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By Momentum Team

April 9, 2023

Logo Design Basics: What You Need to know

Looking to create the perfect logo for your brand? Not sure where to start? Learn the Logo Design Basics to get your design started!

Logo Design Basics

Is there a well-known brand that doesn’t have a logo? No? That’s because there isn’t one. Why? Because a logo is a first and most important impression your business will ever make. A good logo can help your business stand out from the competition, define your brand identity, and attract new customers.

But what makes a logo good? Well, that is the question we are trying to answer here below. So read on to learn everything you need to know to navigate the logo design process. Now let’s get to logo design basics!

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Why You Need An Excellent Logo

In many ways, business is like dating. You want to find the right clientele and win them over to your brand. Imagine your logo as your dating profile picture. It piques people’s interest in you and pushes them to seek more information about your offers.

The logo represents your business agenda visually; the component that represents your brand to the world. It should be simple, memorable, and consistent across all media channels. Whether it’s your website, packaging, or business cards, your logo will be the first thing your customers see.

Define Your Brand Identity

Money is the reason businesses are born. And a successful business means selling stories before your products. Today’s marketers generally agree that consumers connect much more strongly with stories than with the basic facts of your products.

Take some time to ask yourself what your brand’s true story is before you even start to design its logo. And to do that, you first need to identify the core of your brand’s character. Designing a logo will be easier if you’re clear about what your brand and business are all about. These details must be reflected in the color, shape and font of your logo.

Know More About Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is one of the fundamental principles for running a successful business. Understanding your audience’s expectations better will also help you target them with the right design components.

For example, if you are targeting teenagers, incorporating some humorous and quirky elements into your logo is a good idea. Knowing the end user will help you convey your message with the right design elements.

Inspiration For Your Design

Finding inspiration can be the most challenging step in logo design. However, there are steps you can take to facilitate the whole logo design process, including:

Follow The Rules Of The Brainstorm

All ideas, even stupid ones, should be written down during a brainstorming session. Even a terrible concept can spark a brilliant discussion that leads to a good answer. Get inspired by the Thesaurus website and type a word into the search bar that best describes your product. You’ll be surprised at how many descriptive synonyms appear. You can even click on these results to start new searches as you decide which word is what you need.

Do Some Sketching Work

The likelihood that you will develop a distinctive logo idea increases if you can make some sketches. Let each new idea develop on its own. If the first sketches are flawed, keep improving them and do not get discouraged. Your final logo will be better if you are more imaginative at this point.

Get Everyone Involved

Individual brainstorming is fine, but diversity is the key to creating magic. Invite colleagues from all departments or even friends and business partners. More viewpoints are better, of course. If possible, take these sketches to someone who most resembles your buyer persona or ideal customer profile. This way, you’ll get the most insightful assessment of your work. Incorporate their suggestions to narrow down your final concept and make it a draft.

Check Out The Competition

Where is the best place to borrow ideas? From your competitor, of course! Look at what’s already available, what appeals to your target audience, and what you should steer clear of. While you are sounding out the basics of your competitor’s logo design, consider how their services differ from yours and how you might highlight those differences in your logo design.

Choose Your Design Style

It’s time to incorporate your brand into the design. This is where a myriad of different elements come into play, including text, colors, shapes and graphics. To avoid being overwhelmed by the entire design at once, break down each element individually and explain what it can do for your brand.

Colors

When it comes to logo design basics, colors can be your best friend or worst foe, depending on how you use them. Choose your colors carefully and generally avoid using more than three colors in a design. Remember that colors have an extraordinary ability to trigger our emotions. Once you are clear about your brand’s identity and message, it’s time to explore the psychological impact of colors and carefully incorporate them into your design

Fonts

Think about what font you want to use for your brand name, regardless of the symbol. Whether you like it or not, the font you choose can say a lot about your company.
For example, if you want to emphasize the reliability of your business, you should choose a classic font. A traditional font brings back memories of earlier times that people subconsciously appreciate and trust.

There are more fonts available for you to use than you might think. Fonts are not limited to just what is on Microsoft Word. Online there are hundreds of thousands to millions of creative fonts to choose from, some paid and some free. You can find great fonts to purchase on Fonts.com or use Dafont.com for free ones!

Bring Your Design Elements Together

Now that you know what your logo design basics are, you need to make sure they all work together. To achieve the desired effect, you need to combine them harmoniously, appeal to the audience, and create something memorable. Finally, test variations of your logo on different backgrounds to see what looks best. After all, it’s the first thing consumers see, and it sets the tone for all your marketing initiatives.

