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!