There are a number of ways to get a logo. One is to design your own with the aid of a logo maker. Another is to use a logo generator; a program that’s similar to a logo maker but has some key differences. You can also hire a logo designer, and on this route, there are multiple ways to go. You can hire a freelance designer and work with them individually, or you can work with a design agency, where multiple professionals will work on your logo and refine it into the final product. Which is the best? That depends on your goals and needs.
Although lots of online resources will tell you it’s always best to hire a professional logo designer, we’re going against the grain and saying it’s not. There are lots of things a logo maker can do that a logo designer simply can’t, and when these things are necessities for you, a logo maker is the way to go. Here’s a few of those critical things:
A Logo Maker Can Approach Logo Design with a Completely Clean Slate
Logo designers–the successful ones at least–are trained in graphic design. Some have design degrees while others are self-taught, but they all have had some kind of instruction in the principles of effective design. This includes areas like color theory, scale, color and shape psychology, logo design trends and composition.
The good thing about working with a trained designer is, you’re working with somebody who doesn’t just know how to create an effective logo; they understand the how and why behind creating an effective logo. But here’s the opposite side of that coin: because they’ve been trained to think like a designer, they can have a hard time turning that off and not thinking like a designer when necessary.
Sometimes, you don’t want a logo to look like it’s from a professional designer. Sounds counterintuitive, but consider this: when The Big Lebowski was initially released, film critics hated it. But when it was released on video, viewers loved it and today, it’s a widely loved, insanely quotable cult classic. Remember the Dreamworks movie Antz? It was like A Bug’s Life, except it wasn’t A Bug’s Life? Film critics loved Woody Allen’s quirky animated movie starring himself as an ant, but audiences just couldn’t connect with it, and the rest is history. Or here’s one last example...the 2008 Pepsi logo.
PepsiCo spent more than $1 million to have Arnell Group design the logo. The group, bringing together its designers’ collective years of experience and design expertise, created a logo that utilized design principles like the golden ratio and an understanding of human psychology to, ideally, create the perfect face for the brand. And people hated it.
Pepsi drinkers around the world called the logo cheap, soulless, boring, generic and...pretentious. So despite spending all that money to have pro designers use their training to create the perfect logo, Pepsi got a logo that resonates with designers, rather than everyday soda drinkers.
If your logo doesn’t resonate with your target audience, it simply doesn’t work. And if your target audience isn’t designers, creating the logo yourself with a logo maker is one effective way to avoid falling into that trap and potentially getting labeled “pretentious”...or worse.
With a Logo Maker, Revise, Rework and Start Fresh as Many Times as you Want (For Free!)
When you hire a logo designer, you have to pay them. Some logo designers charge by the hour, others work on contracts for set fees. When you pay a designer hourly, you’re paying for every hour they spend creating and revising your logo–remember, even the most skilled logo designer likely won’t create something perfect from the get-go, so you’ll have to do some revising and refining. That takes time, and time is money (especially when you’re the one footing the bill!)
You can also hire a designer on retainer or for a set project fee, which means you know what you’re paying up front. Usually, these contracts allow for one revision, maybe two. So what happens if the designer still doesn’t get it just right and you need to tweak it further after that specified revision? You’re paying for it.
In contrast, you can revise your logo as many times as you want with a logo maker. You can save different versions of your logo and start fresh as many times as you’d wish, all for free (at least it’s free if you’re using a free logo maker like Logogenie’s). This gives you room to experiment, room to play and room to learn what doesn’t work through trial and error. This kind of freedom can be as liberating as it is easy on the wallet.
Logo Makers Give you Total Control Over your Logo
This is probably the most critical factor separating logo makers from logo designers. When you design your logo with a DIY logo maker (a logo maker–not a logo generator) you have complete and total control over how your logo looks, how it feels, and how it communicates your brand. There’s no back and forth with the designer, no lengthy conversations where you try to get your vision across and potentially lose something in transmission (or translation!) and no pushback from a designer trying to create something that will look good for their portfolio as well as look good for your brand...which might not always be the same thing.
A Logo Maker Delivers your Logo Instantly
A logo designer also can’t give you the speed you get with a logo maker. When you’re at the helm creating your own logo, you can take as much, or as little, time as you need to create the perfect logo. There’s no waiting around for a designer to get started, answer questions or deliver the logo.
If you need a logo today, use a logo maker. It’s the only way to guarantee you get exactly what you need as soon as possible. Even if it’s midnight and you need your logo by morning–that’s no problem with a logo maker, because it’s online and available 24/7.
A Logo Maker Guarantees There’s no Chance of Copyright Issues
This one’s a little bit more complex than the others. When you hire a logo designer, your contract should stipulate that you own all the rights to the logo they’re designing for you. The designer may reserve the right to display the logo in their portfolio, but ultimately, the logo is yours to do what you please with it, including modifying it and licensing it to brands that partner with you.
But not every logo designer is an honest, reputable businessperson. When you have a designer create your logo, you trust that you aren’t getting something they previously designed for somebody else...or outright stole. That can land you in some hot water and at best, leave you logo-less and at worst, create a lengthy, frustrating headache that can potentially tarnish your brand’s reputation with your buyers.
When you use a logo maker to create your own logo, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You’re the only person involved in making the logo, so there’s no transfer of copyrights or potential for misunderstandings or ripoffs on that end.
A Logo Maker is Easy to Work With
Finally, there’s the ease of use that comes with a logo maker. You might be thinking to yourself, “isn’t outsourcing my logo design to a designer far simpler than designing it myself?” And the answer is this: actually no. Here’s why:
It takes time to find the right designer for your logo. First. you’ve got to search for designers and look through their portfolios. Then, once you’ve narrowed your list down to the designers whose styles are similar to yours, you’ve got to reach out to them and find out who has room to take on your project. That takes time. Then, you narrow your list even further by finding out each designer’s rates. By this point, you might not be able to get the designer you really want because their rates are out of your budget or they don’t have openings in their schedule right now. All of this legwork is time-consuming and hard. On the other hand, using a logo maker–particularly a straightforward, browser-based drag-and-drop logo maker, is incredibly easy.
If you can point, click, scroll and drag, you can design a logo with a logo maker. That’s literally all there is to it. Logo makers exist to make it possible for a non-designer to create their own great-looking logo, so they work in a way that’s intuitive to somebody who doesn’t have a background in coding or design. It really doesn’t get any easier than that.
