How To Design A Great Vet Logo
Posted on December 17, 2017 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
You grew up wanting to help animals.
Now, after years of education, training, and work, you’re finally ready to start your own veterinary practice.
But did vet school prepare you for marketing?
Even a medical practice needs good public relations and branding. And it all starts with your most powerful marketing tool: Your logo.
Here are some tips to design a great vet logo.
Look Like a Vet
This first tip may seem obvious, but it’s important to keep in focus.
If you’re making a logo for a vet, it needs to look like a vet logo.
The best thing about good logos is that they can say a lot without saying anything.
You may want to include “Veterinary Clinic” or “Animal Hospital” somewhere on your logo. But when designing it, try to refrain from using these phrases until the end.
Challenge yourself to make a logo that shows rather than tells. Someone should see your icon and think, “That looks like a vet.”
What elements might you include? Well, animals, for one.
Dogs and cats are the most common pets and often both used in vet logos, such as the Marietta Vet Clinic. If you specialize in certain animals, such as horses, you should represent that in your logo.
You might also use some symbols of healthcare. A heart, the red cross, or the Rod of Asclepius are all common icons used to represent health centers.
Your logo should be somewhat playful because your business involves animals. But as a medical clinic, there’s a sense of seriousness as well. Try to balance professionalism with your love of animals in your logo.
Represent Where You’re From
Where is your clinic located? Can you tap into symbols of your region?
Every state and many cities have objects that represent them.
Florida and California are known for sunshine, beaches, and palm trees. Can you include these in your design?
Companies from the Lone Star State, Texas, might want to include a star on their logo.
Every pro sports team in Pittsburgh uses black and gold as colors, reflecting the city’s flag.
Finding a way to connect your brand to your area in your logo is valuable. It lets consumers know where you are without saying so. It also shows pride in your area and creates a special connection with your community.
Consider Usability
Your logo needs to be versatile. You’re going to use it in a variety of ways, and you need to consider all those ways when designing your logo.
Your vet logo appears on your website and social media pages. It’s on the signage outside your clinic and on the paper documents you give to patients. Television ads, billboards, and other marketing materials will feature the same logo that you put on shirts and office pens.
Will your logo work on all those mediums?
Your logo needs to be scalable. It can be blown up to large proportions or made very tiny without losing its substance.
Graphic Design
One key to this is to design it as a vector graphic. Vector graphics create shapes and lines based on algorithms. They thus don’t change in quality when you scale them up or down.
Raster graphics, in contrast, are made with small squares called pixels. They can look good at one size but become grainy and pixelated when scaled up. You want a logo that maintains its quality at all sizes.
Another key to scalability is the amount of detail. Logos with a lot of intricate detail can look amazing at certain sizes, but those details become muddied when shrunk down. Your detail actually works against you.
Material Reproduction
Something you should also consider what materials your logo will be reproduced on.
For example, you might want to put your logo on custom polo shirts for your staff to wear. Fine details and gradients don’t translate well to threading or screen printing.
Your logo might also be printed on documents without color ink. Does your logo design work well in black and white? If not, it’s a good idea to make some adjustments.
Be Strategic with Color
The colors you choose for your branding can have a deep effect on how people perceive your clinic.
Color is a popular area of study for both psychologists and marketers. Seeing certain colors can have a subliminal impact on someone’s emotions.
While personal experiences can adjust how colors impact an individual, analysts have found some general trends.
What colors might be good for your vet logo based on psychology?
- Green – Represents health and growth
- Blue – Represents trust and dependability
- White/Black/Gray – Represents balance and calmness
These aren’t hard and fast rules, but they’re something to keep in mind when designing.
Avoid Temporary Trends
Design trends come and go.
A particular typeface or use of color may become popular for a time. But, like in fashion, you need to be careful to not invest in a trend that won’t last long.
Some trends have a distinct reason for developing and might be more likely to stick around. For example, the minimalist logo design trend is a byproduct of the mobile age. Companies have to think of how their logo looks as a social media avatar or an app icon.
But other trends will pop up almost randomly, be popular for a few months or a year, and then die out.
Your logo needs to last. Changing your logo every few years isn’t ideal. Avoiding trends will make your vet logo more sustainable and enduring.
