This is the ultimate guide for hiring a graphic designer for logo design.
So if you want to know about:
- Best places to find amazing logo designers
- How to spot a great logo designer
- Logo designers' prices
- How you can get the most from a logo designer
Then you've come to the right place.
Let’s get started!
- What Is a Logo and Why Does It Matter?
- Why Should You Hire a Logo Designer?
- When You Can Hire a Logo Designer?
- Who Are the Best Logo Designers?
- What to Look Out for When Choosing a Logo Designer?
- How Much to Pay a Logo Designer?
- Where to Find Great Logo Designers?
- The Logo Design Process of Logo Designers
- Does Experience Matter for Logo Designers?
- Pro Tips for Working with a Logo Designer
- What to Do Before Hiring a Logo Designer?
- Conclusion: Take the Time to Choose the Right Designer
What Is a Logo and Why Does It Matter?
A logo is a visual representation of your brand, conveying the personality and values of your business or organization in an easily recognizable form.
A strong logo is essential to any business’s branding – it helps set you apart from competitors, attracts more customers, builds customer trust, and conveys professionalism and recognition throughout your marketing.
Logos are used on your website and across all marketing materials including physical products, advertising, packaging, and social media.
From business cards to billboards, your logo will go everywhere!
Why Should You Hire a Logo Designer?
Working with a logo designer offers many benefits over designing a logo yourself or using a logo maker.
You want to make sure that your logo design portrays the right message, has the correct style, speaks to your target audience, and be distinctive and memorable.
Professional logo designers will not only be able to create a visually appealing, memorable logo that can convey your company's personality and values, but they can ensure it has the right font choices, colors, size, and other specifications.
For these features for your logo to possess, it’s best to hire a professional designer who can bring your ideas to life.
Here are some other reasons for considering hiring a graphic designer for your brand logo design.
Idea Generation
Professional logo designers know how to come up with suitable and relevant logo concept ideas for your brand identity.
Using concept idea-generation techniques, they can come up with various concept choices that you may not have thought of and can best represent your brand.
Creative Solution Finding
A designer's point of view is different from that of an artist. A designer’s thinking is as such to find the best possible solution from a set of data to solve a specific problem.
This should be one of the most important reasons you may want to hire a designer.
For example, it’s difficult for a non-designer to sort out how the combination of a tree and bank card symbols could be for a logo, however, on the other hand, a designer can come up with such a solution.
Expertise in Logo Design Software and Techniques
Not only do professional logo designers know how to use proficiently advanced graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator, but also they are skilled in techniques such as the Grid system and Golden ratio by which with the help of them they can perfectly be able to execute any concept in a digital format.
By not hiring a logo designer who is an expert in Ai and design techniques, if you are designing yourself, you’ll either be limited to creating and executing simple and often generic concepts or if you are using logo maker tools, you’ll have limitations in logo design assets and concepts.
Expertise in Color Theory and Typography
Logo colors and typography are so important for branding that applying any of them wrongly can destroy your branding.
Being able to decide and come up with the right solution for both of them requires a thorough knowledge of them, access to different resources, and sufficient experience in using and pairing them.
Professional logo designers are competent in these 2 fields and can find the right color and typography for a brand identity.
Know Industry Standards and Trends
The graphic design field is expanding very quickly and being up to date with the latest updates and trends is a must.
It’s surprising that many clients and even logo designers, still prefer and work on logo styles that no more have any place today.
Not only does using those styles don’t help with branding but can also affect the overall recognition of a brand.
So, hiring a great logo designer ensures that your logo design has the right look and feel of your company that naturally reflects its ideals and also corresponds with the latest design essentials and standards.
Professional Touch
Sometimes, ignoring small-looking details can make a huge difference in the overall design.
It's important for a prominent brand that its logo design be perfect in all different design aspects and well executed totally.
A professional logo designer knows through his experience and knowledge how to craft a logo mark that looks right in various design aspects and up to the best standards, therefore, helping your logo mark to represent itself as a professional finished design and thus increase your brand recognition.
