Additionally, branding becomes imperative to gain the support of the public also in standing together with the nonprofit in its endeavors. But since most of the nonprofit founders are not well versed with the intrigues that rule the marketing and branding spheres, they end up creating a logo and think that would be sufficient to meet their branding needs.

In as much as logo is a good starting point for branding a nonprofit, more is required and below are top tips for successfully branding a nonprofit organization.

Differentiate yourself

By differentiating yourself or the nonprofit, you are showing the world how you are different from the other nonprofit organization in your industry. You need to demonstrate what the nonprofit will be offering differently and how you will be doing it so that you convince potential donors that they, indeed, deserve to support your cause and not your competitors. Differentiate yourself by having a clear mission, vision and goals that no other nonprofit is currently focusing on.

Personalize the organization

Personification is something which can no longer be ignored when it comes to branding nonprofit organizations. Personification makes supporters feel part and parcel of the organization, for instance, by allowing supporters to create their pages on the organization websites to post their photos and stories, they will feel more welcome and it will be easy for them to help drive the agenda of the organization forward.

Still on personification, the nonprofit can give donor various options of the projects they would like to invest in. Essentially, this is simply feeding the donors ego by letting them think that they have control and they can choose where to channel their donations, based purely on their personal preferences.

Engage the stakeholders

For you to brand your nonprofit successfully, you must engage those who are truly passionate about your activities or mission. You should learn how to identify the stakeholders in the industry and also other individuals who would be interested in supporting the activities you are undertaking. But this does not meant that you should close the door to any other person who would be willing to talk to you but is not in your industry. Keep your doors open and engage as many people as possible.

Refine your message thoroughly

Just like branding in any other business, you must have a compelling user selling point to attract the attention of the target audience. In charity branding, your user selling point should be your organization’s main message. While branding the nonprofit, the message should not just be a tagline to accompany the organization’s logo. It should be clearly crafted, simple, meaningful, and powerful and compelling enough to tell the potential donors what the organization is all about while at the same time giving them a reason to channel their resources towards the missions of the nonprofit.

Use the power of story telling

Story telling has a way of creating strong connection between people in different places and under different situations. Nonprofit organizations usually deal with global issues, but sometimes they concentrate in certain specific areas or regions. By using story telling effectively, the nonprofits develop the ability to highlight their concerns in a more subtle way and attract the right donors, who are able to connect with the situations or problems depicted in the stories.

Unleash the power of volunteers and the social media

At this current age of advanced digital technology, it goes without saying that every serious nonprofit organization should be participating actively in the social media platforms. Nonprofits can harness the power of social media to build a decent amount of followers, whom they can then ask for volunteers who would be interested in furthering the course of the organization. Definitely, there will be individuals passionate about the organization and who would love to share more about the organization in the social media. If you can get a good number of such volunteers, you can have a social media marketing team that can increase the popularity of the organization in the internet leading to the discovery and acquisition of more donors.

Consistency

Finally, with all the branding strategies you will have in place for the nonprofit organization, implementation must be on a consistent basis. Disjointed branding efforts will just work for the short time, but for longevity and good results in the long run, branding the nonprofit must never stop.

Learn about these top trends in business card designs!

The post Top Tips for Successful Branding of your Nonprofit appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

The other way of enhancing the branding is to have a powerful logo to act as a perpetual reminder to the current and potential clients about the business. In this piece, we highlight certain fundamental tips for barbershop logo design to set your shop apart from the rest and ensure you can you have a consistent stream of clients.

Adopt a simple and clean design

Simplicity and cleanliness are must-have features for any successful logo. They will make the logo look attractive and reflect on the barbershop in an uncluttered way. By being simple and clean, the logo should have balanced graphics, proper fonts, complimentary colors and a cleverly crafted tagline to pass across the main marketing message in a clear and concise manner. To know how to come up with such a logo, take time and brainstorm on the words that you think best describe your barbershop philosophy, services, values and generally what motivates you to give your best to your clients.

