Logo Design Blog

Almost every day we receive at least 3 emails advertising cheap “logo design software”. Ranging from $39 to web based flash do-it-your-self logo design software that costs as much as $200. This makes me think.

Wow, if people could just buy this software for under 40 bucks and then get their logo designed then there is no place for professionals such as me who have spent the last few years researching and creating professional logo designs for clients from around the world.

The logo design software advertised are nothing more than applications that help you put together pre-build templates or clip art images and lets you add your company name to make it into a “professional logo design“. It is simple, relatively easy and best of all, it is cheap!

The only things these advertisements and the websites selling these logo design software forget to mention are that the designs that are created from these applications are NOT unique. Any one with $40 in their pocket will have access to the same clipart images that you do. This means that a ton of people and companies can end up having the EXACT same logo design for their company corporate identity.

Secondly they also conveniently forget to mention the fact that the designs produced by these logo-design-software can not be copyrighted nor trademarked. When one applies for a logo design copyright or logo design trademark, they will be rejected by the USCO and USPTO. So when a dispute arises between two companies about the copyright of their logo design, it will boil down to who created the design first using the logo design software.

When you look at the various clipart images bundled along with the logo designer software, you will realize that they are really bad in quality and most of them have some sort of gradient or other drop shadow effect (usually created using software such as Adobe Photoshop), which means the files will be in raster format. This could lead to a nightmare when trying to get the logo printed or made into a sign. They do not scale well and will look really bad when printed or embroidered.

So why do companies such as Logo Design Works charge almost $400 to create a company logo design when a customer could buy a logo creation software for as little as $40? The reason I guess is very obvious. A professional logo design company such as Logo Design Works has logo designers with years of experience in creating corporate identities.

Creating a winning logo design is not simply about the graphics. Graphics are only 50% of the process. The other 50% involves understanding the company, the industry the company is in and underlying core branding principles and techniques.

Professional logo designers spend hours researching a company, trying to get to know it the best they can. They cross reference competitor logos to see the current trends so that they can create a logo that can be in tune with the current trends and yet stand out from the competition.

They strive to create UNIQUE designs that will stand up to copyright or trademark registration. They strive to create an identity that the customer will be proud of.
The various things that professional logo designers take into account when creating the designs are:

• Where will the logo be most used? What kind of medium?
• What kind of marketing strategy does the company have for the future?
• Who is the target audience and market?
• What kind of core identity message does the company have?
• What is the competition and what are the industry trends?

Based on the above factors and many more that have not been mentioned here, these professional corporate identity creators build from scratch logos that will stand the test of time and are very effective in terms of delivering the core message of the company.

You can expect to have any of the above happening when you create a logo from a logo software which uses pre-built clipart and template images. Think about it.