How to Make a $0 Logo

Last week was Thanksgiving which means small businesses everywhere just had a bunch of amazing sales; one of the deals I offered was a really great logo deal which (thankfully for me) got a lot of hits. Most of the logos that I’m currently working on are for photographers, and after talking with a nice handful of them, I wanted to create a post on logos. Not just for photographers, but for any small business starting out and on a budget. Today and throughout this week we’re talking about how to make a good logo for $0! 

When I started my business I wanted everything to look amazing. I wanted to look professional, established, and just up to par with everyone in the same field as me. I was a new mom on a major budget though. I originally started my business to make extra money for my son's open heart surgeries, so there was no wiggle room and definitely no way to pay someone. I needed something quick, simple, and most important, free if at all possible. Luckily for me, my business was web design and logo creation. I needed photoshop already, but I knew there had to be other ways to create a logo on a budget. 

As I talked with more photographers I learned there was just a lack of understanding of what their logo should be or about things that were absolutely needed. It’s more than something that looks pretty. This will be the face of your business for a while; you want to make sure it’s going to last as long as you need it to. There is so much more to branding than “This font looks good with this color so this is my logo”. I’ve learned that if you have a solid branding foundation then creating graphics for social media, sales, ads, promo, etc becomes almost effortless. You have all the answers in front of you, you just need to apply them. 

I love my branding packages, I know they work and help small businesses, but I also know that I can’t sell something to someone who has no budget. My packages are for anyone, but I usually work with more established businesses. I had to get out of my small business mindset and back into how I was thinking and feeling when I started my business. Less about the big pictures and more about what is needed right now. Which naturally starts with a logo...so let’s get into it!

Canva. If you follow me on absolutely anything, you’ve heard of Canva before. Canva is a free graphic design platform, normally used to create social media graphics, posters, and honestly lots of other cool stuff. Canva gives you free templates, elements, and pictures to use, but there is also a paid subscription if you want all of the extras. I’ve designed tons of beautiful content on the free version, but the paid version isn’t bad at all either. I think your best bet for creating a solid starter logo for free is on Canva; I don’t know of any other platform that offers as much while being user friendly and easy to use. 

Let’s jump back to logos for a second. If you’ve worked with me before I’m sure you’ve heard my 2 logo spiel, but for those of us who haven’t, I recommend a minimum of 2 logos. Your long logo is the logo you think about when talking about a logo. Your short logo is a condensed version of that which is perfect for stickers, profile pictures, business cards, and tons of other things where you just need something clean and simple while staying on brand. Look at Google for example, we know Google’s iconic logo, but if you look at the top of your browser you’ll see a little G with the same colors. That's actually a favicon (which is a completely different thing), but that gives you a similar idea. 

What things are important? Is there really a difference between using blue and purple? It can be hard to determine what things are more important than others, so here are a few questions I like to ask people before we get into logo creation.
What are 3 words that you hope your potential customers/clients would use to describe your business, what would they be?

When a random person stumbles onto your business, what is one thing you hope they say about it?

If your customers/clients could take one thing away from business, what would it be?

These questions help get your brain turning and hopefully thinking about your business a little different. You want something you like, but it’s more about what would be best for your potential customers/clients. You’re marketing yourself in hopes to get those people to buy whatever it is you’re marketing at the time. It doesn’t make much sense if for example you’re a lawn business, but your logo is purple because that’s your favorite color. 

What about the businesses that don’t make it super obvious? I could say look into color psychology, but honestly I think as long as you have a solid color palette it doesn’t matter a huge amount. You can be a newborn photographer with any color logo just like you can have a bubble bath business with just about any color. Google images has loads of really great color palettes. You can save one or a few that you like and in the next post we will be getting into designing our $0 logo in Canva. 

See ya later.

Cover photo shot by: Dorothy Louise Photography