Let me start with a short and perhaps, a funny story regarding the logo design. When I first started blogging, I started with the Blogger and still I am continuing with it. The funny thing is that the logo designing consumed the second most-time in the history of my blogging, and 'choosing blog template' occupied the first position on that. If you are also a beginner of blogging or designing, you also might be a victim of this difficulty. Taking this difficulty into account, I planned to write this simple and friendly post for the blogging beginners to help them get tips to design a simple personal blog's logo. Whether you are a newbie on blogging or too unfamiliar with designing programs like Photoshop, I will try to get you covered, to a greater extent.
Talking about me myself, I am not a professional graphics designer but I am managing my designing skills to fulfill the normal blogging use. Also, Pixabay has helped me eradicate most of the designing headaches, by providing free-to-use images. But, the designing logo was on my own hand, that is, I didn't rely on any third-party service providers. You can clearly see this blog's simple logo at the top. Though simple, it was my one of the most time-consuming things in my blogging history. Are you laughing?
A logo is one of the most requirements of the blog. Whether you are practicing on social media or planning to monetize your blog, logo helps in the standardization of your brand or your blog's identity and superiority. As an example, you don't need to read whole text 'Facebook' to know it is Facebook, just a white 'F' on the blue background is enough.
Image: Pixabay
I am here to share some tips so that you won't feel any difficulties while designing a logo, I believe. I am not demonstrating the designing process, however, you can get some tips that you can accommodate to design your awesomely simple personal blog's logo.
Contents
Logo has to mean something
It is the first thing you must know before designing a logo. Designing a logo should be in such a way that the viewers can clearly notice what the brand or blog is about, just observing your logo. We are here to design a personal blog's logo, so, it may not be necessary to go so deep. However, knowing this fact will drive you to the next level of professionality in logo designing process, I thought.
You can clearly see this blog's logo at the top of this blog. It has only the texts and a bit white background at 'R' part and reflects simplicity. So, for the personal blogs, just a plain text (with a little graphics) will be enough.
Simplicity is one of the characteristics of a logo. For inspiration, the legendary blogger and entrepreneur Syed Balkhi also uses plain text in his personal blog logo. Still, it means a lot to us.
Right platform to design
It is the common problem among the beginners, even I faced the same difficulty. There are lots of platforms to start. But, choosing one is a bit of a headache.
If you are familiar with Adobe programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, you can design a simple or even complex logo within hours. But the chances are you may not be familiar with those skill-demanding programs or may not have access to such paid programs. In such such case, using your smartphone apps will be another option.
There are several Android and iOS apps out there. They are capable of creating great graphics easily. You can find them in Play/App Store easily if you waste(?) some time in it.
If it still seems impossible, I suggest you use online graphics editor, the Canva. It provides both free and paid service. If you want uniqueness, I recommend you to go paid version. It is easy to learn and doesn't require designing skills. Whether you are creating a logo or designing the blog images, Canva can handle both of them.
Pro-tip: Don't rely on free logo designing web apps available on the internet. This will bring several issues in the future. But if you are on the paid version, that would be OK.
Determination of logo size
This is a common mistake in logo designing. I also did the same mistake while designing this blog's logo. First of all, I created a logo in a common square format. When I inserted it into this blog, I need not explain what would have happened. Again, I tried compressing the same logo. The result was weird. This was also a reason why it took so much time for me to design that logo.
Determining the logo size depends on the theme/template of your blog. If your blog theme is following the usual trend, the logo size will be a square (500 × 500 pixels or less) or rectangle (500 × 300 pixels or less). However, checking the theme description is primarily recommended.
Pro tip: Logo size that suits normal themes is very small pixels. So, creating double or triple sized logo will be helpful for you. By doing this, you will have enough space to design your logo. Also, your logo won't lose its shape while compressing.
Logo, a title or URL
A logo is not always a title. As you can see, this blog's title is 'Rajendra's blog' but the logo contains the URL, 'Rajsapkota'. I thought, writing "one's blog" in the logo is not a good idea. So, I chose the URL, instead of the title. You can do the same if your blog is personal.
If your domain name is other than your name, you can use the domain keyword in your logo, as in this blog. This method(?) can also be considered as a usual trend because most of us are following the same pattern. You can take Google and Facebook as examples.
What to include in the logo?
This depends on your desire. If you want to make your logo professional, it is better to add images along with texts. Unlike this blog's logo, add small graphics (image) that reflects your blog content. If you have a slogan (tagline), give some space for that too.
It would be even better if you design a logo with dual meanings, one for your blog title and another for the blog content. The best examples of such logo are described in this video. Note: this video does not belong to me.
Choosing font(s)
Another important thing you should not miss is choosing fonts. This would be even more important if your logo contains the text only. While choosing fonts;
- never forget to check whether the chosen font is free to use or not (Use only the free-to-use fonts),
- be sure that your font matches the blog fonts
After you choose the font, you can decorate it in your own way. Some decoration options you can select are:
- Uppercase or lowercase or both
- Bold, Italics, Underline
- Increase or decrease in opacity
- Different colors (As described below)
- Make at least one text special (For favicon)
Choosing color (s)
After you design a simple footage of your logo, you can now apply colors to make it alive. Note that the color should be according to the color of your blog. Otherwise,... I need not explain.
Some tips to choose color (s):
- Choose according to the design of your blog.
- It is better to choose two or three colors
- Save a copy of your work before you finish. Cause, it is going to be handy if you change the theme of your blog.
I have now assumed that you got some tips on designing a simple logo. At last, don't forget to save your logo on your computer or smartphone.
Designing favicon
If you have already designed a logo, it won't be difficult for you to create a favicon.
What is favicon?
In simple words, a favicon is a small square-shaped image displayed at the top of the browser along with the page title.
Your favicon should be a square image, not more than 100KB (if you are on Blogger in case). To create a favicon,
- Choose one special text or image from your logo.
- If possible, crop and make it a square image.
- You can create the same portion again if cropping seems impossible.
- Save your favicon.
Finally, you will have a brand new logo and a favicon. You can then upload it to your desired blog within minutes.
If you are on Weebly, read how I optimized my Weebly free blog post and know about uploading custom favicon to Weebly free blog.
If you are on Weebly, read how I optimized my Weebly free blog post and know about uploading custom favicon to Weebly free blog.
These were the few tips that you can follow to design a simple personal blog's logo. If you think I have missed something, you can mention them in the comment section below. Also, help your friends design a personal blog logo by sharing this post via social media.
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