Represent Something Great
Ultimately, your logo is a mere representation of your vet clinic.
Your logo doesn’t pick up the phones or schedule appointments. Your logo doesn’t do checkups and perform procedures.
The most effective logos are the ones that represent great companies. It’s your work that instills trust in your clients, not your logo.
Start Designing Your Vet Logo
With these helpful tips, you have a great foundation to start building your brand.
Online Logo Maker gives you free digital design tools to make your own logo. Start designing your vet logo today!
5 Pest Control Logo Designs Exterminators Need to See
Posted on August 18, 2017 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Are you a professional exterminator looking for a new pest control logo? A good logo can make you instantly recognizable online and out on the street, so it’s important you pick one that captures imaginations.
If you’ve been thinking about a new pest control logo, but you’re struggling for inspiration, learn from these 5 great designs.
Then try to make your own logo using our online tools.
Doc’s Pest Control, Inc
This logo, along with its tagline, sets a clear expectation of what you can expect from the Doc’s services – in a memorable and humorous way.
Perhaps humor doesn’t suit all businesses, but a light-hearted touch might be effective in getting customer’s attention within an industry which is quite heavily populated and often takes itself very seriously.
Western Pest Control
Western Pest Control started a competition to get their logo created. They got 191 concepts submitted by 32 designers, and the winner was a very clear graphic.
The shield symbolizes protection, and it’s used quite frequently in pest control. However, it’s also used in other industries where protection is called for, like cyber security and insurance. So the bug image makes it very clear what Western does.
BugBully
This BugBully’s pest control logo looks great. It’s less clean than Western’s, but conveys the same message – the pest is a threat to your home.
And the ‘bug’ looks generic enough to cover all sorts of household insects, so it doesn’t matter whether the company is the best bed bug pest control company or a cockroach specialist. The cartoon covers all the possible angles.
Property Protect
Property Protect incorporates graphics of a bug and a roof to send the message that they’re all about looking after your home as well as the possible insect invaders living inside it.
The magnifying glass signifies the company’s attention to detail, and the color scheme is very clear cut.
Pest Defence
This logo for Pest Defence uses a sword for the ‘f’ in the word ‘defence’.
This demonstrates the attack that Pest Defence will launch for on the bugs in their customer’s households.
The logo definitely sends a clear message.
Try Making Your Own Pest Control Logo
Have you tried experimenting with ideas yourself, so that you have an idea of what you want? Do you want to feature a bug, or would you rather show how you deal with them?
Have you thought about what font you might use, and how to incorporate words into the logo? Do you know what color you want your logo to be, and have you thought about whether it’ll look OK on the side of your van as well as online?
Use our online logo maker to put together your initial thoughts, and find answers to common questions here.
You can make your logo as personal or as general as you like – about the bugs or about yourself. It doesn’t matter.
So long as the final result is eye-catching and tells the world what you do, it will work a charm.
5 Fish Logo Ideas That Swim Away from the Competition
Posted on July 18, 2017 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Never discount the importance of a good logo! A logo visually tells the story of your brand, showing off your company’s values and unique voice.
It also helps if your logo is based on a symbol that reflects your actual business. So, whether you have a seafood restaurant or sell column aquariums, using a fish logo can help tell your brand story instantly. Plus, the diverse types of fish mean that with a bit of research, you can create something beautiful and unique.
But, fish are so interesting visually, any company can use them!
We’ve gathered five great ideas for fish logos that you can put your own unique spin on. Read on and get inspired.
1. Make a Friendly Cartoon
A cartoon logo gives you a lot of freedom to exaggerate the interesting appearances of different types of fish. With their big eyes and diverse but simple body shapes, there is a lot of room for you to have fun with your logo design.
You can go the full cartoon route and create a mascot for your brand at the same time. Or, you can make it more subtle and understated, and use the style of the cartoon to show that your company is fun and quirky.
2. Pick the Best Piece
An interesting and unexpected way to use a fish in your logo is to artistically just use a piece of one. If a fish has a unique feature, just showing that off can be subtle and eye-catching.
For example, your logo could be based just on the claw of a crab, or the fin of a shark. Since these designs may end up being more simple, your choice of colour will be especially important. Consider the psychology of colours for your logo. With a simple logo and a great colour choice, you can create something very memorable since colour increases brand recognition by 80%.