When You Can Hire a Logo Designer?
It's a difficult question to answer as the timeline varies from business to business. Ideally, it should be done when you’re ready to introduce your brand, product, or service to market - and for most businesses, that’s likely before launch.
If you haven't yet chosen your brand name, I'll highly recommend you to look for your logo design when you have decided on the name, as by having it, your graphic designer will be able to also work on your brand typography along with the logo mark.
Additionally, they can also be open to more logotypes when designing your logo such as Lettermarks and Wordmarks, which may improve the outcome of the final design.
Who Are the Best Logo Designers?
While there is no limit to the quality and aspects of a great designer, there are some necessary attributes that differentiate a good logo designer from others.
Here are some of those:
Following the Right Design Process
There is no doubt that designers follow different steps in their logo creation process, however, the good ones certainly go through some specific necessary steps required while designing a logo.
This includes thorough research of the brand and industry, well brainstorming concept ideas, and spending much time sketching.
Following these steps is crucial for finding the best possible solution for a brand’s logo, however, there are designers who either don’t follow some of these steps or if they follow, they don’t do it thoroughly.
Designing for the Brand
It’s important that the final logo that is designed well reflects the brand values, culture, and personality and not just be a fancy image.
Great logo designers make sure to follow this rule in their concepts and design in relation to the brand and its needs.
Possess Typography Knowledge
Typography plays a key role in logo design. It is the ‘lettering’ that makes up the words and company name, giving an identity to the brand.
Being such a visual element, a professional designer knows what font to use and pair such that it best matches the logo mark as well as reflects the brand.
Pro designers also have sufficient skills to edit fonts or create custom typography to make the lettering exclusive to the brand and fit the logo mark.
Expertise in Color Theory and Matching
Similar to typography, having expertise in color theory is a must-have skill for a great logo designer.
The colors chosen for a logo design have a significant impact on how customers and potential customers perceive the company or brand behind it.
Color choices can influence how customers think and feel about a brand, evoking certain emotions and conveying specific messages.
Professional logo designers know exactly what color palettes could fit well with a logo and at the same time convey the brand's personality and messages.
Other qualities
Along with the qualities I mentioned above, professional designers also possess problem-solving skills and creativity, give attention to detail, and are experts at using the required software for logo designing such as Adobe Illustrator.
What to Look Out for When Choosing a Logo Designer?
When selecting a designer, rather than looking for the cheapest rate or most impressive portfolio, look for someone who can understand your brand vision and business goals and can design according to them.
You can specifically find this out from the following criteria:
Consider Professional Experience and Design Details
Consider the design aesthetics of their portfolio and the amount of detail they put into each logo they present to clients.
Additionally, experience should also be taken into account - an experienced designer will have a lot more insight into effective design strategy than a beginner.
Review the Designer Portfolio Thoroughly
Take time to review the portfolio of the designer or design agency you are considering. Not only do portfolios reflect a designer’s style, but it also shows whether or not they can create designs that meet your requirements.
As some designers mainly specialize in a particular logotype or style.
Look for logos similar to what you need and also evaluate in terms of creativity, aesthetics, color palette, and other important design elements.
If none of the available samples match what you are looking for, chances are that you won't be happy with their final design either.
Evaluate Their Past Projects
Find from their portfolio the past projects they’ve completed and evaluate their past client's reviews (if applicable) and how the logo they’ve designed match and represent the overall project’s brand and its industry.
This point is very important to look upon, as for example, if your brand is related to the medical field, you certainly do not want some playful shapes and vibrant colors used for your logo.
Unless you’re looking for something unusual, you want your logo to have a formal design and aspects.
Look for Creativity and Originality in Their Work
While creativity is a must-have quality in any logo designer, you may also need to consider how original their designs are.
Do they reuse elements from other logos, or do they create something totally new with each project?
The more originality and creativity a logo has, the more likely it is to stand out amongst competitors and be remembered long after it's seen. Make sure to look for signs of originality and creativity when evaluating the portfolio of your potential logo designer.
