust, as does a professional looking logo design.
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
Ultimately it’s tempting to create your own logo to save some pennies but before you do really take the time to consider what you want from your business.
If you would like help with your branding why not take a look at my packages and services?
