Creating a Small Business Logo

Does your small business or non-profit have a logo that stands out?

There are many free graphic design tools today to help you create a logo for your small business.

A well-designed logo is an important component of your overall marketing strategy. Your logo should represent your brand well, be a design that your target audience will remember and work well across uses from your website to social media to apparel.

Microsoft recently shared an article from Lisa Steinmann that provided a useful list of logo design considerations as you either create or refresh your logo summarized below.

Logo design tips

Fonts: Use a readable, common font. A small business with a limited budget should use a proven font. A font you can change and reproduce in various sizes. Use fonts like:

Arial

Courier

Garamond

Georgia

Helvetica

Impact

Palatino

Tahoma

Times New Roman

Verdana

Colors: Select colors from Pantone®. Pantone® standardizes colors with digital formulas. Choose exact colors. Select Caribbean-blue color Pantone® 637 C and Pantone® Cool Gray 4 C for an aqua and gray logo. A good printer can match colors defined by the Pantone® codes.

Grayscale: Test any logo designs in grayscale. Color perception varies, and some lose color awareness with age. Color blindness affects an estimated 8% of the population. Color-blind people have difficulty perceiving red, green, and blue light. Choose colors that flatter a variety of skin tones. Sooner or later you’ll have hats or t-shirts for your business. Color experts suggest navy, red, teal, and eggplant.

Illustrations: Make illustrations realistic. If you bake cakes, show us a cake. A well-established brand like Mercedes can use a mysterious three-spokes-in-a-circle logo.

Overall it's important to keep your logo simple. I like Canva.com as a free design tool with many free logo templates available to choose from to help get you inspired. Consider your favorite companies and their logos. What do you or don't you like about their logo.

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At It's All About the How Marketing Consulting we offer expert marketing support and practical tools to help improve your brand awareness and results. We can help with all aspects of your small business or non-profit marketing needs from developing strategic marketing plans to weekly blog content. You can reach us at itsallaboutthehow@gmail.com or check out our website at www.itsallaboutthehow.com.