How to Design a Logo That Stands Out: Tips for Creating an Unforgettable Brand Identity

Your logo represents your business and it serves as a signature for it. A well-designed logo is what makes a brand and business successful, without a relevant logo, companies can easily get lost in the competitive markets. 

Using the right logo ultimately determines your success rate regardless of what kind of business you have. The real secret is to make customers remember your business only by looking at your logo. The most important part is to keep everything simple since a brand with a simple logo design is 64% more likely to get recommended by customers. 

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into learning more about how you can design a logo that stands out and easily attracts your target audience without too much effort. 

The types of logos that exist

Before we learn more about creating a logo that helps your brand stand out, it’s now time to learn more about the different categories of logos: 

1. Wordmarks (logotypes): A font-based logo that focuses on the brand’s name. 
2. Letterforms (Monogram logo): Uses a set of initials, usually the brand’s acronym for creating a distinctive logo. A good example would be HBO and CNN. 
3. Pictorial Marks (Logo symbol): Use a single graphic image or symbol to represent a brand directly related to the brand’s identity. 
4. Emblems: The company’s name is connected to the pictorial element. 
5. Abstract/symbolic marks: Used for creating a unique, custom-designed shape or symbol that doesn’t represent any specific object. Good examples include Nike and Pepsi. 

When designing a logo that stands out, it’s important to know which type of logo you have or choose one from the beginning. 

Define your brand 

Businesses create a connection with customers when they are using the right logo. This allows customers to remember your brand more easily and create a long-term relationship, also known as brand loyalty. In a competitive market, brands don’t have any choice but to create an emotional connection with customers if they want to remain in the game. 

How a brand is perceived will strongly affect its level of success, regardless of the type of organization. To clarify this part, ask the following questions: 

1. Who is your ideal customer? 
2. What is your brand story? 
3. What challenges are you going to solve for the customer?
4. Why should customers put their trust in you? 
5. What makes your logo distinguish from the rest? 

After you answer these questions, it’s much easier to start designing your logo how you want. 

Make your logo durable 

A logo that stands out is durable, or in short, never gets old. Even if design trends change, this doesn’t mean you need to change your logo. If you do that, it’ll only make your logo look outdated all the time. 

Good examples of logos that never get old are: Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, and Adidas. If you dive deeper into their logo history, you’ll find out that they all created them decades ago, but are easily recognizable even nowadays. 

The whole point here is to ensure that when customers see your logo, even after ten years, they’ll still know what you stand for. 

Pay attention to typography 

Typography is important and it’s always important to choose a font that is under three categories: 

1. Serif
2. Script
3. Sans-serif

Choose fonts that are unique to your industry and avoid generic ones. Examples of generic fonts include Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Impact, and others. When including text with your logo, it must be legible at different sizes, so testing is important to ensure that it’s readable even on smaller devices like mobiles, tablets, etc. 

Choose the right colors 

Choosing the right color for your logo and brand is one of the most important factors you need to pay close attention to during the design and development process. Understanding color psychology and theory is beneficial when you want to keep your users interested in your brand and inform them of what you have to offer.

While each color represents something different, let’s take a close look at how colors are commonly viewed from a business perspective: 

1. Red: A popular color used in promotions and expensive luxury ads. 
2. Orange and Yellow: Yellow and orange are symbols of creativity and promote happy and healthy environments. 
3. Black/white: A great option when you are trying to represent high-end luxury products. 
4. Purple: Represents the color of royalty and gives an excellent elegant appeal. 
5. Green: Represents eco-friendly brands with banking institutions, perfect for businesses that promote shopping and retail. 
6. Blue: Consider Twitter’s and Facebook logos. They are used for promoting professionalism, and connectivity amongst users. 

Each color has its uniqueness and how it helps brands create a unique branded logo. 

Abstract shapes 

Abstract shapes are powerful tools in logo design because they evoke emotions and ideas without relying on literal imagery. Unique abstract shapes are unique and engaging to help attract users while your brand stands out from competitors. 

Avoid copying patterns and shapes from other logos at all costs, since it’ll become much more difficult to leave a good impression when your logo isn’t unique and on your own. Before you choose your abstract shape, it’s important to choose a color scheme that represents your company and the target audience you are trying to reach. 

Always take advantage of negative space 

Taking advantage of negative space when developing and designing your brand’s logo is highly important and not something you want to miss. Negative space is the space that surrounds your main icon, typographic, and graphic element that you choose to represent your brand. 

You can use negative space effectively with white space, contrasting colors, and even using a distinct pattern that stands out from the rest. 

Create a versatile logo

Another important aspect is versatility. Creating your logo in vector graphics allows you to scale it much faster without compromising any quality. A vector logo can take on any size, regardless if you modify it to the size of a billboard or even as small as a stamp size. 

Vector logos are more flexible and can give output to all image formats such as JPG, PNG, gif, and others. 

Avoid using any cliche images

A great logo is something that can’t be found in stock images or cliche graphics that are easily accessible across the internet. Your logo always needs to be unique, and when it isn’t, not only does it look unprofessional, but it doesn’t give your brand a good image. Make sure your logo is artistic, and professional rather than having one that anybody can copy and makes you look like an amateur. 

The whole point here is to avoid getting inspiration from stock images and vector resources. This means copying and pasting them, and just using a logo template. That isn’t how a logo should be created. 

Use boxes and shapes if you want classy logos 

If you are someone who is looking to make your logo classy, consider putting your brand names inside precise shapes. These work best when you are using them for business cards, presentations, product labels, and for your website. 

Visualize your logo in print

Even though your logo will be seen online, it’s always good to see how it looks in the real world. It should look just as good in printed format as in all other types of physical mediums. Test your logo on textiles, paper, and on any products you are selling. Will it look the same across all physical mediums? Or, will it look low-quality? These are the real questions you should answer, and if you encounter any issues, it’s time to make changes. 

Use logo design tools 

Another great tip is to consider using logo design tools. There are plenty of tools that offer budget-friendly prices, free trials, or even free tools that you can use. They will ask you for important information, allow you to choose an icon, test colors, shapes, sizes, and add text. 

If you are someone who doesn’t want to waste too much time, these tools are a great way to express your creativity. Designing a unique logo that matches your target audience isn’t easy, but when you do the proper research and follow the right steps, you can create a great logo more easily than you think. 

Get the help of AI 

As a last tip, we encourage you to create a logo with the help of AI. AI logo generators have evolved a lot recently, allowing you to create a logo in a short amount of time and easily stand out from competitors. 

AI-generated logos can be generated in seconds, and a much cheaper alternative compared to the amount you would pay to hire a designer. AI tools allow users to adjust fonts, layouts, and colors based on the way they want to, and the good news is that you don’t need to have any graphic design skills. 

Therefore, as a final word, it’s important to follow all the steps we mentioned and use the help of AI to get what you are looking for, especially if you want a budget-friendly option and have no design skills.