Logo Design Advice

S

SAS25

New Member
Hey guys. I am thinking about getting into logo design (freelance) and was wondering should I just use my name or create an actual company brand?
 
I'd advise sticking with your name if you haven't started yet. It doesn't seem like it, but turning yourself into a company is a big step, and I'd wait until you've been working for 1+ years before considering it.

Small-scale developers and entrepreneurs will tend to go for solo tradespeople, as apposed to design firms. This is a good thing for you as you're just starting out.

All the best!
 
Forget design contests, they give you no real experience of working with clients, plus the vast majority of entries submitted are not original or clever, often infringe copyright, sometimes are exact copies and 99% of the time are complete shite. Plus, as Boss mentioned, you won't be getting paid for it, so why do it?

If you're going to work for free, ensure it's for a charity, non-profit organisation or local community group that could genuinely benefit from you, rather than someone who's looking to save money by using an exploitative service.

Read about good branding and identity design, understand what it is, what works, why it works, what doesn't, why it doesn't, and follow these simple steps:

  1. Sketch, sketch, sketch
    Ensure the design works on paper before you move onto the computer
  2. Work in black and white until the design is finalised
    If it doesn't work in black and white, it's not a good logo
  3. Design it using vector software
    This will enable you to scale it up without losing quality
  4. KEEP IT SIMPLE!
    The best logo designs are simple and clever. Gradients, glows and other bells and whistles just date and clutter a piece.

Designing a logo is hard, designing a good one is even harder, but like anything, practice and experience are the key, so keep at it.
 
If 100 designers all enter and supply logos and there's obviously only one winner, who pays the other 99 designers for their time? Most, if not all the time you will be in the 99 group not getting paid....
 
Sure, the winner gets paid. Are you going to be the winner every time?

You can waste your time by entering 20 times and still not ever win. Meanwhile your host gets supplied with hundreds of designs they didn't pay a penny for. Things like this are undeniably wrong, and no singular person will gain a benefit that equals the work they put in, unless they're winning every single time. Ultimately and inexorably, you won't be winning every time.

Also, I'd be willing to bet high that they don't pay industry-standard prices for the winning entry. It'll probably be a fixed price, which gives no value to the certain qualities within each individual logo.
 
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As we've established, although the winner gets paid, the other entrants do not. You've still spent time working on something and you've given it away.

Would you go into work for 3 or 4 hours with no guarantee of payment from your boss unless he liked your work the most?

Also, your idea may not be picked, but you've shown it to potentially millions of people, one of which could take that idea, put it to one of their projects and get paid for it.

Identities and and logos aren't so much about the final design being nice to look at, but having a clever, unique idea behind it. Dont give them away!
 
Well that all makes sense lol! So backed to logo designing...are their rules that you should go by..like legibility, etc?
 
It must be simple.
It must work in black and white.
It must work without text.
It must be legible at a small scale.

Follow those and you can't really go too far wrong.
 
The prices they're quoting are what I'd consider the bare minimum. I'd be a pretty generous man to take on a logo design project that was offering $600, let alone $400 which seems to be the highest Design Contest generally go. 'Choosa' are pretty much taking the piss with their prices.
 
Yeah I would say that is fair. I was thinking the same..around £150-£250 is value for money. Would anyone recommend any online courses that would be beneficial to me or is it a bad idea?
 
Do you have any previous experience or training in Graphic Design or do you just like the idea of drawing logos for a living? If it's the latter, the first thing I'd recommend is getting some formal training or experience. Secondly I'd research the industry you're about to go into. Logo design (normally called branding) is a very niche market and competition is fierce. Far easier to offer a general graphic design service to build your client list and reputation then slowly start dropping the lower paying work in favour of branding work.
 
i think that the logo comps are undermining the industry, yes it cheap, nut quality is low. I'm guessing you shoudl try it - you will soon give up after wasting your time with 50 other people a couple of times.
:icon_sneaky:
 
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