You're ready!

As you can see, it’s critical to convey a consistent and understandable message that gets to the heart of the essence of your business. Designing a logo may seem relatively simple, but doing it well isn’t necessarily easy. A deep understanding of your buyer personas, a lot of market research, and careful consideration of logo design basics are necessary. Our team at Momentum Digital is trusted by many businesses around the world. With years of experience and a team of skilled designers, we’re here to help and look forward to hearing from you.

If you have any questions regarding logo design or web design, we’re here to help you. Contact our designing experts at Momentum Digital, and learn more about how you can grow your business with Digital Marketing.

Other Marketing Tips!

I’m always promoting myself and Momentum Digital with various blog updates, social media posts, graphics, podcasts and videos. Check out some of my social channels to stay up to date with Momentum and some big moves we’re making in the industry.

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Here are some related blogs that will help you with your Logos, Web Design, and Digital Marketing:

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By Anthony Mirarchi

March 22, 2023

Logo Design vs Web Design: What’s More Important?

Logo Design vs Web Design; What’s more important? Which one should you do first? We have the answers!

Logo vs Web Design: Which One Should You Do First?

Starting a new business can be overwhelming, and you may have a lot questions and hard decisions to make. For instance, “Should I sell online, or not?” “Do I have to invest in a website, or is only social media good enough?” and especially, “Which one should be done first, Logo design or web design?”

Logo and website design both affect the image of your company and help differentiate your brand from other competitors. But which does your business need first?

Ideally, it’s best if you do both at the same time. However, when starting up a new company, the budgets can be very tight, and you may have to make some compromises. So if your pockets are coming up a little empty, here we’ll help you determine what to invest in first – Logo Design vs Web Design.

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Logo Design vs Web Design

Let’s begin with a short definition of logo design and web design. To put it simply, a logo is a graphic symbol that represents your business and allows customers can recognize the brand. It can be inspired by the company’s name, its abbreviation, a letter, or any related drawing.

Every day, we are bombarded with thousands of logos on bus stops, buildings, billboards, and Coffee Cups. Look around, Logos are everywhere! The goal of these logos is to remind us who they are associated with, and influence us to purchase from their businesses. Every Business needs a professional and recognizable logo to increase their brand recognition.

Websites allow prospects to interact directly with the brand. On a website you can learn about its products or services, and even order them. For this reason, every business owner needs a well-designed website to provide good customer service.

Generally speaking, web design includes planning and arranging different website elements, to ensure usability and easy access on various devices.

Note that this process is not the same as web development. While web development deals with coding and the more technical parts, the former is a multi-step process of offering optimal usability and aesthetics.

Three Main Differences Web Design Vs Logo Design

There are a few key differences between designing a website and a logo. First, you should know that a logo is only one aspect of graphic design, which includes multiple parts such as illustrations, symbols, posters, brochures, and more.

Once the process of designing the logo is finished and announced to the public, you cannot change it. Well, you CAN change it, but it is not recommended because you want as many people to recognize it as possible. Changing it often will confuse people and hurt your brand awareness. Your logo can still be slightly updated if needed, But generally speaking, changing a logo will require a lot of time and money to market your rebranding again. So it’s very very important to get a logo right on the first try!

On the other hand, developing a website is a much more dynamic process. The website can keep up with the new trends and offer a convenient user experience by constantly reviewing web pages and fixing errors.

Another difference between the two is that web designing is mainly focused on accessibility and user experience. Prospects can click on links, and images to open new content and learn more about the company and its services. But a logo design doesn’t offer any of these capabilities, and it only works as a resignation mark.

The Importance of a Logo Design

Why do you need a well-designed logo? How does it benefit your business? Here we’ll see why a professional logo can set your brand apart in the market:

Attracting Customers’ Attention

Every successful business owner would agree on the importance of leaving a lasting first impression. Powerful visuals like a professionally designed logo will leave a positive impact on customers’ memory for a long time.

Since a company’s logo is the first thing people see, it can pique their interest and encourage them to find out more about the brand and its services.

Forming Company’s Identity

Graphic design is one of the main aspects of a brand’s identity. Using appropriate language, fonts, and colors, the logo shares a narrative about the business background, objectives, and values.

When aligned with other parts of a company’s identity, a professional logo can leave a strong impression on prospects, and attract them to the offered services.

Recognizing the Brand Among Competitors

McDonald’s, Apple, Twitter, and Nike; as soon as we hear the words, we can picture their logos: the “Golden Arches“, a bitten apple, a bluebird, and the “Swoosh”.

