Are you thinking of launching a startup? Do you already have one? 

How much are you going to spend on your logo? You could make one on Canva yourself, right? Or maybe splash out on Fiverr and get someone to do it for you.

Maybe you’ve put aside a couple of hundred bucks. 

I’m here to tell you, your business is doomed.

• • •

“Hi James! I am in the process of separating from my current company with the aim to set up on my own. I will need a logo. Can you help me?”

[Sends proposal/budget]

“Ah. I think I’m just going to have my web developer knock one up. Thanks anyway.”

As a logo designer, I’m obviously biased about the subject of how much a logo design should cost. It’s in my interests to preach the value of a well-designed logo.

But after almost two years into a global pandemic and consumer spending at an all-time low, now, more than ever do you need to re-evaluate what a logo does for your business. And why you need to spend more than $200 for one.

Without a worthwhile logo you’re going to be facing an uphill battle for the entirety of the (short) lifespan of your company. And if you don’t apportion a healthy percentage of your budget to investing in a good logo now, it will pigeon-hole you from the get go.

Trust. Encouragement. Reward.

Let’s first distinguish between a brand and a logo. 

For new customers, your logo is usually their first impression of your business. It is the face of your company. 

A brand is a person’s gut feeling about that company. This develops over time. It is influenced by your logo (the company visuals), their messaging and your position in the market.

In a study performed in 2019, 81% of consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them (Edelman, 2019).

If your logo has been pieced together as a secondary thought, and it doesn’t reflect your industry space, why should a potential customer (especially online) trust that you are who you say you are and spend money?

Does your logo look trustworthy? Does your logo reflect your industry?

Point of difference.

Unless you’re a brand new, emerging tech company with a revolutionary new product, my guess is your business model isn’t unique. 

Let’s take the hairdressing industry as an example. 

A quick Google search in my area tells me there are 14 salons/hairdressers within a 2-mile radius of my house. How is a new hairdressing salon going to make the cut (pun intended) when customers have 14 separate options to choose from, all a mere mouse click away and at a potential snip of the price? (I’ll stop now) 

When it comes to a personal spend in a saturated market like this, users aren’t looking for cheap and cheerful. They need to trust that the person cutting their hair knows what they are doing. They’re going to choose the salon/barber that stands out as being professional, experienced and maybe even priced at a premium.

Does your logo stand out as professional? Does your logo feel premium?

Why spend money on a designer?

If you’re still reading, I’m sure you’re savvy enough to know what makes a good logo. Your logo should be simple, recognisable and relevant to your industry. It should work on a small scale. It should work in one colour. 

And, most importantly, it should be unique.

Designers on race-to-zero websites like Upwork or Fiverr work on volume and speed. They can afford to charge you a pittance for your logo.

Why? Because a lot of the time they are working from a template that they have used multiple times previously. Or worse, they have plagiarised the design from someone else!

When you work with a logo/brand specialist, a huge part of our process is competitor research. Also, any designer worth their salt knows that a good logo idea in its simplest form has probably been done before.

Our job is to check that our work hasn’t infringed on anyone else’s. Usually by an exhaustive reverse-image search. Or our years combing the design community for inspiration means that we can quickly recognise if a design is similar to someone else’s.

I’ve been the victim of plagiarism many times, and it is beyond maddening.

Plagiarism is incredibly difficult, painstaking and usually expensive to police. But if your company is guilty of it, at any moment you could be forced to change your signage, take down your website and face any legal ramifications of using a logo that you never truly owned or trademarked. 

Is your logo unique? 

Now is the time to be timeless.

Here’s an experiment. See if you can draw the Nike logo from memory on a piece of paper. 

Easy(ish) right? If you’re anything like me you practised drawing that on the back of your school notepad. 

Now draw the Reebok logo. They’re in the same industry. The company has also been around for longer than Nike. 

Not as easy.

For me, the difficulty comes not from being able to draw the icon, but from trying to remember which one they are currently using. 

The Nike logo has barely changed since 1964. Yes, it’s probably the most famous logo of all time, and Carolyn Davidson was only paid $35 for it, which doesn’t strengthen my argument.

But the logo is timeless. And because it hasn’t changed in nearly 60 years it is probably the most recognised logo in history. 

Yes, using the Nike logo as a case study is as tired as it comes. My apologies. My point is that any experienced logo designer knows how to make a logo stand the test of time. Meaning you won’t have to change the design in a few years when your design doesn’t render well in the metaverse, or virtual reality advertising formats. 

An investment in the right logo now will give your brand a backbone that will support it indefinitely. 

Is your logo timeless?

I can’t afford it. It’s not a priority. I can’t justify the spend.

Let’s diagnose why you need a worthwhile logo.

Maybe you want more sales. In which case, how are you going to achieve that? Do you want to appeal to a specific target audience? Do you need to be seen as trustworthy? Do you need to stand out from your competitors?

If you have a financial goal for the year (you really should), and we’re speculating to accumulate, what percentage of that target value would you be willing to invest on a brand that could help you reach that goal?

Five percent?

Ten percent?

What is the absolute maximum budget you could commit to creating the face of your business? Remember, this is the symbol that is the first impression your customers have. And according to 8ways, it takes about 0.05 seconds for a customer to form an opinion about your website. A captivating logo tells your story and ultimately inspires enough trust to convince someone to spend money with you.

If your business is forecasted to make $75,000 in your first year, a ten percent investment would be $7,500. Is it unreasonable to apportion this much money to achieve those goals?

When we reframe the discussion in this way, it changes how we value our logo. Also, remember that this thing will be on your business cards, your website, any signage and your social media channels. 

If you’re not proud of your logo, you’re going to feel it. Every day. And I guarantee you that if you try and get your logo designed on the cheap, it will reflect in the quality. You’ll waste your money and might even end up coming back to someone like me anyway. 

Are you proud of your logo?

Rant over. 

Thanks for reading. I needed to get that off my chest as I sometimes get demoralised with my client’s expectations when it comes to pricing logo jobs.

I’ve said this in other articles, but I’m proud of my pricing structure, and I have more than a decade of experience, which I believe entitles me to set the bar reasonably high. So when I receive a $200 offer for a logo job, it’s hard not to feel a little insulted.

It’s easy to look at a logo design and say, 

“Well I could have done that!”

But creating a timeless logo that works in its simplest form takes years to master.

It takes effort to appear effortless. 

And that effort has worth.