Why hire a professional logo designer?
A logo is much more than a “brand”. It serves as a visual that helps people remember a brand, but the brand itself is so much more. A logo for a business (or organization, person, event, etc.) can make or break its success because people are visual. The logo is the first impression many times. A logo represents a brand and its mission, but also contributes to the personality of the company. Brand identity allows companies to carry their branding across all of their offerings while making sure that their branding is cohesive and consistent. Professionally designed logos are important to every company because of the way they connect the audience directly to the brand. A logo that is successful can stand out against a crowd, grab the audience’s attention, make a strong first impression, and most importantly, be memorable.
A logo needs to lead to the overall look and feel of a brand and is the first visual towards creating an overall cohesiveness. Since logos are typically the first thing audiences see from a brand, they are crucial in the first impression of the brand itself. In order to properly create a successful and unique logo one must hire a professional, reputable designer to create the logo and branding of the company. Hiring a professional logo designer like Joe at Spin350 is more strategic than the turning to one of the countless, inexpensive or free online logo options. These online logo services often pull from a group of already created logos and essentially swap your company’s name onto them. These end up being unoriginal and more often than not, don’t express the message behind the brand as well as a designer could. You do get what you pay for. Online logo services also create an abundance of logo options right at the start (many times crowd-sourced from offshore freelancers) and it can get overwhelming when deciding to choose one (i.e. 99Designs).
When hiring a professional designer like Joe, his ideas are more thoughtful and custom-crafted to your specific brand message. He also creates a smaller amount of initial logo concepts for his clients, which is more helpful in narrowing down the ideas to the final chosen one, rather than having too many to choose from and losing the focus on what is really needed. Having worked with clients across countless industries for the past 20 years, Joe understands what is needed to create a successful and unified logo that ties in with the rest of a brand. This is one of the reasons, that Spin350 is listed as top branding agency in Massachusetts.
The Process
The process of a logo design can be challenging, but it all starts with discovery and research. It’s important to understand the meaning and message behind a brand before starting any type of logo brainstorming or designing. Unlike the online services, Joe learns about your brand at the beginning of the project, during discovery, which ultimately leads to a better outcome of the logo project. For a designer, doing research about a company is just as important as creating the logo itself. This is also where Joe and his clients create goals and objectives for the project. This allows for the project to run more smoothly and collaboratively, and to create better end results.
Along with the meaning and message of a brand, it is important to get a feel for the industry behind the brand. By getting to know the other brands in the same industry, it can show Joe what is needed to stand out amongst the competitors, which is important for both a new or legacy brand. By standing out among the competitors, it allows a brand to get more traction with consumers, as to have a different feel from the rest of the industry. Another aspect that is important with branding is to understand who the target audience is. This is an influential part of the process as it allows Joe to get an inside look of who is actually going to be using this product or service. The age group, demographic, etc. of targeted consumers can influence the way Joe creates the logo.
Once these things are set in place, then comes the time to actually design initial concepts. After sketches are made, the logo process moves to the stage of being created digitally. Finding the right color palettes, iconography and typography are the critical parts in designing the concept art direction. Once concepts are ready, a presentation of the variations are presented to the client for feedback. When receiving feedback, Joe creates updated iterations of the logo as he and his clients collaborate again to come to the final choice. Once everything is approved, Joe provides his clients with all of the assets needed to keep their brand consistent and clear. Typically, this stage includes the development of a brand guide to keep the new logo use on brand. Sometimes the logo process can seem lengthy, but the results are always worth the time and investment. It’s been said (and proven) that a professional designer is not a financial liability but rather an asset to your sales team.
Using your logo and next steps
The use of a logo can have a variety of possibilities. Logos can be used for signage, marketing material, social media presence, and so much more. A brands logo is the one way that brands can have a reoccurring mark that becomes recognizable and creates brand identity. When creating a brand identity, it is important for the designer to thoroughly think thru all of the aspects in which a company will be implementing their logo. For example, when creating a logo, a client may know that it will be placed on business cards, their website, and even apparel. This is important information that a designer needs in order to create a logo that works in multiple environments. Many times, when a client comes to a designer just needing a logo, they soon realize that they need other deliverables for their brand.
Unlike an online logo designer, a professional graphic designer like Joe has the experience and resources to carry your logo design onto those additional assets, from marketing materials like brochures to a website design and more. The last and most important step in finalizing your professional logo development is to cultivate your brand. You have now completed a professional logo design and have the confidence that your business needs to get out there in front of your audience and build up your brand recognition and loyalty.