No matter whether you’re a fan of their products and services or not, their name stands out among hundreds of other brands, simply because they boast the power of a good logo. A professional logo design can present your brand with its history and values.

The Importance of Web Design

In today’s modern world, an online presence can determine the business’s role in the market. And web design is the key factor in how prospects experience working with your platform. Whether they find their desired information and service or get lost in the complex process and end up leaving the page, all depend on your web design

Therefore, it’s essential to design website pages with an optimal user experience. This will ultimately save you from pricey mistakes costing prospects and revenues.

Improving SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

One of the main objectives of website design is to reach high positions in search engine results. SEO uses keywords to and page optimization to prove to search engines like Google, that your website is a match!

A well-designed and fast website conveys a positive message to the Google search engine. It shows that the website has high standards and work put into it, allowing more prospects to find your brand and use the services.

Determining Audience Perception

A professional looking website design that provides a user-friendly platform leaves a positive impact on visitors. It can represent whether a business owner cares about his customers or not. An slow and unoptimized website causes frustration, leading prospects to leave for competitors with a site that works. Statistics show that unresponsiveness is the main reason why visitors leave an online store or website.

Building a Reliable Platform

Whether you own a large company, or a small online store, a well-designed website shows your dedication and professionalism. Visitors generally don’t trust a poorly designed website with their sensitive information.

Thus, to attract customers, you should build trust by looking up-to-date and offering a smooth convenient experience.

With more companies emerging in the online market, you need to provide prospects with a reason to choose your company. An excellent UI/UX design helps you outperform the competition, and present your brand effectively.

Logo Design vs Web Design - Which One Should You Go for?

Now that we compared Logo Design vs Web Design, and how they both are beneficial to any business, Which one should you create first?

This is a tough decision, but many new small businesses have to face this in the beginning. Both a Logo and a Website are crucial , and no business can truly thrive with only one. A logo and Website complement each other, but also provide their own benefits.

However, if you absolutely can’t have both, we suggest getting a professionally designed logo first. Why? Because your logo will be the face of your company, and is not as easy to switch up and change like a website. That said, we strongly recommend creating a website soon after or getting one done professionally, learn more here: DIY Web Design: Pros and Cons

Other Marketing Tips!

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Here are some related blogs that will help you with your website:

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hi@needmomentum.com

By Anthony Mirarchi

August 26, 2021

How to Brand Your Small Business Like the Pros

Welcome to another Momentum Monday Marketing blog! Today we’re going to teach you How to Brand Your Small Business Like Pros by taking a look at 3 of the top brands in the world; Geico, FedEx, Nike

When it comes to the world of marketing and branding, it can be challenging to understand what you can do to help your brand stand out from the competition. That said, the right branding tactics and strategies can help you succeed, while the wrong approach can leave you stranded, begging your customers to give you a chance. Below, we’re looking at a few leading examples of branding to help you optimize your brand for today’s digital landscape. This is How You Brand Your Small Business Like the Pros.

At Momentum Digital, we also provide free marketing audits and competitor analysis. Contact us for more details!

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Geico

When it comes to grabbing consumer attention, there’s no quicker way than by hitting them right in the heartstrings. And that’s precisely what the insurance provider did when they introduced their infamous mascot, the Geico Gecko. Sporting large human-like eyes, a charming English accent, and a bit of cheeky humor and wit, the Geico Gecko is known for making the company seem more friendly and approachable than other insurance providers.

In other words, using a loveable, personified animal as a brand mascot is almost guaranteed to get people to stop and pay attention. And Geico isn’t the only company that’s used this tactic. Coca-Cola has its polar bear family. Kraft Peanut Butter has its teddy bear duo. And Froot Loops has its loveable Toucan Sam. Animals are fun, familiar and engaging, and when used appropriately, they can be a great way to help you get your brand message in front of the right people!

FedEX

No matter where you live in the world, I’m sure you’ve seen the FedEx logo at one point or another in your life. And if you have, you may have noticed the company’s crafty use of an arrow symbol in their logo, hidden right in between the letter E and X, which helps to imply that they’re a company that gets things from one place to the next. Similarly, the Swiss chocolatier Toblerone also has a hidden image of a bear in their logo. In contrast, Tostitos has a hidden picture of two individuals holding a tortilla chip above a bowl of salsa hidden in its logo.

