Five Steps for Designing Your Perfect Product Logo

Don't go low for your logo! More than 250,000 Americans work as graphic designers. They spend hours working with companies on their product logos, creating appealing and competitive designs. 

If you want your company to succeed, you must create an inventive product logo. But finding the best product logo is a little difficult. You need to go through a few different steps. 

What should your logo do for your company? What kinds of visuals should it have? What does the revision process for logo design look like? 

Answer these questions and you can aim high with your company logo. Here are five steps for logo design.

1. Think About Your Company's Story

Your company has a purpose for existing. You may want to make cheaper products so low-income people can enjoy them. You may want to make products with environmentally-friendly materials so you can reduce the effects of climate change. 

Whatever your purpose is, your product logo should advance your mission. Think about what your mission is and write a sentence that summarizes it. 

Take a look at your previous logo ideas and visuals. You may have created logos for the covers of reports or infographics for your social media accounts. Think about what worked in these visuals and take notes on their benefits. 

Your logo should try to extend off of your previous visuals. If blue and green dominated your visuals, you should use blue and green in your logo. This allows you to stay consistent through time and develop a unique visual style.

2. Base Your Product Logo on Descriptions of Your Brand

You should then think of visual details that will indicate your mission without being too blunt or preachy. If you're a clothing company, you can make a logo design in the shape of a shirt or hat. 

If you're stumped, type in words from your mission statement into a thesaurus. "Green" has many different synonyms, including "grassy," "tender," and "sprouting." Your environmental company can put bushes or meadows in its custom product logo.

You should also think about details that your customers associate with your company. If your company is regarded as serious, you should avoid using bright colors like yellow that can seem informal. You may want to interview some customers or look at your contact pages to get information about your public perception.

3. Sketch a Few Designs

Once you've got some background information, you can start sketching different logo ideas. You can sketch the logos yourself, or you can have someone in your arts or marketing department do some drawings. 

Your drawings should be simple so others can understand them. If possible, you should do each one in seven seconds or less.

However, you should not rely on cliches or clip-art images. Do not use flowers, leaves, or musical notes. These images have lost their power because so many companies rely on them for their logos.

Your first sketches can be basic pencil and pen sketches. After you've completed a few of them, you can try adding paint and colored pencils. 

Do not pick more than three colors. Logos with four or more can seem cluttered and jarring, especially if the colors are at different points on the color wheel. Try to pick two or three colors that are complementary and create an interesting clash.

You should create as many sketches as you want. Try out different design elements and color combinations until you have a few that you think are interesting.

4. Narrow Your Choices Down

Once you have a good group of sketches, you should reach out to others. Ask them questions about what they think the sketches say about your company and which ones they find visually interesting. Get feedback on the ones that don't do well and try to make improvements to them. 

If you have the time, you should conduct a few focus groups. Ask several different groups what they think about the logos and take notes on what they say. 

Don't take negative feedback personally. If one or more sketches don't do well, you should put them aside and move on with the sketch that is doing well.

5. Refine Your Logo

The revision process involves a few different things. You need to finalize your color decisions. You may want to adjust the tint or shading of one color to form a more striking contrast. 

Keep in mind that your logo may go on backgrounds of different colors. You may need to adjust the logo based on the background or the shape of your product. Consider creating a few variations so your design still looks nice.

You need to move your design from the sketchpad to the computer. You can use one of several digital tools, including Photoshop, to digitize your design. 

You then need to produce copies of your logo so it looks good on your products. You should talk to a printer or distribution company so you can recreate it at low prices. Read this complete guide so you can prepare your logo for printing and manufacturing.

Create a Great Product Logo

A product logo takes time to develop. Your logo should embody your company's values, so think about what your company stands for. Find subtle visual cues that sell your company's mission to your customers. 

Make a few sketches that include the cues. Give them to other people and see what they think, then make adjustments based on critiques.

Put your design on the computer and edit it. Once you have the perfect design, you can contact someone to start putting it on products. 

Graphic design is more than designing logos. Read more graphic design guides by following our coverage.