At least once or twice a month I am approached by someone who is starting a new business and is looking for help with a logo design. A lot of design companies would lead you to believe that without the perfect logo your business has little hope of succeeding. That’s a load of crap. Sure, its a lot more fun to think about your logo than it is to worry about the numbers, how you’re going to fill your pipeline, and how you’ll actually SELL your services. All that stuff is a little scary. So it is easy to start fixating on the logo instead.
I’m here to tell you that unless you plan on selling tennis shoes to teenagers or cereal to children, your logo is the least of your concerns. Just make sure it fits the following criteria:
- It looks equally good in black & white as it does in color
- It is easy to ready (no fancy script fonts)
- It looks professionally designed (no clip art)
- You like it
That it. Really. Nobody will choose to buy your services or technology because of your logo. They will buy from you because they have a need and you have the answer.
Thanks to the internet there are dozens of online logo design services, Logoworks.com and 99designs.com are just two that I’ve recommended in the past. The quality of the work is excellent. Sure, you get a few really lousy
logo concepts but overall I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen. One colleague used Logoworks to design his logo for an online social networking site for hair stylists. It cost him $300 and this is what he got – he’s delighted.
As part of a case study I’m conducting I decided to get a logo designed for an online business I’m launching called Peace Happens. The goal of this project is to get a business up and running on the Internet (including e-commerce) for less than $1,200. It has to be generating revenue before I can spend more than $1,200. I’m doing this because I see too many start ups and small businesses spending all their marketing budget on the wrong things — like logos and expensive websites — instead of whats important, like GENERATING LEADS. There are too many inexpensive or free tools on the market (like WordPress) to use when building a website. And services like Logoworks and 99Designs are an incredible resource for certain types of design work.
I decided to try using 99Designs because I liked the idea of having an open contest. Designers from around the world read your design request (called a brief) and then choose to enter the contest with a concept of their own. I am on a tight budget so I bid $195 for the design. This is the Design Brief I wrote.
In six days I had 78 submissions. Yes, some of them were lousy and obviously designed by students. Others were extremely professional, creative and well thought out. Here is a compilation of some of the designs that were submitted
I now have to select a winner and award the $195 prize. I’m not sure yet which logo I’ll select. I am taking surveys — you’re free to email me with the # of a logo that you like. Just visit the contest page here.
The next step is to build the website. I’ve purchased peacehappens.net from GoDaddy for $9.95. I’ll be posting my progress on this blog.
I”m rebranding now. I’ve used 99 Designs in the past and am using them again. I have found that if you can find $250 or above in your budget for a logo design, you draw more artistic designers (creative types) rather than graphics software engineers.