Making Your Brand: 4 Logo Design Basics to Know
Posted on April 01, 2020 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Most people need to see your brand at least 5 times before they’ll remember it.
How can you speed up the process and make your brand stand out from the crowd? You need the ultimate logo to represent your business!
Even if you’re not a graphic designer, there’s no reason why you can’t learn a few logo design basics. Here are 4 important ones to get you started.
1. Match Your Brand’s Vibe
We all love puppies, but unless you own a pet shop, it’s probably not the most logical choice for your logo options.
Your first step is to sit down and think about your brand’s identity. What qualities do you hope to convey to your customers? What are the beliefs and values that are important to you (and your business)?
Write down a list of words you want your customers to associate with your company. What problems do they have, and how does your product provide the solution? The clearer your brand identity, the closer you’ll be to designing a great logo.
2. Color Is Key
Before you start playing around with that free logo maker, you need to narrow down your color choices.
If your company is up and running, it’s logical to choose colors that are already part of your branding. If you’re just starting out, take a few minutes to brush up on color psychology.
How do you want your customers to feel when they see your logo? Blue invokes feelings of trust and dependability, while red stirs energy and emotion.
We all have a favorite color, but don’t let sentiment sway your decision. Make sure the color(s) you choose match your brand identity.
3. Choose the Right Font
Custom font is always a great choice—look at the Coca-Cola logo, for example.
If you don’t have the ability or budget to create custom font, at least make sure you select a font that matches your brand. Swirly, whimsical font might be perfect for a cupcake shop, but it would look out of place in an accountant’s office.
Another option is to combine your wordmark with a relevant symbol. If you sell sunglasses, you may find a clever way to incorporate shades into your logo design.
But before you get too excited…
4. Keep It Simple
One of the logo design basics most often overlooked is the need to keep it simple. You may love the idea of your company name combined with a guitar, a cup of coffee, and some music notes, but this will only make your logo design cluttered.
Some of the most powerful brands in the world have the simplest logos. Think of the Nike swoosh or McDonald’s golden arches.
Remember that you’re creating a logo, not a mural. Choose one or two strong design elements to make your logo simple, appealing, and memorable.
Logo Design Basics: Ready, Set, Design!
You might feel overwhelmed by the thought of creating a logo for your business. After all, how can you sum up your entire company in a single image?
Start by considering your brand’s vibe. Select colors and fonts that complement your branding. And above all, keep your logo design simple, clean, and uncluttered.
What will you do with these logo design basics? You could try to make a logo yourself, but you’re likely to get better results from a professional designer.
Contact us today to learn more about our design services. We look forward to working with you!
7 Tips You Need When Choosing a Logo Design for Your Online Pre-Order Shoe Website
Posted on March 28, 2020 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Some estimates say people buy up to 19 billion pairs of shoes every year. That’s more than two pairs per person on the planet right now.
Consumers have more choice than ever when it comes to buying shoes. If you’re planning to start a pre-order shoe website, you know you need to do something to stand out in the crowd.
It all starts with building a good brand identity. Brand identity, in turn, starts with a powerful logo.
So, how do you create a killer logo for your new website? You can start with these seven helpful tips.
1. Keep It Simple
The most effective logos are usually simple. Think of Apple’s bitten-into logo or Nike’s iconic swoosh. A few simple lines make up both of these logos, yet they’re impactful and memorable.
The “keep it simple” rule comes with a few extra notes. You want your logo to be identifiable, so be careful not to confuse “simple” with “generic.” People should be able to identify your logo at a glance.
If they’re constantly confusing your logo with another brand, your logo isn’t effective. A simple design can be quite eye-catching and still provide an identifiable logo.
2. A Powerful Logo Reflects Your Brand
The next tip for creating a logo focuses on your brand identity. There are plenty of websites that offer pre order shoes, so what makes your brand different?
It could be that you focus on a particular type or style of shoe. Maybe you offer customization.
You might think about the design sensibilities of your brand and your audience. Are you speaking to an urban audience, a group of wealthy people, or female shoe fanatics?
Your logo should reflect this brand identity.
3. Choose Your Fonts Wisely
Successful logo design hinges on the careful selection of typefaces. First, you want to make sure your typeface is legible, even at small sizes.
Why is legibility so important? You want to make sure people are able to read any text on your logo. If they can’t, they may misread the name of your company.
Next, typefaces communicate certain design sensibilities. Serifs have a certain timelessness to them, and they may evoke nostalgia for bygone eras. Sans serif fonts usually feel much more modern.
Some fonts may feel “fun” or “feminine,” while others are futuristic. Make sure the typeface you choose reflects your brand identity as well. If your brand is focused on cutting-edge urban shoe designs, then a “flirty” font probably isn’t the right choice.