Let the logo reflect your barbershop style

One effective way of branding for any business is to target a niche audience. In the beauty or hair care industry, there is a plethora of styles offered by both the salons and barbershops. Identify your specific niche or style and incorporate some of its elements into the logo. For instance, is your style more hip-urban or do you cater for a specific type of clients such as black Americans? When you are able to reflect your style in the logo, it will make it easy for people to tell what they are likely to get when visiting your shop and you will also attract quality prospects because they already know what they want and they have an idea that they might get it from your barbershop.

Intelligent use of colors

There is no logo design which will ever be discussed without reference being made to the color psychology. This owes to the immense importance of color use in logo design. People react differently when they see colors and this call for the intelligent use of colors in your logo design. With regards to designing a logo for barbershop, the choice of color could be determined by a number of factors.

For instance, you may decide to use earth tones to reflect your hair care services or if you are an urban or trendy barber, then going with simple colors such as black and white would still work. Suppose you use organic hair care products and you would want to use this as a selling point, then you may use nature colors such as green, purple or orange.

The size and format of the logo

It is important to remember that the logo will be used in a myriad of places for marketing your barbershop. Probably, you are likely to use it in the social media, in your website, on posters inside and out of your shop and on stationery amongst others. Due to these, it is imperative to consider the size and the format of the logo. Because of the diverse nature of the intended use, the logo shouldn’t lose its quality when printed on small items like stationery or on large items such as banners and poster for the shop.

The symbols or objects

The symbols should be able to let anyone know that the logo is for a barbershop. In this regard, your choice of symbol should be related to the industry. Mostly, some people will prefer to use haircut styles or tools used such as scissors. While searching for the appropriate symbol to use for the logo, don’t be too generic or copy another person’s exact same style. Instead, use them for inspiration and add your tweaks to make it original and unique.

Consider using the services of a professional designer

It is true that you can use a plethora of the online tools and free logo generators to create a logo for your barbershop. However, these options have some inherent limitations which might work against you in the long run. For instance, you won’t have the flexibility to create an entirely unique logo and besides, other people in different parts of the world are using the same tools and same resources, hence there is no originality. The antidote to this is to use the services of professional logo designers who will create for you unique and original logo for your business. You may have to part with some money, but it is worth it for the long term branding of your business.

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Perhaps you have the urge to become a graphics designer or you already are, but you are still not sure if it is the thing you want to do. You will never know unless you take your time to try out your skills and see what you come up with. In the meantime, you should know you are a graphics designer if you experience or do the following-:

You judge a store based on their logo

If you are the kind of person who will look at a store’s logo and use that to inform your decision of whether or not to purchase from the store, know immediately that you are a graphics designer. Maybe the logo turns you off with the images they use. Maybe they are done in a manner that is not appealing to you hence you don’t want anything associated with the store. When you see the logo, your graphic design mind goes to work. It does a subconscious evaluation on the logo so you can tell if it is a terrible logo and leave the store.

You see design everywhere you go

Are you the kind of person that notices the font and the layout on the menu at your favorite restaurant? Does it bother you that the labels at the grocery store are rather big and user unfriendly? And do you feel that the branding on your favorite clothing line appeals to you in a special way?

If you are such a person, you should probably consider taking a career as a graphic designer more seriously. You know you are a graphics designer when you see designs everywhere you go. You not only see them but critique them and think of better ways which they could have been made greater if you feel that they are of mediocre quality.

You enjoy findings solutions to problems

Graphics designers are obsessed with trying to make the world around them more efficient. They are some kind of perfectionists who prefer to search for clear solutions to the problems they encounter on daily basis. If you are this person who finds that the tables at the bus terminus are rather complicated and, in turn, confusing travelers, then you are a graphics designer.

Also, if you find that the maps are complicated and make it difficult for you to find your way around, then you could make a very good graphics designer. Remember, hundreds of people use those tables and maps every day without every noticing anything wrong with them. And since you can notice the anomalies and think of better solutions, it shows that you are a very instinctive graphics designer.

You naturally appreciate good designs

You also know you are a graphics designer when you can notice good designs and appreciate them for the various elements of greatness they have. You are ready to accept that some designs are better than yours, and you are willing to take inspirations from them to apply and enhance your design skills.

