You’ve studied up on the top ways to market your accounting or investment firm online, and you feel confident about your strategy. 

You’ve got a great blog, an engaging email campaign, and you’re even active on social media. 

But you know that your finance logo is the foundation of your entire branding strategy. It helps to increase your authority, connect you to your target market, and sets you apart from your competitors. 

How do you design the perfect logo for your financial firm? 

Keep on reading to find out.

1. Recognizable Images vs the Cliches

Yes, you want your finance logo to look authoritative and unique — but you also want to ensure that your logo helps people to understand what your company actually does. 

How do you walk the fine line between choosing familiar images that people associate with finance and accounting and relying on cliched images that all your competitors are already using?

By finding a way to make these recognizable images your own.

For example, instead of using just a gold coin, why not personalize the gold coin with a picture of your company’s founder, a bull, or even place your company’s name on the coin? Instead of a dollar sign, include graphics of the things you help your customers to afford: a college degree, a house, a baby carriage, the list goes on. 

2. Focus on Legibility 

An accounting logo is not the place for loopy fonts or bubble letters — and not just because those fonts aren’t in line with your professional goals. 

Remember that your financial logo needs to look just as good on a small business card as it does on a huge billboard. 

Choose a legible font, and even break up words with changes in color like the folks at The PayStubs did. 

Remember that colors like green, blue, and even red are all colors associated with money and savings. Use them in your logo whenever possible. 

3. Future-Proof Your Financial Logo

When you’re designing a logo for your accounting or finance firm, going with the latest graphic trends isn’t the wisest choice. 

But it’s not just about looking professional. If you rely too heavily on trends, you’ll likely have to update your logo design within the year so it doesn’t look dated. 

This can seriously mess with your brand recognition — and cost you time and money. 

Instead, keep it clean, classic, and original. You’re building a reputation that will last for years to come. 

Ready to Design Your Finance Logo?

Now that you understand the ground rules of designing your finance logo, it’s time to begin the process! 

Don’t just go with the first design that pops into your head. Instead, use our free online logo maker tool to test out and refine your top options. You can even ask your social media followers or current clients to help you decide. 

In addition to our design tools, keep checking back in with our blog for the latest in logo design. 

Together, let’s make your brand a name that everyone knows. 

With the variety of platforms for gaming, many creatives have more chances to realize their dreams of getting into the gaming industry. As both the cause and effect, the number of gamers are rising, too.

The tools for making games for mobile devices, for instance, are available to anyone. More indie companies are creating games for the PC and consoles, as well. If passion is only what you have, you can instead create a gaming channel on YouTube.

Whatever you’re thinking of starting, however, you need to lay out the groundwork for it first. You first have to take care of business essentials, like the equipment, applications, and things like your gaming logo.

The logo is going to be your brand’s face, so it’s important to get it right from the get-go. If you’re stuck in this area, keep reading to get some cool ideas. 

Gaming Logo Design Ideas

If you need some ideas for your new logo, look at what the other companies did to get some inspiration. Observe what elements they have in their logo that you can replicate. Here are some design ideas you can incorporate into your logo.

1. Your Name or Initials

Think this is too simple? Nintendo, PlayStation, Atari, and Sega would beg to differ.

Games like Uncharted and Super Mario go by this design, too, and you can’t see anyone complaining. The video game companies EA and Blizzard only have their names in their logos, as well. 

They’re simple, yet effective in creating familiarity. That’s because even though they only used their name, they made sure that the logos are unique and manifest their brand and values.

2. A Character or an Iconic Object

If you’re thinking of a video game logo, considering the main characters is a good start. Any objects that are important to the story can also go into the logo.

Take the Final Fantasy series as an example. Aside from the all-too-familiar “Final Fantasy,” each iteration also features a character(s) or something from the game.

FF6, for instance, features Terra Bradford, a playable character in the game. FF7 features a meteor with blue and green shades, which reflect the color tones of the game. The meteor represents the Materia orbs that are crucial to the game’s setting.

Other examples are the Skyrim logo, which features a dragon, and the Witcher series logo, which features the pendant of the main character Geralt.

3. A Gaming Peripheral

This is another popular idea for gaming companies and channels alike. Take a piece of gaming peripheral, make it look a little different, and insert your name (or not).

The joystick is a popular choice because it’s one of the best representatives for gaming. Almost anyone who sees it will know that it’s about gaming.

Headphones are also a good idea; you’ll often see gaming channels with a human wearing a pair of headphones. Other ideas you can use include an arcade machine and the mouse.

4. Virtual Items

Potions, rupees, gems, treasure boxes, and even pots are iconic representations of gaming. Almost any game has a variation of these items, but the purposes are still the same.

