How to Make Your Own Business Logo

When starting your own small business saving costs is a must, so designing and making your own logo is a good way to save some money. Follow these simple steps to design a great logo.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Photo Editing Software (Optional)
• Time

1. Making a logo for a company can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. You can even build one in Microsoft Word if you want to. However, if you are familiar with photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, than you can build the whole image from scratch. If you are not familiar with Photoshop or another photo editing software then read step 2 and then skip to step 9.

2. A good logo is easy to read and not complicated. Think about some of the companies you deal with every day and look at their logos. Think about Intel, or Heinz, or Kellogg's. They all have simple logos that are easy to read and are recognizable. So think simple and brainstorm on what elements you would like in your logo. Ask yourself, do I want just the company name, or do I want to add pictures? Figure out what you are looking for and then go to step 3 if you are designing it yourself or step 9 if you want a little assistance.

3. If you are going to create the logo yourself. The best place to start is with your Company's name and finding a font that you like. You can use standard fonts that are provided by Adobe Photoshop or you can look for free fonts on the web. There are a lot of websites out there with fonts like cooltext, 1001freefonts, dafont, or urbanfonts, just to name a few. I have put links to these sites on the bottom of this article.

4. 
    
   Some of the fonts I liked

   After you have found several fonts you like, download them to your PC and then go to your photo editing software to make the final design. Once you have it loaded, create a new workspace and make sure it has a transparent background so you can use your logo on a webpage. I would make the workspace at least 10 inches by 10 inches so you have lots of room to work.

5. Now type your Company's name and see what the different fonts look like. If your company has two names try them one on top of the other, or one bigger than the other. Play around with the text to get some ideas. You can even make particular letters bigger or smaller.

6. Next you will need to decide if you are going to add an image to the logo. Again, you may download free images off the web as long as your read the copyright and usage agreements with the images. Stock photos could be a good starting point for you if you are going to download an image. If you are going to create one yourself then start with something simple. Think about what your company is going to be doing and brainstorm for ideas.

7. 
    
   My Text with one the custom shapes I picked to start with

   In Adobe Photoshop you can use the custom shape tool for a starting point. There are lots of images that you can use and then you can manipulate them into something you like. The more you know about Adobe or your photo editing software the more you can do to your image.

8. 
    
   My final Logo saved as a gif file

   Now that your logo is done you can save it as a gif file for the Internet or shrink it down to make business cards or whatever you need to do with it.

9. If you do not want to make the image on your own then there are websites that you can use to generate your logo. Cooltext has a few logos that you can make for free. Vistaprint lets you make a logo for free to use on any of its products, but then it charges you to download the image. There are other websites such as LogoYes that have lots of designs that you can use to make your own. There is also a software program that you can purchase to help you design a logo. It is called logosmartz.

10. Now that you have your logo you can start marketing your business. Good luck!

Tips & Warnings

• Simple Simple Simple, this is the key! If you cannot read the font than neither can your customers. Make it clear and easy to read!

Resources

• Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device
• 1001freefonts
• Dafonts
• Urbanfonts
• Vistaprint
• Logoyes
• Logosmartz
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 7
• Adobe Photoshop CS4
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
• Cooltext
• Cheap Business Logo Design

[FrazzledNanny]

on 1/17/2009 Thanks for the article. I would love to create my own log and these steps seem managable for me. 5*

[askpisces]

on 1/15/2009 good information thanks!

[lizsto]

on 1/15/2009 Thanks...great info!

[1GoGetter]

on 1/15/2009 Very good tips for designing a logo. For me, I chose Vistaprint - for someone like myself who doesn't have the time it's perfect....P.S. I did notice a typo in step 9 you might want to fix.