You have a yearning to learn more

Perfection in graphic design comes by blending natural creativity and learning. With the advent of the internet, the graphics design industry moves very fast with many tools and styles being discovered. A proficient designer, therefore, needs to update their knowledge constantly and continue perfecting their natural skills in design. If you are the kind of person that is always eager to learn new things and stay at the top of the industry as far as graphic design is concerned, then you are a true graphic designer.

You are competitor

If you discover that you like competing with yourself, and you always want to become a better you with each design, then know that you are a graphic designer. You don’t have to compete with others or take part in design competitions. But you feel defeated when you think that you could have done a better job.

You have a genuine interest in the latest design trends

Professional designers know trends never last and they never form the basis of their designs. However, if you find that you have a genuine interest in learning about the recent trends in design, then you might as well be a graphics designs. Your aim is not to follow the trends and apply them in all your designs, but you are trying to get clues and inspirations and also have a general feel on where the industry is headed to.

Check out the best graphic design books here!

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This goes against the ethics of design, and it is your responsibility to guide the confused design customer so that you let them understand what you intend to do and ensure that it is according to their expectations.

Presented here is a simple guide you can use to give effective guidance to a confused design client when they approach you for your services-:

What is the nature of their business?

No matter the kind of graphics design project you have in mind, your work will always be targeted towards a particular audience and this is determined by the nature of goods and services that the client is offering to their customers. The first process towards guiding a confused design client is to ask them about the nature of their business.

Explain to them that this will enable you understand the design approach to take so that you can give relevant designs suited for their kind of business. Besides, it is your duty to customize the design and come up with unique ideas that will let you set apart your confused design client’s business.

Who are the competitors?

However confused a design client might appear, they will always know who they are up against in their respective industry. While guiding them through the design process, ask them who their competitors are and if there are any particular designs the competitors have that they find intriguing.

This is so that as the designer, you will gain deeper insights into what the competitions is doing, learn the deficiencies present among the competitor so that you can exploit them to come up with superior designs that will elevate your client’s brand above the rest.

What is the preferred image of the business?

Certain confused design clients will have no idea whatsoever on the image they want for their business. Though it happens rarely, it is your obligation as the designer to help the client understand the image that their business is likely to project and advise them that you will be using the same image during the design.

You can begin by asking them what they want the customers to think about their business, the kinds of feelings they want evoked when the customers see the designs, the basis upon which they want to grow their brand, how they want the business to look like the future, etc. For such questions, the confused design client will have a mental picture of the kinds of designs that suits the business and you will also find it easy as a designer to bring out the image formed by the confused design client in the final designs.

Who are the customers?

The other important thing when guiding a confused design client is to help them paint a picture of their customers. They need to have a thorough understanding of the specific group of people they will be promoting the business to. Fundamental questions to help the confused design client in knowing their target customers include who the ideal customers are, where they are likely to be found, the demographics with regards to age likes, etc.

These questions will help the confused design client to get into the minds of their customers to know how they perceive the business. For you as a designer, such information will help you a lot when coming up with the right design that will be suitable the target audience of your confused client.

Where does the client intend to use the design?

It is also important to help the client understand the specific places where the design will be applied to. Perhaps the confused design client wants a design for various branding purposes or they want a logo for which will appear in their official communication channels and help in branding the business. You need to explain to the confused design client why this is necessary so that you both be on the same page on what particular design is required. Whether it is a brochure, a business magazine a logo, a letterhead or a poster, it should be clear to both of you.

Symbols and inspirations

Finally, most logos consist of symbols and the business name. When guiding a confused design client, you need to lead them to reveal for you the symbols that they feel are most associated with their kind of business. As a designer, you don’t want to be generic with the symbols since this is not the best way to be creative and provide a killer design for your confused design client. Discuss with them the importance of using various symbols in the design and the potential meanings that the symbols might have on the final graphics.

Use these top tips for dealing with difficult clients!

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Every professional graphics designer understands the importance of having strong design principles to define their work and establish their brands in the design world. The design world demands uniqueness, and you can’t come up with unique designs unless you have unique design principles which you follow with every design project you embark on. This is the only way to build your personal brand besides creating coherence and consistency across all your designs.