It’s this type of crafty marketing tactic that can help your branding stand out from the competition while also ensuring that you use an eye-catching logo design. So while you’re creating your branding and logos, see if you can get a bit creative and incorporate some hidden images into your imagery. Not only does this make the logo more memorable, but it also creates a fun and interesting fact about your business!

Nike

Who hasn’t seen Nike’s Swoosh logo? Almost everywhere you go, you can find somebody wearing either a pair of shoes, a shirt, a sweater, or a hat bearing this logo!

But why is Nike’s logo so well-known today? It’s because Nike has worked tirelessly to create a brand and logo that’s about so much more than just a luxury pair of shoes or sports apparel; their brand is a lifestyle and the checkmark logo, as well as their tagline, “Just do it!” are explicitly designed for ambitious people who like getting things done. The logo itself stands for the sense of accomplishment an individual gets when they conquer a fear, beat their record, or achieve a big life goal, and finally get to check it off of their list! So aside from simply trying to sell a brand and its products or services, take the time to think about how your brand can connect with people on a more personal level.

Separate Your Small Business From The Best

Now that you have an idea of what it takes to brand your small business like the pros, I’m going to give you 3 actionable steps to consider when branding your business. The first question you need to ask yourself is 1) What is your mission? 2) What is it about your brand that is memorable? 3) What can you do that none of your competitors are doing? Now, there might be just one simple thing that checks all the boxes, similar to Nike’s Swoosh combined with their tagline “Just Do It.” or, you might need a few pieces to complete the puzzle. Hopefully you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking for after reading the rest of this blog.

1. Decide Your Mission

As a small business owner, it’s likely that you know what your mission is, generally. It’s to solve a problem either by providing a specific service or product to your target demographic. But when it comes to branding, “mission” means something different. When branding your small business like the pros, your mission is to figure out how to convey a unique and memorable message to your audience through your brand. Before a brand upgrade, you need to know what you want that message to be, who you want that message to reach, and how it’s going to reach them. Nike’s message is “Just Do It.”, they’re reaching athletes, and it’s through a logo; simple, yet powerful. Here at Momentum, our mission is to be seen as the Philadelphia Marketing Agency that helps small local businesses gain digital momentum. For us, we needed something more than a catchy tagline and a fancy logo. We needed to build a community of small business owners that trust us and we do so by providing tons of useful information at no cost.

2. Be Memorable

The goal of every business is to be top-of-mind. You want your business to spread by word of mouth and you want it to spread rapidly. The way you accomplish this is by being memorable. One way to be memorable is by being the best service provider in your industry but in today’s world, there are so many incredible businesses that that won’t suffice. You’ll need to do something to separate yourself, like Geico. They have a friendly little gecko that everyone knows, and I mean everyone. At Momentum, we try our best to be memorable by again, providing small businesses with endless free resources. Our goal is for small business owners to say “Hm, I wonder if the Momentum site has any answers for me!”. So think, what could you be doing that makes you memorable? Maybe you send birthday cards to your customers or deliver free merchandise in return for their business.

3. Do Something Your Competitors Are Not

Once you have branding guidelines, a mission, and something that makes you memorable, you need to do something that your competitors are not. Sure, you could provide free resources, have a great mascot, or send birthday cards. But chances are, one of your competitors are doing something similar. So now it’s time to level up. You have your mission, there’s something memorable about your business, but now you need something unique, something that captures new customers, rather than keeps existing ones. As a digital marketing agency, we’ve achieved this by offering a service none of our competitors offer. We offer 3D Virtual Tours through our company Momentum 360.

Finally, you should have a pretty good idea of what it takes to brand your small business like the pros. Remember to reconsider the mission of your rebranding, think about how you can be memorable, and when you have all of the pieces in place, remember to separate your company with something unique. That might be a service, a brand new product, or something else that not many in your industry are doing. If you have any questions along the way, Momentum is here to help! Feel free to give us a call or schedule a demo. We’re here to help you gain digital momentum.

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→ Pricing Model: Free or Pro ($7.99/mo).

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By Luke McCallion

August 19, 2021

6 Graphic Design Tools Every Small Business Should Have

Learn More About Our Graphic Design Tools Every Small Business Should Have!

Welcome back to another Momentum Marketing blog! Today we’re going to talk about the 6 Best Graphic Design Tools for Small Businesses. We suggest following along so you can learn about how to increase your brand and marketing online with these free tools.

Best Graphic Design Tools for Small Businesses

Graphic design is one of the most important elements to a small business owner’s branding strategy. Everything from web design to social media posts need to incorporate elements of design to help mold the image of your business. Additionally, your designs must be cohesive in order to create a memorable brand!

