Wondering how to choose the right logo designer for your new logo? The X8 team has you covered with this handy how-to guide!
When choosing a logo designer, first things first – check out their portfolio!
If you’re considering working with a particular logo designer, taking a good look at their portfolio will give you a good sense of the designer’s style overall. If you’re already sure of the look and feel that you’re aiming for with your own logo, then your goal is to find a logo designer whose work matches that style. If you hate everything you see in a designer’s portfolio, that’s probably not the designer for you.
If you’re not 100% on what you’re looking for in a logo, you can consider getting a few concepts done by multiple designers for different looks and styles. Then you can move forward with the designer that’s the right fit for your project.
Whether or not you’re certain of what you want in a logo, working with a team of different designers can also be extremely advantageous – that way they can give you a varied set of logo concepts with a wide variety of looks, ideas and inspirations from different creative minds.
Make sure they give you full ownership and all rights to your finished logo.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with allowing your logo designer to include your logo/branding in their portfolio – when a logo designer is proud of the work they’ve done for a client, of course they’ll want to add it to their portfolio of work to show others.
But make sure that your designer doesn’t retain the rights to your brand. Some design companies can be downright sneaky and claim ownership of your brand while you’re effectively just leasing images from them. This is a HUGE red flag – don’t agree to it! You should own your logo when it’s done.
Make sure that they’ll provide you with a variety of different types of files.
You definitely want to be sure that you’ll get the following types of files when your logo is completed:
- Vector files – If you’ve ever taken a picture from the internet and tried to blow it up (maybe to set it as your desktop background or to print it for framing), you may have found that the image was pixelated and blurry because you tried to increase the size of a small image. But a vector is built in such a way that no matter how much you shrink it down or blow it up, it’ll stay crisp and clear. When you’re using a vector file of your logo, whether you’re putting it on a pen, a shirt, a coffee cup or a billboard, it’ll still look sharp and clean – no matter the size.
- Font files – It’s key to have the font files that are used in your logo so that you can easily match the font on any other items that you may create that need to match your branding (such as letterhead or contracts).
- Color codes – For matching and brand consistency, you’ll need the color codes used in your logo – that way you can match the colors perfectly.
- JPG files – If you need a nice clear image for web use and a transparent background is not necessary, that’s when you’ll want to use a JPG file.
- PNG files – When you need to lay your logo over something, such as a background of some sort, you’ll need a PNG file.
- Icons and other file types – Icons used in your logo, PDF files and TIF files are other examples of files that you’ll probably want to have so that you can use your logo however you need to after it’s created.
Don’t overdo it!
You don’t need 57 pages of branding guidelines with your logo. This is just bulky and unnecessary – don’t waste your time and money on something most people don’t even end up using.
And finally – don’t overspend.
There are a plethora of great logo designers who charge well under the $2,000 price point for their work. If a logo designer is asking for more than that amount, then you should be receiving an entire brand experience package. This kind of package is suitable for very large organizations (think Fortune 500). If this is what you need, the designer’s portfolio should have multiple examples of work that they’ve done for this level of client directly.