You can use these for your logo, as long as you make it clear enough they’re from a game. This is going to be a bit trickier because other industries may use these items, too. For gamers, however, they will know what you’re referencing to right away.

Health bars and hearts, although not items, can also represent your gaming company or channel well.

5. Pixel Art

The gaming industry has come a long way from the 8-, 16-, and 32-bit eras, but it seems like we’re coming back. Pixel art is becoming popular again for video games because of its nostalgic and vintage effect.

If that’s what your brand is aiming for, why not make a pixel art logo? This is an especially great idea for gaming channels focusing on old games. It’s also suitable for gaming companies making pixel art games.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Gaming Logo

While thinking of a logo, though, you have more to consider other than creativity. Consider your branding, and then from there, decide on the following:

1. Colors

In the Witcher games, black and white stand out, with red serving as an accent color. This color choice goes well with the game, which features dark tones.

The NBA games’ colors, of course, come from the basketball franchise. 

The prominent color in the Xbox is green, representing feelings of envy. It may make people feel like they had to buy it. 

This is one of those examples wherein the color unexpectedly worked for the brand, though. The real reason why it had the color green was that the only marker available to the artist was green.

Think your color choices through, but don’t hesitate to play around to see what will stick.

Breakout Games, which only has one color, also did this right. The escape room’s logo is in red; this color makes you feel fear and uncertainty – which are the feelings they want you to have while you’re inside their “trap” rooms. 

2. Typography

Your typography choices must also represent your brand, but make sure it’s unique. This will make it easier for people to relate the font to your brand, even when it’s used outside the context.

The Horizon Zero Dawn game, in particular, has a good choice of font. It’s set in the future, wherein AI robots and futuristic technologies are a heavy theme. At the same time, humanity is back to living in tribes and with fear of technology.

The HZD logo represents both the futuristic theme and the broken world.

3. Impact

Everything can be perfect: the icons, the typography, the colors, and creativity. However, it can still have one thing missing: the impact.

When your audience sets eyes on it, they should not only get brand familiarity, but it should also invoke certain feelings from them.

Test your logo firsthand to see how it makes you feel, then let others take a look, as well. This will give you insight on what you can change and what elements aren’t working for your intended reaction.

Learn How to Make a Gaming Logo

Your best logo ideas might come at any time; list down all your ideas so you can explore them all later. What comes next is creating the gaming logo itself.

Learn how to do that by reading more of our guides about logo creation. 

Research shows it takes around 5-7 impressions before someone remembers your brand. 

However, there’s a good chance you can reduce that figure by giving your brand a good logo. 

Now, creating a good logo isn’t easy, and you probably have a lot of questions about how you should do things. Do you need to hire a designer? Can you create a logo on your own? 

Below you’ll learn more about the importance of logo design and how you can create a brilliant logo for your business. If you want to stand out from the crowd, the tips in this post will help make your brand more memorable. 

Let’s begin! 

Why You Need to Take Logo Design Seriously

Your logo will have a big impact on how people perceive your brand, and so it’s something you should take seriously. That’s because if your logo doesn’t look that good, people may start to question the quality of your goods/services. 

That said, it’s easy to get caught up with logo design, and you can easily spend too much time on this aspect of your business. This is something you need to be wary of, as falling into this trap can lead to a lot of wasted time. 

Thankfully, you can avoid this issue by hiring designers or by using powerful design tools – all of which we’ll explore in the sections below. 

Finding Someone to Design Your Logo

If you’ve never needed a logo before, you might not know how to find someone that can help you with this task. 

One option is to use a site like Fiverr, where you can have a logo designed for around five dollars.

Now, the quality of this logo might not be that high, as you’re only paying a small amount. But it can be a good option if you want to quickly get a logo you can use on your business card or website. 

If you want to take things to the next level, then you should think about using a site like 99 designs.

When you use 99 designs, you start off by providing a brief for what you want your logo to look like. Upon doing so, a wide range of designers will then create a logo based on this brief. You can then pick the one you like and pay whatever the designer has quoted. 

Should You Design Your Own Logo?

If you really want to keep your costs low, then there’s also the option of designing your own logo. 

Of course, if you have little to no design experience, you may think that this is an impossible task.

However, you’ll be happy to know that this task isn’t as hard as it sounds, as you can use tools like Adobe Spark Post to help you get the job done.

This tool provides you with a ton of templates you can use as a basis for the design of your logo. You can adjust these templates so that you eventually end up with something that looks totally unique. 

Do You Appreciate the Importance of Logo Design? 

You should now appreciate the importance of logo design, as well as how you can actually develop a good logo for your business. 

If you find yourself overwhelmed by this process, you should try to get the opinion of someone you trust.

