How to Make a Website Logo

The Starbucks logo uses typography and graphics

A logo is the identifying part of a company, website, person. Think about companies that are well known. What are their logos? The one to the left is for Starbucks. That is a logo. This is specifically for a website logo, but you can use these same steps for any logo.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe InDesign
• A program like those, but NOT MS Paint or like programs.
• Paper
• Pencil
• Colored Pencils
• Markers

1. Think about what your purpose is for your website. Are you a shopping website, an info website, a forum website? Ask yourself what is the purpose of your website and what you want your logo to convey.

2. 

   After you have figured what you want from your logo, it is time to do some research on other websites that have a similar purpose as yours. Most website-based companies use typography involving just their name. For instance, if you will be a shopping site, look at sites like Amazon.com or Ebay.

3. Both Ebay and amazon just deal with their name.

   Keep it simple. You want a logo to read quickly so that eventually when you see that logo you think of that company or website immediately.

4. Mens Warehouse uses the first letters of their name to make their logo look like a tux.

   Once you have everything researched, start sketching. Sketch everything, even if you think it is stupid. Have at least ten sketches. They can include simple graphics, but they do need to include the name.

5. Narrow down your sketches to the three best ones. Then make comps out of them. Comps are rendered versions of the sketches that are not the final product, but pretty close. You can render them with markers, colored pencils, or pen. If you're tech savvy you can use Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop. You can download the 30 day trial at their website.

6. While you are working on your comps, be sure to pay attention to what type face you are using. The type face is what people usually refer to as fonts (fonts are the actual file the type face comes in). If you are working by hand, print out the site name in all of the fonts you have on your computer to test them out. If you don't like any of the fonts, there are a lot of free font sites online. Be sure that the type face you choose fits with your website.

7. After you have finished your comps, there may be a logo that just pops out at you. If there isn't, show it around to some people to get input on which logo you should push further.

8. Once you have the final logo picked out, you're not quite done. Chances are you need to tweak it some more until you are completely happy with it.

9. The final step is to make it so the logo can be put up on your website. If you used a program, save/export it has a jpg, gif, or png. These file formats are the easiest to put on the internet. If you did the logo by hand, scan it in as one of those formats. Congratulations, you have made a logo for your website!

Tips & Warnings

• Use a type face that fits your website, don't just use any old one.

• Since you are doing this for a site, try playing with just type.

• If you decide to use the programs and don't know anything about them, use online tutorials to learn the basics.

• If you don't have the time, patience, or artistic ability to do this yourself, higher a designer (I'm one if you hadn't noticed ;-D).

Resources

• The Adobe programs
• Adobe Program Tutorials
• Free Fonts