The process of discovering or creating your design principles might be challenging at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it will be interesting and it might be one of the most rewarding things you will ever do for your design career. Listed here are certain principles to help you discover your design principles and how to stick to them so that you have your different methods of accomplishing your design tasks-:

Appropriateness

The first step towards determining your design principles is to interrogate the relevance of every design project you work on. As a graphics designer, you should ask yourself why you are doing the designs you are doing in the manner that you are doing them. As you do this, you will start to realize or notice certain patterns you tend to lean towards and which you have adopted in most of your designs.

The answer to how appropriate your designs fit the needs of your clients will also reveal to you if you are a trend follower in which case most of your designs are based on fads. Basing your principles in fads may not be a bad thing so long as the design remain relevant and will be adaptive in the future should there be changes in the fad. Therefore, if you can define the appropriateness of your designs, then you shall have taken the first step in determining your design principles.

Understanding needs of the client

Adequacy of design will only come if you can determine the needs of your client. It is thus imperative that you take the time to understand what your clients really want for you to come up with the right designs that will solve their needs. Every designer has their unique methods which they follow to understand the needs of their clients.

For instance, some will assemble mood boards, make reference to past works, study the brand guidelines, or simply resort to researching more on the topic. Whichever method works best for you; you need to be aware of it so that you can consider it as one of your design principles to help you save time and make you more productive.

The Execution of Work

How you execute your work is another important element in determining your design principles. Many people usually think of craftsmanship simply as the style, but it goes beyond that and reflects directly on your knowledge and understanding of design. Every designer aims at attaining high levels of craftsmanship since, without beautiful designs, it will be very difficult to attract and retain customers. It is, therefore, important to have a conscious awareness of how you execute your projects and also master the kind of results you have been getting from them.

This will reveal to you a deeper realization on how you work as well as your levels of craftsmanship so that you can refine further your design principles for more proficiency. When considering how you execute your work in defining your design principles, you should think about all the work you do, how you do it and the tools you use in arriving at the final product.

Passion

Without passion, you will always have dismal results from your design endeavors. As part of your design principles, you need to determine just how passionate you are about the work and the particular things you do to ensure that you don’t lose your passion as a graphics designer. You should have a desire for constant progress and adaptability, and as your portfolio grows, you should be able to note improved quality of your previous works. Your passion for design will affect your style hence your design principles eventually.

Uniqueness

Finally, the design principles you adopt must be unique. This should always be the case since each and every designer has a different approach to reaching solutions for the design challenges they encounter. As a graphic designer, it might take a while before you understand your unique style or position as far as graphics design is concerned, but as you continue to practice and be more proficient in the career, you will start to notice the uniqueness in your design principles. You can also try challenging yourself each time to come up with unique solutions and always operate away from your comfort zone.

Having a good understanding of your design principles will make it easy for you to avoid being complacent and always be on top of your game. Otherwise, design will just be routine for you and will never get any pleasure or achieve levels of mastery without solid design principles.

Check out these impressive logos that have just two colors

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Most of the white collar jobs seem to offer very little regarding rewards other than the monetary aspect. If you are looking to pay your bills, then the daily grind might be sufficient, but if you want something more fulfilling and inspiring, then you will have to look for a career which will offer you with more than just what the daily grind has to offer. The graphic design industry offers you with an alternative route to getting more fulfilled in your career with exciting remunerations compared to what you may have gotten the blue chip companies.

The daily challenges and the constant demands to produce quality results are some of the attributes that make a career in graphic design more endearing and appealing to those who are keen on getting ahead with their professions in life. Here are some of the reasons why being a graphic designer might as well be the best thing that will ever happen in your life-:

Impressive Salaries

There is a wide salary range for graphic designers with those who are just starting out earning the least. As one advances in skills and experiences, the salary also keeps on increasing. But before you argue this happens in every other profession, the graphic design industry is unique in a number of ways and which will ultimately add to the final perk that a designer will carry home.

It is important to realize that billions of dollars are spent in marketing and advertising each and every year and there would be no marketing or even advertising if graphic design were not there. Hence, so long as businesses need to marketing, branding and advertising, the graphic designer will always have work, which will be well remunerated because the clients want quality work.

