A logo is an important tool in communicating what your business does and who you are. Logo design is a critical step in developing your corporate identity package and establishing your brand, whether you’re launching a new business or looking to update your current look. Engaging a logo designer to create a professional and polished logo that reflects your brand and your line of business will help people remember your company and enhance your brand’s credibility. It can also help you stand out in a crowded marketplace.
So how much does it cost to hire a logo designer? In this article, we’ll take a look at what goes into logo design and give you some ideas of what might affect the cost of having your logo designed.
A Detailed Brief Ensures a Successful Project
A logo designer will work with you to understand your business, its personality, and function, and create a polished logo you can use on your marketing materials, website, business cards, stationery, and more—but they need a lot of information and context to do that well. That’s where a creative brief comes in.
Whether you want your existing logo tweaked for a fresh look or need a totally new logo from scratch, the key to a successful design project is a clear, thorough creative brief. The brief should also outline all of the goals for the logo you’re creating, including scope, timeline, and budget. Your logo design project will likely lead to a number of other design projects and changes, so factor that in as well. This not only gets everyone on the same page, but should also help to filter out the first round of candidates by their availability, rate, and related experience.
What else goes into a thorough creative brief? Consider including any of the following:
- Background information. What is your company or business? What products or services do you provide? If you have a brand style guide or mission statement, this can help the logo designer start to envision who you are and the kind of logo that will support your brand or tell your story.
- Business goals and scope of the project. Explain the purpose of the logo and the logic behind your brand that should inspire it. Here are a couple of examples of clear goals and project descriptions.
- “We need a logo for our newly rebranded restaurant that reflects our building’s history and octagonal shape as a former Farmer’s Market in town center. The logo will be used on menus, our website header, full-color printed magazine ads, t-shirts, and video overlays, so must be easily legible. We’d like a transparent version for video and over photos in advertising.”
- “I need a new version of my logo that will show up better on top of screen-printed white and grey t-shirts, so need subtle adjustments to the color and font sizes.”
- Explain how the logo will be used. This is critical to the design of a logo. Envisioning a logo in its final application(s) will help it’s effective no matter where it ends up. Will it be on letterhead, a t-shirt, in a newspaper ad, or the side of a building? Be clear about where it will be displayed so you don’t run into production issues that require a redesign down the line. Alternatively, they may design black and white, inverted, or simplified versions that can be used in different applications.
- Show what the competition is doing. You want your logo to stand out in a crowded market of competitors, so do a little research beforehand to show your designer what’s out there, what you like, and what you don’t like. Do you want an emblem, lettermark, or wordmark? This will get them started off on the right foot.
- Timeline and deliverables. When creating a timeline include time to review the design, provide feedback, and allow for any rounds of revision. Be specific about what file format you want the logo delivered in, and any versions of it (e.g., RGB, CMYK, one-color, two-color, EPS files, etc.).
How to Budget for Your Logo Design Project
Set Rates: Many logo designers will offer a set rate for a logo design. If your logo design is part of a larger scope of work, it’s more likely you’ll be engaging a designer on an hourly basis.
On Upwork, the rates top logo designers charge can range from as low as $25 dollars an hour to as high as $75 an hour, though most fall in the $35-50 range. Rates can vary due to many factors, including:
- expertise and experience
- scope of work
- location
- market conditions
If your project has a short, non-negotiable deadline, know you may have to pay a premium to get the content you need delivered on time.
