Establishing a home business bestows lots of benefits, from having flexibility with your schedule, skipping the daily commute, increased opportunity for growth, and many other amazing perks. Yet, it also entails being in charge of everything, especially the success of your home business.
To ensure that your venture will prosper, one of the first things you need to secure is an effective logo. While it may only seem a graphical representation, a logo does a lot of wonder to a business. A logo has a critical impact on how consumers will see your brand, as it conveys your home business’s identity, values, and goals.
So, generally, your logo must be outstanding and hit the mark. That may look like a huge feat to do but ease your worries! Read on as we’ve listed the best tips on how you can make an effective logo – one that will speak a lot for your home business!
1. Know Your Brand
Before you make a logo for your home business, you first need to understand your brand deeply. First, know our target market and customers. Are you selling affordable homemade vegan products for health enthusiasts? Is your business about reselling vintage clothing to sophisticated women? By establishing that, you can keep on track with what you want to achieve.
Second, be sure to distinguish your brand’s personality, too. Do you want your copywriting business to appear more pensive to appeal to professionals? Or, are you gearing for a lighter tone to entice fun and carefree customers? Having all that information can help you create a logo that would connect to your desired customers and help establish your home business in the competitive market.
2. Find Inspiration
After knowing your brand, it’s now time to awaken your creative side. You can visit different sites, such as Pinterest, Dribble, or Behance, or social media apps like Facebook or Instagram, as they have a logo collection, which you can draw inspiration from. Alternatively, you can also go to an art gallery, hike on a mountain, or have fun at a theme park, as those can also fuel you with joy and expose you to different elements you can use for your logo. As you do the given activities, be sure to stick with your home business’s identity and take note of all of the ideas, whether big or small – you might be surprised how valuable each can be in coming up with a design for your own logo.
3. Check Your Competitors
Your competitors can be a helpful tool in devising your logo. Chances are many of them have long started their businesses, which means they can provide significant info you can use for your analysis. Check out the pages of your rivals in business and look at their logos. Do you find them enticing? Is their logo helping them become more prominent among customers? What positive things can you adapt from their logo? Are there any elements you think you should avoid? By answering all those questions, you can gain knowledge and have a good foundation in creating your logo. While you may take in some ideas, remember that your end goal is to have a logo that will fit your brand and one that will let you shine over your competitors.
4. Look at Multiple Industries
Though it’s normal to use your competitors as a basis, it doesn’t hurt to look at other industries and see what’s working for them. If you’re selling handmade crafts, go ahead and scrutinize the logo of businesses within the same line. However, you may also check the logos of the decade-old flower store in the street, the booming drop-shipping business of your colleague, or that trusted sewing machine repair shop in the next town. Find what makes them unique and add it to your “arsenal” of ideas. The more you learn, the better logo you can create for your home business.
5. Use Colors Appropriately
Colors are a vital yet also crucial aspect of your logo. Use them appropriately and they can work great for your home business. Choose ill-fitting ones and you may see your logo conveying a different message than what your home business wants to impart. Meanwhile, colors may also be the reason why your logo can fail at its job of catching your target customers’ attention.
Any of those scenarios can happen because colors also carry a certain emotion or personality, which you need to match your brand. For instance, blue usually denotes respectability and intelligence, making it a perfect primary color for home business related to writing, tax preparation, or accounting. Meanwhile, orange implies playfulness, excitement, or energy, so you can use it if you have a party planning or gift basket service home business. Of course, green can work great for nature-inclined home businesses like selling sustainable items or healthy food.
With that, it’s important that you don’t merely choose a color because it’s attractive. Consider what meanings customers can associate with the colors you’re going to use, so they won’t be confused about the message of your brand.
6. Choose Fonts Carefully
Like colors, fonts also have their own personalities. So, find a typeface that will suit your home business. If you are offering law services, your logo can use fonts like Trajan, Times New Roman, Baskerville as they imply reliability and reverence. If you’re selling clothing items instead, Bickham Script or Futura are your best bets as they relay elegance and style. Don’t make the mistake of many other businesses that choose their fonts randomly. Always opt for one that properly projects your brand identity.
7. Pick the Type of Logo
There are various types of logos you can choose from. Some will include the name of home business, such as those with the famous brands, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Amazon, or Ray-ban. Others don’t include the business name but use symbols or graphics instead. Nevertheless, they are as effective as what you can see with McDonald’s, Nike, or Starbucks. For your home business, it is best to carry the business name first as it can help your target customers remember it better.
You can also opt for a combination of a business symbol and name, as long as it can match the business message. Just be sure to veer away from the stereotypes, such as the overused chef’s hat on food businesses or the “cup of coffee with steam” on many coffee shops. Strive to have a unique logo that can quickly draw attention and help build good recall about your home business.
8. Keep the logo simple
A unique logo, however, doesn’t mean you need to bombard your logo with too many colors, fonts, or elements. Simplicity is what makes logos effective. One to two colors, fonts, and elements are often enough for a logo. All you need to maximize the use of these few features one to create a logo that can convey the message of your brand.
Keep it neat and clean as too many complex elements can be an eyesore, warding off your target customers instead of appreciating the logo. Look at the Samsung, Google, or Adidas logo. They are simple yet are memorable. After all, you want your logo to be straight to the point, without your customers devoting too much time understanding what your home business is about.
Takeaway
Keep in mind that a logo can spell a lot of difference, either helping or breaking your brand. So, be sure to devote the time and create an effective logo that will reflect your home business’s identity and help catapult it to success.