Potential Career Growth

A career in graphic design has enticing prospects for one to advance in their careers and build very impressive portfolios. Being a challenging profession, there is a lot to learn and experience once one is done with the basic education. You get a chance to meet and interact with different personalities, and you also get a chance to work on wide and diversified projects, all of which will help you become a better and more fulfilled graphic designer.

Wide Range of Industry Sectors

A career in graphic design will open a plethora of doors for you and enable you practice your trade in a wide range of industry sectors. You will be at liberty to choose whether you want to branch out to advertising and marketing, web design or you want to major in corporate brand identity. With such a wide range of choices to make, you will be at liberty to choose the one that appeal to you the most and which you believe will give you the greatest satisfaction. Besides, you are not limited in practice, and you also have the freedom to practice in more than one field, thus increasing your versatility and value as a graphic designer.

Challenging and interesting assignment

One beautiful thing you will love with a career in graphic design is that there are no two projects that will be the same. For every project, you will be working with a completely new set of demands and conditions and probably new clients as well. Every day will be a unique day where you will be required to make fresh decisions in coming up with the various designs. Due to this challenging while at the same time interesting nature of assignments, a career in graphic design will never leave you feeling bored at work since you will be working on something interesting each and every day.

Self-Fulfillment

Self-fulfillment is not just important for the sake of your satisfaction at work, but also, it affects other areas of your life. When you are self-fulfilled, you are happy to the fact that through your skills, you were able to make a difference to your clients and the world around you in general. A career in graphic design is one of the most self fulfilling careers you will ever come across. You deal with practical clients, and every project is a chance for you to make a difference and make the client meet their objectives. When your clients come to you and express gratitude for what you did for them, this makes you feel fulfilled and really happy that you did what you did.

Easily be your own boss

Most people dream of being self employed. They admire the freedom and the earning potentials that come with self-employment. However, this is not a familiarity you will find with most of the other careers. However, with a career in graphic designs, once you have gained the experience, skills and the connections to clients, you need nothing else to start your own company or start freelancing on the internet. Therefore, if you have ever dreamt of being your own boss, then you need to think deeply about choosing a career in graphic design.

Check out how to design app logos here!

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The internet has made it so simple that anyone can make a logo by themselves. There are lots of articles and video tutorials with detailed procedures on how to come up with professional looking logos. Many business owners, especially those that are just starting out and are interested in branding their business have thus found solace in such materials and decided to make logos without the assistance of the professionals. In most cases, such a move is usually instigated by the person’s desire not to spend money on a professional logo designer. Whereas you may be lucky to find a free, suitable program which can help you make a logo in a matter of minutes, embarking on a DIY logo design is never advisable when you are serious about having a professional brand for your business. Additionally, you need to have in mind that there is more to a logo than just a mere name and some symbols on the image.

A logo is the face of your business to the entire world. It is the first marketing tool that your potential clients and customers come into contact with. As such, therefore, it must give a good visual representation of your organization and have the ability to communicate your central marketing message effectively. If you can’t achieve these with your logo, you will miss the whole point of having it for your business. Working with a professional logo designer on another hand will ensure that you get a logo which will fit the branding and marketing needs of your business. Listed below are some of the undeniable reasons why you need to hire a professional logo designer and never go for a DIY logo:

Professional image

It is easy to tell whether a logo has been designed by an amateur or by a professional. Since a logo is the face of your business to the outside world, it needs to portray a positive image of your business or products and services. By just looking at the logo, a potential client should come to an immediate conclusion that you look like the real deal worth doing business with.

But if your logo is poorly designed because you did not want to pay for the services of a professional logo designer, then you will portray a negative image to your potential clients who might then develop cold feet in dealing with you.

Stand out from the crowd

The present business landscape is full of competition. Every business is employing any method they have at their disposal to attract the attention of the limited number of customers. If you are interested in attracting more business, therefore, it becomes imperative that you stand out from the crowd so that you can easily be noticed amongst your competition.

One way of doing so is to have a uniquely designed logo that will dwarf the competition and force the potential customers to take note of you. Unless you are a professional logo designer, you may not understand the finer details of creating a unique logo to make your business and brand be easily noticed. This is another reason for you never to attempt a DIY logo design.