For this, you can go to Google Lens.
Then copy the URL of one of the logos from their portfolio and pop it into Google Lens.
Finally, go through the results and evaluate their work.
Note that, due to some logos being minimalist, it’s quite common to see a similar one to it. You must just make sure that the logo isn’t an exact copy of another and evaluate the creativity of the logo compared to possible similar ones.
Ask About Their Design Process
Before you hire a logo designer, it is important to have a good idea about the process your designer goes through when working on a project.
We’ll later in this article cover the steps that most professional designers go through when developing a logo.
By learning and asking about them from your potential designer, you’ll not only have a clear background about the design process behind your project but you can also evaluate how professional the workflow of the designer you want to hire is.
The design process that logo designers follow can directly affect how their final design would look like!
Know Fully About Their Services
You’ll also need to know about your potential designer service details before hiring.
Including details about the pricing and the payment process — whether their pricing is based on an hourly basis or they have a fixed price and whether the payment needs to be paid fully in advance or on an upfront basis, and if so, what is the rate?
In addition to knowing about the payment details beforehand, you should also know other specific details such as the number of concepts, revisions, the file formats you’ll receive, the timeline for completion, and even the additionals you may receive like mock-ups and a style guide.
How Much to Pay a Logo Designer?
Logo designers' prices can easily vary from as low as $5 to $1000 and higher.
Logo designers typically charge per project or by the hour and usually have payment plans to make logo design more affordable for clients.
A price range of $100-$500 is generally accepted, though they may have a higher rate depending on the research they’ll need to do, the complexity of the design and project, the time involved in designing, and their expertise.
One point to note about their prices is that some logo designers, due to the personal authority that they’ve gained (followers, great reviews, and past clients), may price their work excessively.
Before hiring a logo designer, you may want to consider evaluating their price fairness as well.
Of course, when speaking about their price fairness, it’s worth noting that apart from the time that they spend on each project, they also mostly use Adobe Illustrator to create a logo (which is the most advanced tool for designing logos), and the subscription cost for using this software is on their own.
Where to Find Great Logo Designers?
The first step in finding a good logo designer is determining what you’re looking for.
To get started, ask yourself what type of logo would suit your business best, a monogram, abstract, mascot, or something different?
Additionally, you also need to know what kind of design aesthetic is ideal for your business logo. Do you need something modern and minimalist, or do you prefer an edgier and bolder look?
Once you have a better idea of the type of logo design you're after, it’s time to start searching for potential designers who can help bring your vision to life.
Here are some of the places where you can find great logo designers:
Dribbble
Dribbble is one of the most popular design inspiration sources and a place for designers to showcase their work through the eyes of potential clients.
Unfortunately, their Hire Designers section which allows searching designers using filters is limited and requires a subscription plan to be able to access it fully.
That being said, you can still find MANY great designers there easily.
Simply, go through their Branding section (or if you have a specific idea in mind, you can search directly for it and then go through the Branding section).
From there scroll down and look for the logos you like most, specifically the ones whose style matches your ideal brand logo style.
Once you have found a logo whose style and design matched your ideal, you can then visit their profile to assure that their other works also match.
If matched, you can then save or follow the designer to collect a list and later connect and get in touch with them to learn about their service details.
99designs
99designs is a graphic design platform website that mainly serves logo contests.
Unlike, many of their counterparts, they have a big list of great logo designers and also show their service specifications.
Although you can search for designers directly through their search section, I’ll recommend searching in this way:
Go to Google and type in a ‘logo concept name’, together with ‘inspiration 99designs’ in your search. For example, Tree logo inspiration 99designs.
And then open the first result that appears.
Now, similar to Dribbble, you can look for the logos you like most and the ones that match your ideal brand logo style and connect and get in touch with its designer.
Logopond
Logopond is one of the oldest logo design showcasing and inspirational sites.
Although currently its UI is REALLY OUTDATED and the website is filled with intrusive ads, it’s still a great platform for finding amazing graphic designers for your logo design, thanks to its long presence.
