In the modern business world, there are more possible ways to get your logo designed than ever before.

Do a quick Google search of “logo design” and you will find people volunteering to design your logo for rock bottom prices, people encouraging you to “crowdsource” your logo by putting it up for a contest, and even DIY logo design sites, not to mention the standard and conventional method of hiring a professional logo designer to do your logo for you.

There are so many ways to do a logo in 2016, the question isn’t “how to get a logo designed in 2016,” it’s actually “how NOT to get a logo designed in 2016.” Here are some of the pitfalls you should avoid like the plague if you want a professional logo that shows off your company’s creditability.

Stay away from logo design contests

Logo design contests sound really attractive.

You write the brief for the logo you want, and in just a few days you will have tons of results ready for you to review and pick your favorite! Best of all, you only pay if you find a logo you really love in the bunch! It couldn’t be better, right?

Well, actually, wrong. There are a few things seriously wrong with logo design contests.

1. You often get terrible results. These are not highly paid, professional designers who are designing your logos for you. These are beginners or hobbyists who don’t have a good enough portfolio yet to get a regular designing job. Occasionally you may find a brilliant designer who is working their way up from the absolute bottom, but that is rare.
2. You’re not actually working with the designer so you miss some key parts of the design process, such as making sure that the design reflects your brand and working out the style sheet and branding for everything you’ll be putting your logo on.
3. Nobody except the winner gets paid. Tons of other people just spent hours each creating submissions, and they didn’t get paid for their time. The level of desperation required for a designer to work on a design contest site is incredible and somewhat Dickensian.
4. You’re really actually damaging the design industry by giving your business this way. Designers work for years getting the skills they need to help your branding in this way. They deserve to be paid for their work, just like you deserve to be paid for yours. By supporting design contest sites (which take a fair amount of the price you pay for your winning design in profit for themselves), you’re contributing to a hostile market where designers are expected to work for pennies or for free, on the hopes that every once in a while they’ll actually get paid for the time and expertise they’ve put into working for you.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

So you found an ad online where someone will design your logo for you for $50? That’s amazing! Guess how much time they’re going to put into it. About thirty minutes, if you’re lucky. Think about it: these companies have to stay in business and pay their workers’ salaries. If you can’t imagine how they can offer those prices and stay in business, it’s because they’re throwing something together as fast as possible for you and moving on to the next $50 customer.

Don’t use stock photos.

Stock photos are available for people to use all over the world. If you have a stock image or graphic in your logo, chances are someone else has that exact same graphic. Not only might this cause legal problems for you, but it’s also going to cause massive branding problems. Just don’t do it.

Don’t try to do it yourself.

For $50 a month you can download all of Adobe’s Creative Suite products. Once you have the software, you can just learn to use it and then design your logo yourself, right? After all, how hard can it be?

The thing about design is that it’s not just a matter of knowing how to use the software. And painting isn’t just a matter of knowing which end of the brush to put the paint on. It’s depressingly easy to spot a logo that’s been made by an amateur. When it comes to representing your company, you want a polished, professional appearance.

Don’t use a DIY logo site.

There are sites out there that offer DIY logos. They give you a template, some stock images, and tools for adding your own text or design. Guess what: your logo is going to look exactly like half the other people’s logos from those sites. This is terrible for branding.

Don’t finalize your logo without feedback.

You might think your design of a tiny star in the middle of a large circle with a curved line rising out of the top of it is perfect for showing how special your company is in the midst of a large industry, and how committed to excellence you are.. An impartial observer might be able to point out that it looks like a cat’s butt. Don’t skip this step. If your logo looks like anything it shouldn’t, you need to know about it before your customers see it.

How to get your logo designed

For the best, most effective logo design for you and your company, do it the old fashioned way. Hire a professional logo design company. They will work with you over a period of several weeks or even months to make sure that your logo is perfect for your company. They will make sure that your logo perfectly reflects your company’s identity and works with your branding. They will work with you to make sure that the branding is consistent with the logo design, and that you know what fonts and colors to use in your publications to match your logo and branding.

At Front Street Media, we are here to help you with all your logo and branding needs. Give us a call today!