A professional logo designer will save you time

In as much as there are a lot of software you can use to make logos online in a matter, there are no guarantees that you will make the right logo the first time. As with every design project, there are iterations following the first draft which are necessary for the final output. As an amateur trying his hands on a DIY logo design, you may find yourself spending hours unending in trying to create a logo with the free tools. But for a professional logo designer, this is what they do for a living. They will take the least time possible while guaranteeing to give you the right logo for your business.

Ensure that there is consistency in the message

An inconsistent message across your marketing materials will make look unprofessional, and potential clients will lose the willingness to deal with you. This can happen quite easily if you decide to design your logo alone. But when you use the services of a professional logo designer, they have the ability to create a design to be used in the logo and across other marketing materials you will be using in your business. In return, you will achieve a consistent visual branding for your entire business, leading to more trust from your customers and also helping you acquire new customers.

Saves you money

Many people resort to DIY logo design because they think that hiring the services of a professional logo designer is expensive. But they forget that cheap is expensive in the long run. With a professional logo design, you won’t have to keep on reverting from one design another, but you will have a first concrete design for you to use in building your brand. It is the branding capabilities of a professionally designed logo that will bring you more benefits than the initial cost of designing the logo. Therefore, always go for a professional logo designer if you want the best and also maintain your focus in the future.

Here is how to find a custom logo designer. 

The post Should you ever try using a DIY Logo? appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

A new industry trend that is taking the design world by storm is developing logos using a special crowd sourcing technique. Managing a project like a logo development process can be extremely difficult and not many small businesses can actually afford the higher a full design agency.

Agencies handle a number of different creation tasks when it comes to a typical logo design. They can perform research into your target market, looking to trends for your industry select the right color palette for your needs, identify images that stand in line with your corporate culture and select the right typeface/ design elements that will make up your logo. Paying for all these elements from the perspective of an entrepreneur or small business can seem like an unobtainable process.

Crowd sourced logo design is a new tool that many are using in logo creation because a large group or community can work to produce designs and ideas in the same way that a design firm would but in a much faster way.

The way that a traditional crowd sourcing campaign works is you outline your budget and roughly what you need from a perspective logo design. After paying your retainer into a crowd sourcing platform you will be given a number of different options from a series of designers online as well as a limited number of revisions on the logos that you like. Often, you could be presented with 10 to 15 different ideas and you will then be tasked to pick the designer or contributor that is the closest to finding your brand identity.

While crowd sourcing can be a cheaper and faster option than designing a logo with the help of a graphic design firm, it does have a few problems that can make many industry professionals squirm.

Pros:

• You can stay on budget: The average advertising agency may charge you thousands of dollars to produce a quality logo that works for your target market and showcases your brand culture. Most of these advertising agencies also require you to submit a retainer or around a third of the total money owing to secure your project. Crowdsourcing allows you to get results for a budget that you are comfortable with.
• You can have many options: you may not have a clear vision of what your logo should look like but on some sites you could find yourself getting 10’s of options for your budget or even hundreds of options just by posting a request online. Having more options can be useful for improving your train of thought on your logo and for finding something that you really like. Crowd sourced logo design can almost always offer you mockups from multiple design firms without having to risk any extra retainer or capital.
• Building a brand buzz: Just by posting your request online you can get prospective customers excited about your brand as well as have an opportunity for some free public relations by opening up your logo design. In order to get the most feedback and designs possible you can share your campaign to build up the buzz surrounding your product/ brand.
• Pushing the edge of design: many design firms often play it safe so that they can please the vast majority of clients and maintain business relations. Rather than showcasing some edgy designs many of the top design firms often play it safe. Opening up your logo design to a larger crowd could help you find some new and creative designs that push the limits of modern logos in your industry.