This works great for companies that want to show off that they are sophisticated and creative.
3. Mix Your Fish Logo With Text
This one takes step 2 even further. You can creatively incorporate the shape of a fish into your actual brand name.
The round shape of most fish means this can work especially well with curved letters, like C and U. But, when it comes to typography, the world is your oyster!
This is great for brand recognition because your logo and company name work seamlessly together to tell your story.
4. Go Minimalist
Minimalism is incredibly popular at the moment. With their simple shapes, fish lend themselves perfectly to a minimalist logo.
Consider scaling back your colour scheme, keeping it to just two colours or even shades of the same colours. Use as few lines as possible in your illustration, just bringing out the key shapes.
5. Add In Scenery
To further build the aquatic feel of your logo, add in some other watery symbols. Waves, fish hooks, shells and seaweed can all add a little extra flair to your logo.
Just make sure that it doesn’t get too busy or out of control. A strong logo is simple enough to be memorable and instantly recognisable. Don’t try to build a whole scene. Just pick one or two extra elements to add in.
Wrapping Up
These are some great tips to get started designing your fish logo. Want to get it done today?
Check out our online logo maker and build your logo now, no design programs required!
5 Traits of a Versatile Dog Grooming Logo
Posted on July 05, 2017 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
There are so many different designs out there, so how are you to design a logo that helps your business stand out? Versatility.
Versatility is important when it comes to designing a dog grooming logo. The logo is going to be the symbol of your business and must be designed in a way that allows it to fit conveniently anywhere you are looking for customers.
Want to know more about making your logo versatile? Keep reading for our list of 5 characteristics needed to create an effective, versatile dog grooming logo!
Making the Perfect Dog Grooming Logo
1. Colors
A great way to ensure your logo’s design is versatile is to begin designing in black and white. By starting in black and white, you are ensuring that your focus will remain on the shape and the overall concept of your logo.
Plus, by beginning in black and white, you are also making sure that the logo is effective, regardless of coloring.
When you get around to adding colors, make sure you don’t use any more than three. This will help you get the maximum impact from each color while also keeping your logo simple and easy to recognize.
Another thing to keep in mind is that colors are more expensive to print. The more colors you add to your logo, the more expenses your business will need to account for in the long run.
2. Space
Every logo design is going to have white or negative space and it should always be consistent.
Think about it. If your logo has a silhouette of a puppy in a crate, you will need to make sure both the crate and the puppy are distinguishable from one another, but not too far apart that the viewer cannot tell what’s going on.
The spacing should not be too close, leading to elements overlapping each other when it is printed, but spacing should also not be too big that viewers cannot associate between elements.
In both cases, the logo fails to effectively communicate with viewers, and an ineffective logo will only hurt your business.
3. Size… Does it Matter?
Make sure your logo is effective at every size. More often than not, you will see your logo being rescaled to fit on a multitude of products.
That means you, as the designer, need to take into account how the logo will look at various sizes. Try scaling the logo design at different sizes and consider the effectiveness.
Will your logo be effective if it’s blown up to fit a billboard? What about if it’s shrunken down to fit onto a business card?
If your logo design can’t pull it’s weight at a particular size, then it’s not an effective or versatile enough.
4. Uniquely Recognizable
The idea of having a logo is to make your brand recognizable to customers and potential customers at a glance. That means that your logo will need to be just as special as your company.
Make sure your logo doesn’t resemble another company’s, especially if they are well-known. This will only diminish your brand’s name and reputation while setting you up for legal trouble.
To help avoid any resemblances, it’s a good idea to check out some of the competition’s logos, so you know exactly what to avoid.
5. Details
How much detail should go into your logo? This depends on what your business’s message is and how you are trying to convey it.
Pay attention to the lines, colors, fonts, and everything else. It’s important that these aspects of your logo work together to convey your business’s message.
Are you looking to portray a message about midwest homes for pets? Then be sure you show it in your logo’s design!
At the same time, too many details can be difficult to print. It is therefore advisable to keep only the details needed to effectively convey your business’s message.
Get to it!
Creating a unique dog grooming logo can prove to be difficult, but a great and versatile logo can be the difference between a successful business and a failing one.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started on your logo now!