4. Think in Color
Color is also an important considered in logo design. Much like typefaces, different colors communicate different ideas to your audience. Blue, for example, inspires loyalty and trust in people.
A blue logo suggests that your brand is a brand the consumer can trust. Red, on the other hand, suggests passion.
It’s a good idea to pick two colors, to create contrast. For ads and website pages, you’ll want to set one color as the primary logo color. The other, secondary color will be used for contrast.
Your logo should be visible on both black and white backgrounds. Finally, make sure your logo also looks good in black and white. There may be times when you need to use a grayscale, black, or white variant of the logo.
5. It’s all About Scale
Most logo best practices suggest you should design your logo as a vector. Vector files allow you to scale up and scale down, without loss of fidelity.
That means no more pixelation or blurriness when your logo gets blown up for a billboard ad.
Your logo should still be recognizable and legible at almost any size. If it’s not, then you may want to reconsider the logo.
This is one reason many brands choose to have both a wordmark and a graphic logo. Logotype can sometimes become too small to read, so brands fall back on the graphic.
Nike is a good example of this. The swoosh sometimes appears with the name “Nike.” In some cases, though, only the swoosh appears.
Since the swoosh is so iconic, everyone knows the brand name it’s associated with. Nike doesn’t need to print their name with the logo. This also means they never have to worry about printing the wordmark so small it’s not legible.
6. Leave Room for Change
Good logo designs are classic, and they rarely need to change much. That said, it’s always prudent to make sure you can make updates to your logo as times change.
Why? Design trends and sensibilities change and evolve. What’s considered “modern” right now will look dated in a few years. A logo needs to keep evolving so that it always looks current and speaks to a modern audience.
Of course, you also want to make sure your logo is always recognizable. If you’re constantly overhauling it, you may lose any brand recognition you built.
A good logo allows for updates, without starting from scratch. It can be difficult to achieve a balance between timeless design and flexibility. Working with a great logo designer can help.
7. Appeal to Your Audience
Finally, the logo for your pre-order shoe website should appeal to your audience. Before you begin designing your logo, take some time to think about your audience.
Who are they? Why do they shop with you over the competition? What do they value, and how can your logo communicate those values to them?
When you can answer these questions, you’re well on your way to creating a powerful logo for your brand.
Great Logo Design Starts Here
Creating a powerful logo is the first step on the road to making your brand more visible and identifiable for your audience. With better brand recognition at play, you’ll be able to stand out from your competitors.
Looking for more tips on designing a killer logo? Our library of informative guides is here to help. You’ll find the latest trends, tips, and tricks to guide your logo-design process.
Diving Into the Top Custom Stamp Options Available for Your Business
Posted on March 23, 2020 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
Developing a strong, consistent brand is perhaps the biggest thing a business can do to make or break its chance of success.
You might be wondering how custom stamp options can help your brand. Keep reading to learn how stamps make all the difference for rising businesses.
Branding isn’t a one-and-done sort of deal! If you’re fairly new to the concept, a “brand” is a catch-all word for all aspects of how a business or product is marketed and received by the public. Most of us know the basics, like choosing a general audience and marketing approach, a name, a slogan, maybe a jingle—and, of course, creating a logo.
Once you’ve done all that, you’ve got a brand! After that and some successful advertising, you’ve finally made it. Yup, your business made it off the ground or is even flying high and steady.
Congratulations! But your work isn’t done.
For your business to stay afloat, you need to maintain your brand and its relevancy. When’s the last time you redesigned your logo?
Whether you have a new logo or are just looking to make your operations more official, it’s a great time to buy stamps. Here’s what’s out there.
Why Custom Stamps?
Considering branding, do you tend to think only about big ad campaigns, billboards, and signs? The truth is that branding every opportunity you can is what keeps your customers engaged.
Consider each step of a customer’s interaction with your company: She might see a commercial, your sign as she drives in, custom decorations in your business…
But what about when she’s at the register? What about your invoices and other customer documents? Or maybe you operate totally online.
Here, ads, search results, e-mails, social media are some opportunities to hone your branding. When sending out your products, though, do you include a card, invoice, or other paperwork? Do you have your own envelope designs?
When you run a small business, it’s often hard to know exactly how much business you’ll get at a given time. If you have 100 invoices professionally printed, you might want or need to change something about them before you can use them all! That’s a waste of your money, time, and effort.
Thankfully, you can buy custom business stamps for all your paper branding needs and more.
Custom Stamp Options on a Budget
It’s a rough world out there for small business owners. We want to have the highest quality products to use for things like stationery design, but realistically, that’s not always in the budget. To be successful long-term, you need to prioritize your business’ main focus, and the little details can get lost.