Cons:

• No guarantee of experience: When you crowd sourced designs on most websites anyone can submit logo ideas. This means that you can get submissions from those that have marketing backgrounds and graphic design backgrounds and those that don’t. In some cases this means that you have zero guarantee that they have done any kind of market research or that they haven’t use some type of online template to produce the design. When working with an agency you only get access to designers who have education and who have produced successful results with expanding brands.
• Overwhelming choices: Most designers will present you with a few options based off of what is trending in your current market and what they feel reflects your corporate culture. With hundreds of potential designs to sort through and choose from you often won’t be saving any time with crowd sourced designs.
• Fees: Your budget isn’t utilized to the maximum amount with crowd sourced designs. Often they take a considerable percentage of 10 to 20% just for allowing you to post your campaign online.
• Work in advertising: In order to attract the best designers to your project you need to do a bit of legwork and actually advertise your crowd sourced logo design campaign. This can cut into your marketing budget as well as your time as a business owner.
• A big risk: When you stake your advertising budget and the future of your brand on a crowd sourced design you have a far greater chance of failure. Although a crowd funded design can offer you a better chance that a professional logo for a small budget, a crowd sourced logo often comes with far greater risks when widely used to expand your brand recognition.

Keep these pros and cons in mind if you are considering a crowd sourced logo design

Check out these top logos that were crowd sourced!

The post Is It Ever a Good Idea to Crowd Source a Logo Design? appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

An organization’s logo offers the world an insight of who you are and what you do. It is what people use to remember your organization whenever they see it. As such, therefore, it should not just help in branding the organization, but also give a story and tell the world something more about the company without necessarily using words. A logo should, therefore, offer a clear and compelling story that will stick in the minds of your target audience for as long as possible. It is, however, regrettable that many organizations don’t understand how to tell a story with a logo.

In most of the cases, many organizations tend to do too much with their logo until they end up missing the core point entirely. Sometimes they use dull, regular and annoying visual images that have no relevance whatsoever to the group they are targeting. Many are the times when you have seen logos with people holding hands, forming a circle or simply a logo comprising of planet earth alone with no other thing.

This is not to allude that such logos are meaningless, but they are never effective in telling the story of the concerned company or organization. It is true that such logos may gain immense popularity due to the activities of that organization as well as their marketing efforts, but if you can’t tell a story with a logo, you will be missing more on the potential benefits you would have reaped from it.

Presented here are a few insights on how you can tell a story with a logo. It boils down to considering certain fundamental aspects of logo design that aimed at communicating directly to the target audience. Use these tip so that you create meaningful logos that will always tell a story to your audiences-:

Has to be unique

If you have the logo portraying the same concept and quality like every other logo around, you will not be able to tell a story with a logo. It is imperative that you be unique and stand out from the crowd so that people can notice your logo from the thousands that are also screaming for their attention. One way of being unique is to consider your industry and pick on the particular things that make you different from the others. Use such things to get inspirations that you can then incorporate in your logo to tell a story.

Use a designer who understands your core value

The other element to consider on how to tell a story with a logo is to use the services of a professional designer with the ability to understand the core values of your organization. It is easy to pick up any designer you meet, or probably the cheap ones, but you will never get the most out of their work if they don’t understand what you and your organization stands for. Remember that a logo can be aesthetically appealing, but if it lacks the ability to tell a story to make the audience relate to your business, then it will be just like another business emblem gracing the branding and marketing materials for the organization.

Use Shapes with meaning

Every design element in your logo should aim at passing a particular message to your audience. The use of shapes is thus a subtle way that most organization uses to tell a story with a logo. For instance, the following shapes will have various meanings as indicated below-:

• Lines – using vertical lines in design, such as pillars are an indication of strength, hence masculinity. Curved on the other hand shows femininity and can also be considered as calm and neutral.
• Squares and rectangles – indicates tradition and stability
• Triangles – these suggest power and science, hence their use in institution and hospital logos
• Circles – shows partnership, family, inclusivity, and endurance.

When these shapes are used correctly and in the right manner, you will be in position to effectively tell a story with a logo.

Color choice

The color choice is another element of design you can use to tell a story. Humans are emotive beings and colors are known to evoke different kinds of emotions in people. You can thus use colors in your logo to give an insight into the feelings you hold dear. For instance, you can use color to show energy, passion, aggression (red), productivity, friendliness, confidence (orange), wisdom, prestige, royalty (pink), security, earthiness (brown) amongst others.

Font Choice

There are different ways in which fonts can be used. The factors to consider when you want to use fonts to tell a story are the specific type of font chosen, the shape as well as the actual written message. Fonts can be used to pass different messages relating to aggression and masculinity, modernity, cleanliness, freshness, dependability and trustworthiness amongst others.

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