For some reason we entrepreneurs tend to dwell and waste time on things that should be (and can be) simple. A perfect example of this is branding and logo design.
Naming your business and coming up with your idea of the perfect logo is not nearly as important as actually launching and putting yourself out there. Remember, you don’t have a real business until you’ve actually launched.
Everything leading up to launch can be time consuming and expensive…
What if I’m not a designer and I have to hire someone to design my logo? What if I can’t afford a fancy logo?
Today let’s talk about why you don’t need a fancy logo and what you can do instead that will be just as effective.
Fluff Free Logos
When you think of a logo, you may be feeling like you need a professional designer to come up with some unique design, but in reality a lot of very successful brands are keeping it simple and getting creative with beautiful typography.
Option 1 – Pay to hire a pro whether that means spending $5 of fiverr, $299 at 99designs, or $500+ with a designer you find online.
Option 2 – Save time and money by taking matters into your own hands and design a simple text-only logo. There lots of little tricks to make simple typography look completely customized. You may be surprised how well it turns out :)
Here are a few examples of brands keeping it simple…
Facebook has likely one of the most recognized logos out there today and guess what… it’s a non-fancy text-only logo. They chose a unique font and always stay consistent with the same blue color throughout all of their branding.
Absolut
Another beautifully simple typeface used here. The curved edges of the letters add a little personality and make it stand out without being too flashy.
Copyblogger
Anyone who is interested in copywriting or growing an online business has probably heard of Copyblogger. I love the simplicity of their sans-serif typeface that is clean and easy to read. Nothing fancy here… but gorgeous branding nonetheless.
MailChimp
Even though Mailchimp is known for their signature monkey image, their actual logo (at the bottom of the screenshot here) is just a simple handwriting-style typeface. MailChimp is known for their amazing website design and branding so take note!
Create Your Own Logo
Keep in mind that some of these simple logo fonts are created by professional designers but that doesn’t mean you can’t choose a font of your own and create something just as impactful.
Check out Google Fonts to find tons of free font options. Type your company name in the field at the top and then filter font styles on the left.
Now pick the font that best fits your brand and BOOM! You’ve got a logo.
You can download the font to your computer and you can add it to your website.
Not satisfied with just a simple font? Play around with capitalization, font weights (bold, italic, etc.) and spacing to make your text logo even more interesting.
Here are 8 variations of the same font and text, each with a unique look.
Font shown: Futura
Do you have a simple font logo? If so, share in the comments why you chose to go with something simple for your brand.
And if you’re struggling with branding and logo design… just remember sometimes the best option is the easiest one :)
Hi Galen.
That was good. I’m very much in favour of simple logos. In fact, I have on myself, that I asked a designer to do for me on Fiverr.
I have never considered going to Google Fonts to try that out.
I’m considering a fresh change of logo, so I may try that out.
Nathan.