To find logo designers, you can either navigate through their ‘Creatives’ or ‘Gallery’ sections.
In their Creatives section, you can browse through the list of their logo designers along with 10 samples of their past logo design uploads.
However, I recommend finding logo designers through their Gallery section, as you can look at the logos of different designers next to each other, and sort and filter them to evaluate and find your preferred logo designer based on your preferences.
The Logo Design Process of Logo Designers
It’s difficult to mention exactly how logo designers work; as they have different approaches in their designing process.
However, most professional logo designers go through a series of the same steps in their logo design process.
Here are the 7 main steps they’ll follow:
Client Discovery
The very first thing that logo designers often do is provide their clients with a logo questionnaire form that includes questions about the project such as its description, website, competitors, target audience, brand values, etc.
The questionnaire also may include questions about the client's requirements like what must be included or not included in the logo.
The answers provided in a questionnaire help designers so much along the way as they can learn thoroughly about the brand and also know their client’s specific needs which they must adhere to while designing.
Industry Research
After they got to know more about the brand, they’ll then usually use that information to learn more in-depth from different sources available. Specifically, analyzing the brand competitors and its industry branding patterns.
Following this step, helps logo designers to get an overall idea of how their logo concepts stylings and overall design should look as well as helps them in deciding which direction to follow, such as whether to design something similar to the brand competitors or something different.
Finding Concept Ideas
Following client discovery and industry research, logo designers often then try to figure out possible concept ideas, mostly based on the project description and in relation to the client's requirements.
As logo designers often find their concept ideas based on the brand description, you need to write your brand description as detailed as possible.
This doesn’t mean that you should just write as long as you can. On contrary, you should focus on mentioning even specific details that may describe your brand including its services and features, as well as write about your brand values, goals, mission, and vision.
Sketching Ideas
As clear, logo designers sketch their concept ideas, usually on paper but sometimes they may directly execute their ideas in vector editing software.
Good designers often draw MANY sketches, before they move on to the next phase in their design process, so it’s essential that the designer you choose, spend sufficient time in this step.
Once they’ve sketched the potential logo concepts, they’ll often select and mark the best ones, refine them by working on their design details, and then move on to the next step, converting them into a digital form.
Digital Creation
For converting logo concept sketches into a digital format, the most advanced software is Adobe Illustrator.
Working with Adobe Illustrator requires thorough practical experience and skills and having them can help a logo designer to digitize his concept ideas perfectly, so It’s also essential that the designer you are hiring be proficient in it.
One way of understanding this is to check for the complexity of the past projects they have done.
Not necessarily all of them require to be complex or advanced, but at least a few can help you to know wheatear they’re proficient or not.
Presentation
Before finalizing a concept and preparing its files for delivery, logo designers usually present the digitalized concepts to their clients to get their feedback about them.
One thing to note is that make sure in this phase you receive at least the following from your designer for the concepts:
- Logo in colored, white, and black backgrounds
- Logo together with the brand name on colored, white, and black backgrounds
- White and colored versions of the logo together with the brand name
- 1 mockup
The reason that I suggest you in receiving these is that they’ll help you to better visualize the concepts and decide on the right concept.
After getting their client feedback, where necessary, they’ll refine the concepts to match their needs and expectations.
Once the client is satisfied with the adjustments and decided on a concept, the designer goes to preparing the final source files.
File Delivering
The last step of a logo design project is the preparation of source files in different formats.
Make sure to receive all the necessary items in different file formats from your designer, specifically in an SVG format, as not every vector editing software can read AI and EPS file formats.
Also, once you receive the files, it’s a good practice that you test at least the main vector files in vector editing software.
Does Experience Matter for Logo Designers?
Designing a logo is a big job and requires both creativity and technical aptitude. Knowing this, it stands to reason that some level of experience is necessary.
While many novice designers are capable of creating logically structured designs that make sense for the business at hand, an experienced designer will be able to provide greater clarity and insight into the project.
They will instinctively understand the nuances of shape use, font selection, and color choice based on their previous projects.
