How To Create A Logo For FREE In 5 Simple Steps?

Logos are brand identity. Most people recognize a brand by its logo. A tempting or attractive logo entices customers towards your business. Therefore, it becomes crucial for a company to create one unique design that says everything about it.

If you own a restaurant, beauty parlor, clothing boutique, or into any business niche, you can self design a logo for your business for FREE.

With the advancement of technology and tools, you get secure options to create great yet efficient logo designs without even bothering to hire an expert. There are lots of logo making apps and tools over the web to design a logo.

In this post, we’ll be first focusing on this excellent graphic design tool called Canva. The tool works on a drag-and-drop feature to design layouts, logo, print business cards, make classic presentations, etc.

Later we will talk about some other designing tools.

How To Create A Logo For Free Using Canva & Why To Use It? 

We will talk about how to create a logo for free tutorial steps in the later part of the blog. The reason we recommend Canva tool is because of the following reasons-

• It’s easy to use, and any newbie can try it.
• You don’t have to have professional designing skills to use.
• Canva provides numerous pre-built ready to use layouts for Facebook cover, FB story, and post.
• Pre-built templates are also available for Instagram post and story, YouTube thumbnail, Pinterest, Linkedin posters, etc.

The best thing about Canva is that you get so many handy features with its FREEMIUM like-

• Free templates for social media marketing, invitations, business cards, flyers, etc.
• Varieties of logo options where one can start with their free templates, which can be optimized according to the brand’s colors, and fonts.
• Canva has a vast library of free elements that can be added to the logo template. This comes with a simple to use drag and drop feature.
• You can even upload your graphics for the logo design if you don’t like a particular feature of the template you are using.

Let’s see how you can use this tool to design your logo.

For your convenience, we have jotted down the logo designing steps in the following way-

1. Elements of a Logo Design
2. Crafting A Logo
3. Designing A Logo With Canva

1. Elements Of A Logo Design- LogoType & LogoMark

Two important elements you must know before designing a logo that helps you in creating an influential logo for your business, i.e. logotype and logomark.

LogoMark is a graphical representation of your brand and product, whereas a LogoType is the typographic treatment of a word or phrase.

Here is an example of a mix of logotype and logomark – Nike’s Logo

In the above logo, the swoosh is the logomark, while “Nike” is the logotype. The Swoosh defines the wings of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, along with the brand’s ethos: speed, grace, power, and agility.

Brands choose one logomark or the other, and some even choose to go with just one of these. For e.g. Canon and FedEx opted for the logotype, and Apple and Twitter logos have the only logomark.

2. Crafting A Logo

Your logo can be used for a variety of things in the future, but that shouldn’t stop you from designing something that can be printed just anywhere.

Check out the steps below to create a logo.

2.1 Start With Your Story

First Rule – You should be able to sell yourself as well as your product. Your logo must connect with your audience. How can you achieve this?

1. By adding a story to your brand logo.
2. Define the vision and mission of your company, way of your working, and witness the engagement this brings to your brand.

2.2 Brainstorm Words That Describe Your Brand

You don’t have to brainstorm a lot.

Just go to Thesarus.com or https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus and look for synonyms of words that describe your products. For e.g. type- Is it a new food chain or clothing brand? and notice the synonyms.

This will help you to constrain your ideas to some specific words that can represent your brand.

2.3 Sketch Some Ideas Based On These Words

Grab your notepad and pencil and pen down some ideas along with the WHY and a few keywords. The first sketch won’t be right, but keep going and be patient.

Look at these unique logos of HP and GAP as an example-

Avoid popular shapes that are too easy to identify daily. The more creative you can be at this stage, the better you will shape your logo.

So keep trying and make sure you are selective in the colors you choose as they can either make your logo or break it.

2.4 Test Your Top Sketches With Your Buyer Persona

Take these designs and show to your relatives and friends that fall into the category of a buyer persona. Ask them for actual feedback as only the criticisms will only make your final logo better.

Now its time to refine and develop your logo into a usable Digital Format.

2.5. Present, Revise, Deliver

Once you have created a logo, show it your client, and we suggest showing no more than three to five strong options. Take their input, revise, and then deliver.

3. Creating A Logo In Canva

With Canva, you do not require a professional technical guy to create your logo because it’s simple drag and drop. All you need is a bit of creativity.

Follow these five simple steps to design your logo using Canva-

Step 1- Create an account

Signup for the Canva tool either with direct Facebook or Google login. You can also signup with your email by creating a new account.

Step 2- Choose a Template

Canva has a vast library of pre-designed templates that can be edited. So look around and choose a design that fits the sketch you have made for your logo.

You can also search for templates for a specific industry. There are logos for Games/Recreation, Food/Drinks, Education, Restaurant, Art, Automobiles, Law, Sports, and the list goes on.

Step 3- Customize your Template

The next step is to customize the template you have picked. When it comes to customizing, you can change fonts, size, color, spacing, and you also reshuffle the elements of the template.

Here is a quick idea of how much you can play with your chosen template and make it your own:-

We have changed the color and orientation of the elements, along with removing the text.

Now, on the left, you can see options – Elements, Text, Backgrounds, and Uploads. Use these tools to give life to your sketch.

Step 4- Upload your images for a personal touch

You can also upload images from the Upload section if you want them to be a part of your logo.

Step-5 Download and Share your Logo

The last and final step is to download the Logo design. You can download your logo in PNG, JPG, PDF Standard, and PDF Print modes according to your requirements.

Here is the final image.

You do not get any watermarks on downloading the Logo Design. You can always come back to edit the design and download the new one.

The logo you are designing should be efficient in terms of usage as it is going to be printed in various sizes, from large files, letterheads, coffee mugs, Tshirts, to as small as on a pen. Each part of your logo should be noticeable no matter what size it’s printed.

Once you have designed your logo with Canvas, you can download it as a PNG, JPG, or PDF file.

Also, you should be a bit creative and do experiments with color and design as a lot of companies use Canva to design their business card, social media images, and flyers. You might see some similar designs floating around if you do not make your creative changes.

Canva PRO Version Features

If you are someone who does advanced designing and editing, the Canva PRO version fits best for you. The PRO plan of Canva starts with $9.95/month whereas the Enterprise plan costs $30 per month. Both plans come with a lot of additional features that are useful for designers and artists.

Take a look at the premium features that you get in the paid version-

1. Access to unlimited high-quality images starting from $1 each along with more than 400000 free photos and templates.
2. Canva PRO offers unlimited storage facility. You can also upload your own images to use them in a template.
3. The animator feature of Canva PRO allows you to create animated graphics in the form of gifs and videos.
4. You can share Canva PRO’s access to your team members via email. You can define the role of the member as a designer, administrator, etc.
5. Access to premium 1000+ fonts, templates, and elements.
6. Prior support is also included in the PRO version.
7. Features like Brand kit where you can create custom logos, and elements for your brand.
8. You can also create unlimited folders to organize your work on Canva.

<Upgrade To Canva Pro Plan>

Final Words

Working with Canva is genuinely easy. If you like the Freemium already and want to try the PRO version, you can simply upgrade it.

We hope you find this free logo designing tutorial helpful. Do let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

If you are using any other logo making a free tool, please let us know. We will surely check it out and try to cover it.

You might like to read the following articles-

• 12 Best Websites Like Canva That You Can Try
• Best Logo Making Apps For Android & iOS Users