We love Seth Godin’s definition of a brand “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.” Whilst a logo is only part of a brand, it’s often something that you need professional help with.
When it comes to graphic design for logos, there is truth to the saying ‘You get what you pay for’. Be wary of promises for cheap deals and do your research. If you do have a little budget, you’ll find the logo design process more enjoyable and successful. However, we do live in the real world where many small businesses are not only time poor but don’t have the funding to invest in hiring a graphic designer. That’s why we’ve covered 7 ways below for you to get a new logo for your business from the Rolls Royce of professional branding experts through to designing your own logo for free!
1. Graphic Designers
If you want a high level of attention to detail and a one-on-one experience with a graphic designer, you can browse online portfolios of artwork you like or contact designers directly through specialised social networks such as Dribbble. We’d recommend you work with someone local to your area since ideally you’ll want some meetings in person.
Obviously enlisting the services of a graphic designer is going to give you greater control over your design as they will research and develop a design which features images and typography that create a unique look and feel to your brand. It will help you to aspire to be more like ‘the brand’ Seth described above.
If you don’t have the budget just yet for hiring a graphic designer, you’re not alone. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! We’ve come across some other alternatives below that many businesses have taken advantage of for convenience and affordability.
2. 99designs
As Marketing.com.au is an Australian owned business, we decided to support other Australian businesses when we got our Marketing.com.au logo designed. That’s one of the reasons we tried out 99designs. We particularly like this service because not only is it convenient and affordable, it’s set up as a competition so you get many different designers that submit artwork based on the short brief you provide. You then rate and give feedback on the artwork and at the end of the competition choose the winner who gets the prize money.
There’s a good range of contest packages so you can choose one that best suits your needs and budget. To give you and idea of pricing, logo design ranges from $299-$799 while logo and business card design ranges from $299-$799. You can visit 99designs here.
3. DesignCrowd
DesignCrowd is another great online marketplace where you can outsource or crowdsource a logo as well as a range of other graphic design services from freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world. With DesignCrowd every designer will actually get paid for their efforts and most projects get from 25 to 100+ entries. If you don’t get a design that you like then there is a 100% money back guarantee. Logo design starts from as little as $240. You can visit DesignCrowd here.
4. LogoNow
LogoNow are also a great Australian business provided by Adamant Solutions that began as a web design agency. They provide logo design services with a 100% money back guarantee offer for customers. There’s a pretty quick turnaround with their service and it’s also quite cost effective as you can get 6 design concepts for $99 with unlimited revisions. You can visit LogoNow here.
5. LogoNerds
LogoNerds are certainly an affordable logo service for small businesses with high quality custom designs. You can get a web logo for $27, business logo for $47 and a character mascot for $97. All you need to do is select the package you’re after, answer a quick questionnaire, review the designs and then give final feedback before you get your finished artwork. We’ve used LogoNerds for a few clients and have been very happy with them. You can visit LogoNerds here.
6. Fiverr
You may have heard of this one already and its popularity has really taken off because as the name says, you can get something for as little as $5. Basically you find a “Gig” that suits what you are after, then order it, pay via PayPal or credit card and then you can monitor the progress before receiving the finished work. You also have time after receiving your work to ask for any fixes to be made and then provide your feedback and review so others know how you found it.
One of our readers recently shared a logo with us that they got through Fiverr for their website Which Social Media that we think looks like a pretty good deal for $5. But remember, your experience may not be as good as our readers, more often than not you do get what you pay for. You can visit Fiverr here.
7. Cool Text
If you have a $0 budget then why not check out Cool Text to start you off. It’s an online free graphic generator with hundreds of fonts, gradients, patterns and overlays that you can play around with to generate your own logo. You just choose an image that you like, change the image fields around until you find a design you like and then have your own custom logo created on the spot, for free.
We will offer a word of caution with this one. Make sure you keep things simple and don’t go overboard with all of the various options. Our preference would be to choose one of the options above but if you are really stuck then it’s worth a look. You can visit Cool Text here.
We hope you find the perfect solution to give your brand a little boost with the right logo to reflect the visual identity of your business.
If you’ve had any experiences with branding and graphic design that you’d like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you below.