To have the best of both worlds, look for smaller plastic stamps. You can find some for under ten dollars, even—but know that you get what you pay for.
You won’t get the most elaborate design on something that cheap, and most stamps available for that little aren’t custom at all. If you can afford it, investing in a higher-quality option will help your business make a good impression!
Best Quality Custom Stamps
So, where do you go for the best quality business stamps? All you need to do is look at some professional custom stamps online. Higher quality options like the IMPRINT360 run upwards of $20, so make sure you know exactly what you want to have them say.
Make no mistake, though—these high-quality custom stamp options are a great purchase. Investing in a good quality stamp or set of stamps will make your business documents, envelopes, and decorations shine.
Self-Inking Stamps
For arts and crafts purposes, rubber stamps are often used with paints or ink pads. Many banks, government offices, and other such public institutions also still use stamp pads, too, because when your stamp just says “APPROVED,” there’s no real need to ever replace it—it’s a classic!
Stamp ink pads are messy, easy to lose, take up extra space, and are likely to dry up quickly if you aren’t careful, though. Nowadays, you can get all kinds of stamps, including custom business logo stamps, in self-inking models. Here’s a good resource where you can learn more about high-quality self-inking stamps!
Custom Business Stamps for Everything Else
Those are some of the most common types of custom stamp options for putting your logo onto paper. But that’s far from the only use your business has for custom stamps! Does that come as a surprise to you?
Well it’s true—no matter what your business does, you can use custom stamps for a host of purposes, such as:
- Addressing mail
- Both to and from, if you regularly mail to the same locations
- Stamping instead of writing saves tons of time and effort
- Using stamps instead of address stickers saves money on printing, and helps the environment, too
- Signatures
- If you have to sign documents regularly, you can save tons of time by using a stamp instead of signing every single page
- Stamping is also faster than clicking through page after page of digital paperwork
- Custom embellishments to make your paperwork professional as well as pretty
The Solution to All Your Logo Needs
Now that you know all you can do for your business with custom stamp options, do you need to work on the perfect logo for them? Our blog has all the information you need to know about creating the perfect logo.
Once you’ve read up, check out our logo maker to get started on your way to making stamps and all other kinds of custom products for your business!
What Does a Marketing Agency Do and Why Your Small Business Needs One
Posted on March 23, 2020 by Logo Design Tips and Tricks
It’s getting harder and harder for businesses to thrive without effective marketing strategies. This, in large part, is because the playing field is different now.
Customers exist predominantly online, and they use online tools to find information about stores they plan to visit in person. The process of reaching your target market online is a complicated, but essential one.
We’re going to talk about marketing agencies in this article, answering questions like what does a marketing agency do and why you should hire one. Let’s get started:
What Does a Marketing Agency Do?
A marketing agency serves the express purpose of getting your business in touch with customers in a meaningful way. That description is simple, but the process can get a little complicated.
Working with groups like Tilladelse Marketing Agency can skyrocket the impact that your business has whether you’re just starting out or have been at it a while.
Let’s take a look at some of the specific functions of marketing agencies.
Finding Your Market
The first skill an agency brings to the table is the ability to identify who it is that your business should market to. When you’re working mostly with people from your own town or city, it’s relatively easy to know your audience.
As you scale your business to account for online customers around the world, though, being specific with your target market is a little tougher. It’s essential, though, and the professionals have it down to a science.
Brand Storytelling
The next important function of a marketing agency is the ability to tell your brand’s story in a way that’s meaningful to the audience. Whether that means using graphic design, video, music, imagery, or something else, agencies can effectively express your brand’s attitudes and ideas.
Slip-ups in the expression of your brand’s values and image can be extremely costly in the long run. Mistakes can be deadly, and the absence of good storytelling doesn’t give you the chance to succeed in the first place.
Keep Customers Around
Marketing isn’t just about finding and converting new customers. It’s also about making sure they stick around for the long haul.
Loyal customers are essentially your cheerleaders. They give personal recommendations of your brand, they come back for more, and they’re the ones who deserve recognition and appreciation.
Establishing those kinds of customer relationships comes with a balance of great customer service and SEO.
Multi-Platform Marketing
Finding significant success online requires that you push your brand throughout a number of platforms. Whether that means using social media effectively or nailing your SEO campaign, you’re going to have to put in some hard work.
Marketing agencies understand the nuances of these digital marketing pillars so you don’t have to. Sure, it’s great to have a little background knowledge, but not everyone has the time to break down Google’s search algorithm to a science.
Looking for More Information?
So, what does a marketing agency do? They get your company out there for all to see.
There’s a lot more to learn about digital marketing, though, and we’re here to tell you what you need to know. Explore our site for more insight into all things business.