Experience also brings with it the ability to anticipate client feedback and make corrections without sacrificing design integrity.
By choosing a designer with advanced skills and knowledge in logo design you can rest assured they will deliver a perfect blend of creativity and professionalism every time.
Pro Tips for Working with a Logo Designer
When you’re hiring a logo designer, you want to make the most out of it.
You certainly don’t want to misdirect your designer by either not providing him with sufficient details or by providing him with unnecessary details.
Here are some tips you can follow to get the most from your logo designer:
Show Sample Logos
For instance, apart from answering in detail the logo questionnaire form, you can even make it more clear for your designer how you expect your logo to look alike.
You can do this by searching through the internet and finding a few samples of the logos you like and expect a similar design to it, in terms of overall style and design.
Note: the sample logos you curate don’t necessarily need to be related to your brand and industry.
Don’t Suggest Concepts
Well, some clients are so concerned about their brand’s logo that they try to figure out concept ideas and suggest them to the designer.
Undoubtedly, you may come up with a good solution, however, when you suggest it to a designer, they often work mainly around that concept only since they assume that your high satisfaction is in that idea.
I recommend that you do not suggest them concept ideas and let them figure out what may work best for your brand. They most probably will come across your suggestion themselves.
Don’t Suggest Colors
Another suggestion that can limit a designer’s creativity and even cause your branding to go wrong is the color suggestion.
I know that you may have a particular color in mind that you believe will work best for your brand, however, often designers choose colors relative to the logo and the brand itself, as not all colors may suit a particular logo or be the best solution for it.
Color selection for a brand requires thorough experience in working with branding colors as well as an understanding of color compositions.
My suggestion here is that if you have hired a great designer, let him decide on the colors for your brand, and do not make him happy unnecessarily by easing his work.
What to Do Before Hiring a Logo Designer?
Before you explore potential logo designers, you need to have a clear understanding of your branding needs, and your design preferences as well as evaluate the potential designer you want to hire.
Here are some specifics that you must do before hiring a logo designer:
Decide on Your Brand Needs
Make sure to find out and decide beforehand what logotype may suit best for your brand. This objective is on you and it’s essential to know before looking for potential designers, as you will then check for designers who are specialized in that logotype.
Also, it’s good to summarize your logo design requirements and research and evaluate them, as sometimes you may deem that your requirements make your branding right, however, they may have the opposite effect.
Create an Inspiration Board
Prior to getting in touch with a designer, it's good that you create an inspirational board with references to specific styles and designs that you like.
This will help you explain to potential designers what kind of logo design you’re looking for in terms of overall style and aesthetics.
Make sure to save images from websites, Pinterest, or any other resources that contain examples of logos or graphics that you find inspiring.
Having a clear idea of your expectations is essential when it comes to finding the right logo designer.
Research and Analyze Different Designers
As you have read, I have covered what you need to look for when choosing a logo designer. Just make sure to fully research potential logo designers and analyze their portfolios thoroughly.
Remember that your brand logo is the face of your business and the first thing that everyone sees about your brand.
Therefore, for such an important visual element, you do not want to spend so much money hiring a logo designer and in the end, receive a logo design that you aren’t satisfied with it.
Get Quotes and Compare Services & Prices
Once you've narrowed down your choices, make sure to get price quotes and compare different services offered.
Additionally, factor in not just the cost of a logo design itself, but also the turnaround times for each logo designer and read reviews from past clients if applicable before making a decision.
Doing your research and comparing prices will help you find the best deal for your business logo design.
Conclusion: Take the Time to Choose the Right Designer
Although hiring a graphic designer for your brand logo design might be costly, hiring a great one not only can help your logo design to reflect your brand personality and values rightly but also can also help your business to build customer trust and boost recognition.
Great logo designers with their knowledge of design principles, as well as their experience in working with clients, can craft highly effective logos that will stand out from the competition and be memorable to customers and potential partners.
I hope you found this guide helpful and thank you SO MUCH for reading this far! Also, if you liked this article, feel free to share it with others!