Design a Business Logo

A business logo is the first step in branding a company. It identifies the business to potential customers as well as to the competition, and even contributes to the company culture. A wild, vibrant logo with multiple colors and funky fonts would indicate a progressive, non-conformist company, while a one-color business logo with no flashy graphics would suggest a more conservative culture.Determine which colors you want to use to represent your business in marketing materials, websites and other literature.

These colors will form the basis of your business logo, but make sure you choose colors you will still like six months or a year. Consider the nature of your business itself. For example, if you sell used books online, your business logo might include a graphic of an open book. Or, if your business is consulting, you could use a graphic of two hands shaking. Realize that any graphics you use should be small, yet perfectly identifiable. Generally, you don't want to use images that look distorted or vague at 100 by 100 pixels, but there is some room for flexibility here. Consider the size of the documents on which your logo will be featured.

Decide whether you want to use your whole business name or just the initials. For long business names, such as Jeffers & McLellan Attorneys at Law, you might want to use initials for the logo to give you more space for design. Alternatively, you can play with font sizes so that the main part of your business name is large, with the rest in a small font beneath. Design your business logo using photo editing or logo creation software. Some packages come with pre-designed logos that you can alter or tweak for your purposes, or you can use your own fonts and graphics to create something from scratch.

Place your business logo on a transparent background so that it can easily be maneuvered to different places. For example, if the background of your website is black but your letterhead is white, you won't have difficulty placing the logo on those documents. Create several different designs for your business logo, then ask friends, family and colleagues to vote on which one they like the best. This gives you options in case you decide that your design isn't as perfect as you first imagined