Small business owners are great at a lot of things, but design isn’t always one of those things. Thankfully, there are plenty of online tools that make design easy for everyone! Whether you are a beginner or an expert in graphic design, using the right tools can multiply your talent exponentially! Check out the list below for some amazing tools that will make graphic design a breeze for small business owners!

These programs do not provide you with advanced features like Photoshop, however they solve a beginner’s design need who doesn’t want to get into the process of learning and purchasing a premium software.

#1 Canva

Canva is a free online graphic design software that allows you to create designs easily and quickly. Canva offers a number of ready made templates for things like marketing emails and social media posts. It is very easy to learn and gives you tons of fonts, icons, photographs, videos, and other graphics to use. It is also available to download as an app which is great if you’re on the go. The basic features in Canva are free, but if you want access to more features you have the option to pay for pro.

→ Available on: Desktop & Smartphone

→ Pricing Model: Canva Free or Pro ($12.99/mo).

Canva Desktop & Mobile

#2 Crello

Crello is a tool that allows you to create beautiful social media posts in just a few minutes. You can browse by template categories like Facebook post or Instagram post. Once you find a template you like you can add your logo, brand colors and content before downloading. Crello was created for and is used by marketing professionals, bloggers, and entrepreneurs or small businesses, who need to create content daily without large budgets.

→ Available on: Desktop & Smartphone

→ Pricing Model: Starter (Free) or Pro ($7.99/mo).

Crello Desktop & Mobile

#3 DesignBold

DesignBold is a user-friendly, robust, and intuitive freemium online design platform built to help anyone create professional-looking, eye-catching visual content for print or digital media in a matter of minutes. DesignBold is loaded with over 4,700 easy-to-use features and functionalities that empower anyone to create a variety of engaging content that gets shared. There are 50 plus materials that users can create which include social media ads, presentations, banners, posters, invitations, and so many more.

→ Available on: Desktop

DesignBold Desktop & Mobile

#4 Stencil

Stencil is a tremendously easy-to-use online graphic design tool and image editor built for business owners, social media marketers, and bloggers. It is a cloud-based graphics creation tool that offers the fastest way to craft and share visual content. The program enables small businesses, social media marketers, and bloggers to beautify images to generate stunning social media posts, content marketing visuals, ad graphics, email images, and much more. A great variety of graded color effects can be obtained from one stencil by blending different colors or different parts of oil the stencil with one stroke of the brush; suction effects cannot be obtained by other methods.

→ Available on: Desktop

→ Pricing Model: Free, Pro ($7.99/mo) or Unlimited ($12.00/mo)

Stencil Desktop & Mobile

#5 Pixlr

Pixlr was introduced to enable everyone to create, edit and share images online with ease. Users and Subscribers can access intelligent editing tools and unlimited design assets, taking creative Photo and Image Editing to a whole new level. It is a cloud-based photo editor that offers a wide range of image tools and utilities for editing purposes. Users can access the image editing suite regardless of device type and operating system. However, it has no online integration for photo storage and the user cannot paste pictures.

→ Available on: Desktop & Smartphones

→ Pricing Model: Free, Premium ($4.90/mo) or Creative Pack ($14.99/mo)

Pixlr Desktop & Mobile

#6 Picsart

Picsart is an easy-to-use photo editor, sticker maker, collage maker, and a creative drawing app that’s designed for any experience level. Millions of users around the world turn to the powerful tools in our free photo editing app to express themselves through art. Another aspect of the app that sets it apart from other popular photo editors is its social platform-like character – which brings us to the next point.

→ Available on: Desktop & Smartphones

→ Pricing Model: Free, Gold ($4.66/mo) or Team (starting at $6.24/mo).

Picsart Desktop & Mobile

Final Thoughts

So there you have it! The 6 Best Graphic Design Tools for Small Businesses. While there may be cases where paying for a professional photo editing software is worth it, you can most likely find all of the features you’re looking for with free graphic design software. No matter which free graphic design software you decide to use for the perfect edit, you can rest assured that you’re saving big compared to paid alternatives.

Have you used a free graphic design software that isn’t on our list? Let us know in the comments below!

Now that you know the best (FREE) tools for creating awesome Graphic Designs with little to no experience, it’s time to get started!

Want to Learn More? Schedule A Free Demo or Marketing Call

Thanks for learning more about Free Graphic Design Tools For Small Businesses!