My #1 Secret to Designing an Authentic Logo That Attracts

Let’s talk about my #1 secret to designing an authentic logo. I’m not here to spill the tea, but I am here to spill the tea – First things first, it’s really hard. That’s what she said. Nah, making a logo is only as hard as you make it be. That’s what she said. I need to stop. I’ve had one too many coffees today and it’s showing, am I right?!

Often, people want to save a couple of bucks and make their logo on their own. I get it. You’re forgiven IF AND ONLY IF you’ve just started your business. I get it makes no sense to invest in design right off the bat of you business. You need to figure out your offer, your marketing, your strategy, etc. before. But once you do get to going and have people coming to you – you NEED branding. No if’s, no but’s.

Because when you get your branding done what you gain is confidence, consistency, the voice, you get to be authentic in your niche, you’ll gain “the clothes” for your business (aka. the design) which are all linked back to your strategy. And it will attract the right type of clients to you.

Alright, so if you just started a business and you need an authentic logo that is OH SO PRETTY. Listen up!

 

First – you need to find the right software

The choices are endless! Have a Adobe subscription? Photoshop of Illustrator are defintely your best bets. But it’s not like all of us just walk with these subscriptions in our back pockets, I mean… hello!? So, if you don’t have these, don’t worry. Canva is out there. Though it’s an enemy. It’s out there. I would use them since it’s fairly simple tool to use. The only problem is that when you make stuff in Canva and use templates, you don’t own that design. It’s not yours. It belongs to Canva. This is also why you don’t want to have your forever logo made with Canva. You’re going to want to invest in a professional at some point. I’m going to use Illustrator to show you how to do it, but you can use Canva as well. Now, it’s time to open the software and get down and dirty! This mac and cheese ain’t getting creamy by itself!

 

Second -what in the frick is an authentic logo design!? (My secret)

Gotcha, there didn’t I?! No one saw me talking about this. But it’s important and a lot of people skip this step because they mad. So, don’t skip this step. I know ya ain’t mad. Authentic design menas it comes from within. There is a purpose behind what you put down. You don’t just have a flower in your logo because you can. You have a flower in your logo because it means something to you. I had a client who had a dandelion in her logo because it meant something to her. It was real. Not just because it’d be fitting. The best thing about designing a logo is the fact that you get to go really deep and think about meaningful items, things, anything. Then you get to craft a logo out of that.

So, what you should do is think about meaningful things from your past. It’s also okay to keep the authentic logo SIMPLE and just play with your initials or something else. You really just need to play around with the idea and what you’d like your business to represent. Maybe it doesn’t need much more than just the name. That is also authentic because it’s true to you.

 

Third – decide what sort of logo you’d like

So. Many. Options. Is it square? Circle? One line? OH! And don’t forget about the fonts! The different letter width, line width, caps… regular, light, bold? There are literally so many options you could do. Try to think what feeling are you going after. Do you want people to feel home-y? Perhaps excited? Maybe just want something professional? Think of emotions and write 3 of them down. For instance, if you want to go for a soft, welcoming but exciting, then maybe you use soft letters with some excitement. Let’s start!

This is our starting point.

 

Fourth – start designing your authentic logo

Next, let’s choose a font. I chose to go with this. It’s the “Idealist” from Nicky Laatz. You can get it from here. You can add your own fonts to Canva, but you do need a subscription for it. It’s okay to find a decent font in Canva’s library too. They have quite a few to choose from.

 

 

Now, this next step I’m going to take is something you can’t do in Canva. But I like doing it to give the logo some depth. It’s perfectly fine to skip on this step, though. I’m going to create some outlines for the text and play around with it.

 

I made some adjustments to the letter “a” in the back. I think it just adds a nice touch to the logo – but it’s definitely not a must. Now that we have our “basic” logo down, we need to add some stuff to it. Since patagonia means “country of the hills,” we obviously want to add some hills. And we aldo want to add the field they specialize in and then the est. year. Also, I like to add a tagline or slogan – as you wish – to the logo as well. The main logo is always pretty hefty. This is why you make MULTIPLE logos. So, that you can have the main which is stuffed with it all and then other versions which are not as stuffed.

Fifth – make alternative authentic logos

I know, it seems like a lot happened there. And it’s true. There is a lot that happened. We added the slogan, the est. date, the logo icon (mountains) and then also the field they specialize in. This is a full blown main logo. Now, if you want to make secondary logos, you usually make them different shape and take somethings out, such like;

Sixth – your authentic logo design is done!

Now go make some mockups! There are plenty of free sources, just google them.

 

 

Now that you have your beautiful logos and also alternative logos, you officially have your logos together. For now. Still remember, when you get your business going – you’re going to want to hire an expert to do your branding. It’s a must. It truly gives you that competitive edge you need in order to stand out in your niche.

Maybe you’re already in business and have been for awhile. Well, if you’re looking for authentic brand design, I can definitely help you with that. I am an expert. I do minimal design and love to adopt your business as mine. If you’re ready to up level the heck out of your business, contact me here and let’s get this process going, shall we!?