Ask the right Question
One of the best ways to find out if a logo designer is right for you is to ask if they have a logo design process. Some logo designers just basically will have a meeting with you and start designing the logo straight away. But professional logo designers will have a longer process.
They will want to research your industry research your customer base, what is it they're looking for?
Before you take on a designer? Ask them about this process? Do they have one? What is it? Can we run you through it? By finding out about the processes which the designer uses, you'll be put at ease to know that they do quite a lot of research into your industry into your customer base.
All of that knowledge then goes into the design part, the concept of your logo. By having all of this research and information embedded and used as part of the design process, you'll know that the logo you're given at the end is as appropriate as it can be. It's not just going to be something which is designed because it looks nice. Chances are that logo will be the perfect fit for you by the end.
So these seven questions aren't an exhaustive list that you should be asking any potential logo designer, there will be other things that I'm sure will mean more to you. But I would suggest that they are core questions that need to be answered, don't make a decision to hire a logo designer purely on their portfolio of work.
Format
The next thing to do is to make sure that the designer you're going to work with will be creating your logo as a vector file. But basically, with a vector file format. You can make your logo tiny, or huge, and it won't lose any quality at all.
There are still logo designers out there who create logos in a bitmap format, which is made up from pixels. And you will have problems when you want to enlarge your logo.
You may have had a photograph in the past and increased the size of it and it's gone all blurry. The same will happen to your logo if it's created as a bitmap. So make sure when you're speaking to a designer that you're thinking of working with that they will provide your logo in a vector file format.
Download Free PDF for: Logo File Formats Explained
Logo Design Color
Your logo should also work in one color. I know it's the modern age, and we've got computers and we've got in-house printers and all of that kind of stuff. But there are times when you will be limited to just one color in your logo.
Things like promotional merchandise, pens, key rings, quite often, they will be one color printing. Now if your logo relies on fancy gradients, or shadowing, to make it clear what the logo is, and then you convert that to one color, you may end up with just a blob.
People can't see what the shapes meant to be indistinct and not clear. So make sure that you have a designer that's going to focus on the shape and make sure that your logo can be recreated in one color without any loss of impact.
For example, when I'm creating logo concepts will only work in black, to begin with, so that we are under client can look and study the shape of the logo to make sure that's correct. And then I introduce color.
Fonts
Now the chances are your logo is going to include some text, which means you're going to require a font. There are designers out there who will use licensed fonts which you can get access to quite easily on the net, but will pay for a license or inform the client that they've used a licensed font. If that's the case, there is a chance that further down the line, you could be sued for using an unlicensed font in your logo or marketing.
So please check with your designer whether they use only free fonts or free fonts and paid fonts and that they will inform you when they're creating your logo which one they've used so that you can buy the license.
Adaptable Logo
Your logo needs to be adaptable. It's all well and good having a horizontal logo, but what happens when you need to use it. Say for example, on Facebook as your profile picture, which is a square.
I've seen some terrible approaches to this where the person who has the logo has taken their horizontal logo and put it into a square and chopped off the edges. So you don't even see the whole logo, or they've squashed it to fit in the box. That just looks terrible. And that's really not what you want to do.
When you're hiring your logo designer, ask them if they will be providing your logo in different layouts. So you may want a stack layout for square spaces, and a horizontal layout for rectangular spaces on pages on websites.
Most logo designers will provide your logo in different layouts, but not all will. So please make sure when you're hiring your logo designer that you check that they will be providing you some flexibility with your logo by providing these different layouts.
Brand Guidelines
There will be occasions in the future when you've got your completed logo that you'll need to pass it on to another designer or a company to use your logo in an advert or in a magazine. What you should have and be provided by your chosen logo designer is a set of guidelines.
Now these can be called logo style guides or brand guidelines. But essentially the same thing. What they do is they will state the minimum size that your logo should be the fonts that are used colors which are in your logo. And it will also say you know, don't squash the logo, don't substitute fonts don't use different colors than the ones that are stated in the guidelines.
So as you can see, the guidelines are quite an important thing. It means that people don't mess around with that logo that you've invested time and money into just to suit their own purpose. check more about What's Definitive Brand Guidelines Must Include
You need to make sure that your logo always appears as it should. Consistency is key in branding, and you don't want anyone messing around and changing it willy-nilly just to suit themselves. So please make sure that your chosen logo designer will be giving you logo guidelines at the end of the design process.
Where I can find logo designers
CHEAP FREELANCE SERVICES ( Avoid )
Logo Design Contest ( Avoid )
Freelancers
Design Studio
Renown Branding Agency
How Much Does Logo Design Cost
how much does a custom logo design cost, I get this question asked a lot by either federal logo designers or clients looking for a custom logo so in this Pdf I will explain how much a custom logo can actually cost you and why is that one logo can be drastically more expensive than the other.
Download Free PDF Here: How Much Does Logo Design Cost PDF
How To Choose A Logo Designer
Conclusion
There are other things that go into making a great designer than just the fact that they can do good designs. The design process and the deliverables that you will get at the end are just as important as skill in design.
By making sure you ask all the right questions and you get all the right answers, the chances of buyer's remorse at the end, very, very slim. If you rush into hiring a logo designer, then you could get bitten quite badly and then have to look out for another designer to restart the process all over again.
I hope this has been useful especially if you are just about to start a business or you're thinking of a rebrand and looking for a logo designer. Keep these questions in mind. Read the blog again write them down and make sure you have them to hand the next time you speak to a logo designer.
Alaa is a Logo design & Brand identity from award-winning graphic, educator, and the founder of CreativeSoup.
Need help with your project? Get in touch.
If you’re looking for more resources regarding brand design, check out these articles:
- 8 Pro Tips To Create Brand Guidelines Without Losing Time
- How to Write a Mission Statement With Examples
- 5 Branding Books That will kick your branding knowledge to a whole new level
- 5 Things You Should Know Before Start Designing Brand Guidelines
- 26 Best Free Branding Design Resources
- What's Definitive Brand Guidelines Must Include
- 17 Famous Brand Guidelines Examples That Can Inspire You
- Brand Guidelines Library
