Design agencies, creative agency, freelancers, graphic designers... many web professionals can support you in your logo and graphic identity creation process.

Our web design and development agency Blacksmith, creators of logos, visual identities, mobile applications and websites since 2016, offers you this article to guide you in your process of requesting a new logo design.

If the price of a logo like that of Twitter may have cost the modest sum of $15, other companies such as the BP logo have paid more than a hundred million (!) euros for their logo.

Before seeing the price ranges practiced by professional designers in 2023, we will be interested in knowing what a good logo should be, and what is behind the price of creating a professional logo.

A good logo must meet the following 5 criteria:

1. Simplicity: if your logo contains too many elements, it will be difficult to remember and potentially difficult to read on small formats. Your logo should ideally be clear and sober in order to be easily understandable and effective.

2. Unique: Your logo should be recognizable and unique. It must stand out from other brands because the objective is to be in your image, with an identity that is specific to your brand, identifiable at a glance.

3. Memorable: A study showed that an American child is able to identify more than 1000 brands...that is to say if the famous logos easily imprint themselves in our mind and are easily recognizable.

   Your customers must be able to easily put an image on your company or product.

4. Durable: although it is necessary to refresh it from time to time, your logo must be able to evolve and cross the ages.

   It should not be created to stick to a trend as this would risk making it obsolete and requiring a logo redesign once the fad or trend has passed.

5. Flexible: Your logo must be available on different communication media: website, commercial brochure, flyers, kakemono... it must remain legible and understandable regardless of the circumstances (in black-and-white, printed very small on a visit card...)

The logo (or logotype) is the graphic element that will represent a company or a product.

It must allow at a glance to be understood by your customers, easily memorized and to be able to quickly identify your company.

To be able to achieve this result, it is important to fully understand your target, your competitors and especially your brand.

A logo must be unique, easily declinable (for example alongside monochrome logos, on a Linkedin banner, a business card or on goodies), respect the codes of graphic design and evolve with the times and trends.

Your logo having a direct impact on the perception of your brand, it is important to take care of its realization, for example by entrusting it to experts like those of our agency, from major design schools and with more than ten year of professional experience in graphic design and design.

Once the logo has been created, it will also be important for your company to define a visual identity including the logo, but also the typography, colors, variations... in short, all the graphic elements visually representing your company, brand, product or service.

The visual identity can be described within a graphic charter, bringing together all the codes of your graphic universe, but also all the rules and technical information to be used when you wish to communicate in the name of your brand (size of the fonts of writing, position, letter spacing, color codes in hexadecimal / Pantone / CMYK...).

If you hesitate to have your logo created by a professional, don't forget the role that your logo will play when you communicate about your brand, company or product.

Here we come: how much does a logo cost?

Its price can vary greatly depending on the option you choose and the country where the service provider to whom you entrust the creation of your logo resides.

Here are the main possible solutions for a professional logo creation:

1. Go through a logo generator

   It's about using an online generator to create your logo.

   The process is fast, can be free or at a low price (<50€).

   Pros: Fast is inexpensive for a logo design.

   Disadvantages: as the creation process by the generator does not result from a reflection around your brand, you will be left to your own devices.

   If you have no notions of design, the task will be difficult and you risk ending up with a logo that is unsuitable (not easily declinable, very generic and not allowing your company to be properly identified, etc.) and without support on other important points for the identity of your brand.

2. Work with a beginner freelance graphic designer

   If you want to be accompanied by someone who understands the codes of design but do not have a large budget (< 1000€), you can entrust the creation of your logo to a junior graphic designer.

   This one will not have strong experience in logo creation and will perhaps not be able to properly grasp and transcribe the identity of your company, but he will at least be able to respect the design codes (legibility of the logo, harmony of colors , etc.).

   Beware of prices that are too attractive, some designers do not hesitate to copy logos instead of making an original graphic design, or to sell logos generated by AI without notifying the customer beforehand...

   If this is your idea, plan to invest some time with the junior graphic designer during the process of creating your custom logo.

3. Work with a confirmed or expert freelance graphic designer

   This solution makes it possible to obtain work of higher quality than that of a beginner designer. A confirmed designer will also have a fuller portfolio with great customer references.

   Be careful, the quality of the services and the prices vary greatly (it can be 1500€ or 6000€).

4. Work with a design agency / design studio / creative studio / communication agency

   By going through an agency, you will get quality work and a custom logo taking into account the essential criteria for a logo.

   An agency can accompany you on the creation of a logo, but also on the creation of the entire graphic universe of your brand, including a graphic charter, digital media (social network banners, advertisements, etc.) and printed media or "print " (business cards, letterhead, kakemono...).

   The overall cost of the service may be higher compared to that of a freelancer, but many misconceptions circulate about the prices, and if some agencies charge logos several tens (or even hundreds!) of thousands of euros, other agencies like Blacksmith offer much more accessible prices.

Whatever the solution chosen, do not forget to make sure that the logo creator includes in the price the transfer of source files (especially in vector such as .ai or .svg files!) as well as copyright, without which you will not be able to freely use the created logo.

The logo is an investment over time for your company and its brand image.

If done well, it can last over time and represent your brand identity for years to make it unique and distinguishable from your competitors.

A few final remarks:

• Contrary to what one might think, the logo does not necessarily have to include elements directly related to your activity and can be abstract.

  Not convinced ? Look at the most famous logos and ask yourself if you see for example computers in the apple of Apple or drinks in the Pepsi logo ;)

• the logo may contain a symbol / pictogram, a mascot (example: Malabar) or an illustration.

  This is not mandatory but the cost of a logo with pictogram, illustration or mascot will generally be higher than the creation of a logo in monogram (for example NASA or HBO) or in wordmark (example: Visa or Coca -Cola) because it is more time-consuming and expensive to produce.

Are you still hesitating about the best solution to create your logo and graphic charter?

Contact us at partners@blacksmith.studio and let's talk about your projects together :)