How to design a logo for free yourself with no design experience
Need a logo for your business? Find out how you can easily design one for free, even if you have no design experience, using the Logo Maker.
If there’s one thing every serious business needs, it’s a professional-looking brand. And in particular a unique, memorable, appropriate logo.
All too often early stage entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that logos are something that only large businesses need or can afford. And while it’s true that large corporations invest millions in their brand identity (it’s reputed that BP’s logo redesign in 2000 cost them US$210 million!) even the tiniest micro startup or freelancer can afford a logo – especially if it’s free.
You see, while you can certainly hire a designer or design agency to create your logo – and once your business reaches a certain size, we do recommend investing in one – with tools like Wix’s Logo Maker, you don’t need to spend big money to design a professional-looking logo.
You don’t need the best logo design services. Nor do you need any design experience, or technical ability. Their tool is so easy to use that almost anyone can design a logo in minutes for free. And if you love the design you have created, you can download high-resolution files of your logo, with full usage rights, from as little as £9.03.
How to design a logo for free yourself with no design experience
To test out the Logo Maker, I decided to see how simple it would be to design a new logo for Talented Ladies Club. When it comes to design, I have neither experience nor technical ability – so if I can master the Logo Maker and come up with a usable design then anyone can!
To help you get an idea of just how easy it is, here’s a description of how I created a logo using the Logo Maker, step by easy step.
To get started, all you need to do is create a free account, with your email address and a password. Once you’re in, you enter your company name, and a tagline if you wish.
Next you’re asked what your logo is for – what industry or type of business you’re in. Once you start typing, it will automatically suggest choices for you.
The next screen asks you to pick words that best describe you or your brand (you can choose as many as you wish).
Once you’ve chosen your words, you’ll be shown a selection of different styles of logo design to get an idea of your taste.
Finally, you’ll be asked to let Logo Maker know where you’ll use your logo. The choices are website, business cards, social media, presentation, merchandise and other. You can pick as many options as you need.
Then you wait a few seconds before being presented with the logo designs Logo Maker has prepared for you. And this is where the fun really begins.
Because maybe you’ll immediately fall in love with one of the dozens of logos you’re presented with. But if you don’t, you get to have a play with any of them to customise them to perfectly fit your vision or needs. You can use them as a starting point to create your ideal logo, using tools that are so simple you don’t need any design or technical knowhow.
How to customise your free logo design
The first choice you get to customise your logo is your colour scheme. On the left of the screen you can scroll down through a long list of choices. These automatically pick colours that compliment each other for your icon, name and tag line.
Next you can edit your name design if you wish. You can change your name, font, font opacity (how dark or faint it appears), size and letter spacing. You can also change the alignment (left, right or centre), rotate it or even curve it (right round to make a circle if that’s your wish).
If you want your logo to have a tagline, you can edit that too with the same options as your name.
Next you get to play with your logo icon – the picture element. You can choose to hide or show your icon, and change the opacity, size, spacing and placement of it.
You can even change your icon completely if you wish, choosing from hundreds of options you can then customise with your own colour choice, size and spacing etc.
And finally, you can choose if you want your logo to have a border or not, and what that border looks like – from its shape (square or circle), to its colour, width, opacity, size and position.
Trust us, the Logo Maker is lots of fun! And with the amount of playing around you can do with each individual element you can genuinely create a logo that’s perfect for you – without the cost and hassle of hiring and communicating with a designer if you don’t have the budget for one.
So, rather than having to ask a logo designer what your logo might look like in blue or orange, or a little darker, or if they made the text a bit bigger and moved it to the left, and wait for them to get back to you, you can do it straight away yourself.
And the great thing about it is that you can experiment with creating several different logos for free, until you’re happy with the perfect design.
Buying your high resolution logo files
Once you have a design you’re happy with, you can then choose your options to get your logo files.
Your choices range from downloading a low-resolution file for free or buying high resolution files with full usage rights for £9.03, to purchasing print quality vector files (plus social media kit and brand guide) for £34,74, or a full logo and website package for just £69.49.
How do you know which type of logo files you need?
If you just want a basic, low-resolution file with your logo design then you can download it for free with Logo Maker.
If you want a higher quality file to use online and for printing business cards, then the Basic Logo Plan will give you high-resolution PNG files (5,000 x 5,000 pixels) on black, white and transparent backgrounds. (If you’re planning to use your logo online then PNG files are the best.)
If you plan to print your logo in different sizes, then choose the Professional Logo Plan, as this comes with print ready SVG vector files, as well as the high-resolution PNG files.
Vector files are the highest quality files you can get. They’re infinitely scalable and easy to send to designers or printers and can be used to print your logo on something small (like a business card) or on something large (such as a billboard) while maintaining the same high quality.
The Professional Logo Plan also includes a social media kit with 40+ PNG files of your logo to use on the major social media channels (including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Etsy), plus a version for your watermark, favicon and email signature.
You’ll also get a brand guide with all the details about your logo, such as your font and Hex color code, and print ready files.
And finally, if you’re also planning to design a website for your business, the Professional Logo & Website Plan gives you a promo code for your own branded website, plus free domain.
Can it really be this easy to get a logo?
Can it really be this simple to get a logo you’re happy with for your business? Yes it can! We had great fun playing with the Logo Maker tool, and were pleasantly surprised with the standard of logo we could create – and both the amount of tweaking we could do, and how easy it was to do it.
Of course, nothing beats hiring a professional designer to work on your own logo for you (as much as we enjoyed the process of designing a new logo for Talented Ladies Club, we’re going to keep our current, professionally designed logo!).
But for many startups and small businesses, paying for a designer is out of their budget. It can also be difficult to convey exactly what you’re looking for.
One of the big advantages of using a professional logo creator for us is that it reduces your initial decision-making. By presenting you with ideas as a starting point (all of which you can tweak to make your design truly ‘yours’), they remove that paralysis that comes with a completely blank page (a kind of designer’s block, if you like).
Plus you can play around as much as you like and design your logo for free. And if you don’t like it? Simple, start again! The process hasn’t cost you anything, unlike the risk of hiring a designer whose work you may not ultimately be happy with, but who you’ll still need to pay.
And with the many design options available, it’s extremely unlikely that someone else will end up with the same logo as you – especially if you customise your design to make it truly your own.
When should you get your logo designed professionally?
As easy and fun as it is to design your own logo for free, there may come a time in your business journey when you’re ready to invest in a professional designer and commission them to design you your own, completely bespoke logo.
When that time comes you’ll have the budget to hire the right designer, and understand how to brief and work with them properly. But until that moment, startups and small businesses (and freelancers) can easily build the starting blocks of a professional brand using the Logo Maker themselves. Try it yourself and see!
Love to try the Logo Maker yourself? Start creating your logo for free right now.