This is especially helpful if you’re struggling to choose from a wide range of potential logo designs. With the help of a friend, it becomes a lot easier to tell the good logos from the bad. 

Of course, if you pick a logo and then regret your choice at a later date, that’s okay. It’s an easy mistake to recover from as you can always update it at some point in the future. 

Do you have any tips regarding logos? If you do, please share your thoughts in the comments section! 

A company’s logo is one of the most prominent parts of its identity. When you see Nike’s ‘swoosh’ or McDonald’s golden arches, you instantly know who it is and what feeling you get from them. Being easily recognizable is a big goal for all businesses that the logo helps to achieve.

However, a logo gone wrong can lead you in the opposite direction of where you want your company to be. The best way to avoid this is to make sure you don’t commit some of the common design mistakes. Keep reading to check out 8 design elements that make a bad logo.

1. Excessive Elements

If you think about it, some of the most distinguishable logos are the really simple ones. They’re not overdone and don’t look like just a bunch of elements thrown into one place. You can avoid making a bad logo by keeping it simple. 

Logos don’t need to be cluttered to make a point. Save some space by decreasing the number of additions and increase the focus and quality of some core elements of the logo. It will confuse people and be harder to convey the message if it becomes busy and unappealing.

2. Poor Color Choice

Have you ever seen someone walking down the street with an outfit that doesn’t quite match because they were wearing too many colors? This is the risk you take when you’re designing a logo without considering a cohesive color scheme. 

The psychology of color is why most companies have chosen specific shades to represent their brand. Incorporating a smooth palette where the colors compliment and balance each other helps people to digest your brand more. It can also save you from creating a bad logo.

3. Word Overkill

Sometimes logos have words in them and that’s alright. But a logo is supposed to be a bit-sized symbol of your business. Cramming a bunch of words (or even too many letters if you’re using acronyms) can take away from the cleanness and professionalism of the logo.

Try shortening any phrases, names or acronyms that you feel are necessary to use. Always keep in mind that the whole goals is for people to be able to easily remember your company.

4. Unattractive or Confusing Typography

Here’s the thing — even if you did include some really cool, very savvy words, it won’t matter too much if no one understands them. Choosing the right typography for a logo is important so that people don’t misunderstand what your business is actually about.

Typography doesn’t just include picking a good font that works well with your brand identity. It also accounts for the sizing and spacing of letters too. Make sure your characters aren’t too close or far spread (otherwise it could look like a completely different word).

5. Plagiarizing Others

The only thing worse than a bad logo is an unoriginal one. As mentioned, your logo is a very distinctive piece of your overall brand. If you’ve decided to copy someone else’s logo, then that already takes you out of the running for being noticeable.

Besides the fact that plagiarism in marketing is morally tasteless and unacceptable, you could also put yourself in position for some legal concerns if the other party finds out that you’ve stolen their ideas. This isn’t to say that you can’t be inspired by other logos. However, there’s a thin line between using elements from something you really admire and making a close replica of it.

6. Poor Formatting

We live in a world where almost everything is running digitally. This means that your logo will probably be viewed by people on screens a large majority of the time. But all screen are not created equally and if you don’t take this into consideration it could come back to bit you in the long run.

Each time you place your logo a different place (website, social media, etc.) it’ll call for a specific format. If you haven’t formatted your logo for multiple placements, as well as devices (phones, computers, etc.), you could be losing out on quality big time. 

Making sure your vectorized logos are able to scale correctly is an important step in avoiding a bad logo. You should also try to stay away from stock photos. If you want to know more about making a universal logo you can discover more here.

7. Disregarding Instructions

If you’re working with a client or on a team, it’s important to help to create the vision that was laid out. Trailing to far away from the original idea could turn the logo into something completely different and this might be a disaster. It may also upset the people that you’re working with.

Follow the directions that you’ve been given as much as possible. If you do want to add in some creative direction, be sure to run it past the person in charge of the project. This avoids making a bad logo and creating conflict.

8. Not Timeless

You might be tempted to follow trends when creating your logo. But you want your logo to last for a long time and trends don’t do this. So it’s best to go for a timeless design when creating your logo.

Think of your company logo through a longterm lens. This means focus on certain shapes, sizes and images that can stand the test of time and remain relevant to your audience. You can still be bold and edgy without using trends that could be easily forgotten within the next decade.

Got More Questions on Avoiding a Bad Logo For Your Company?

Creating the perfect logo for your company isn’t something that you should rush. You may have to go through a few rounds of logos to get to the right design. The most beneficial thing to do is to keep editing until it feels like the best representation for your business.

You can take these tips on how to avoid making a bad logo into consideration to put you on the right track. If you’re interested in starting the logo creation for your company, check out our blog for more tips and tricks.