Factors that can impact cost of logo design

Back in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student, designed the iconic Nike swoosh for a mere $35. Many logos have been designed on the back of a napkin over the years. This method can lead to results, it’s definitely the exception and certainly doesn’t take into consideration the building of a brand.

Even when using a more traditional logo design process you probably still won’t develop a broader graphic language or brand strategy.

At Flux Creative we often get asked “How much to design a logo?” It can depend on many factors, so we really thought it might be worth outlining a few here to help clients of all sizes understand the many components to logo design (and to a greater extent, a brand) and how they can impact the cost.

Do you need a logo or branding?

What is a logo?

A logo is a branded design that functions as a symbol for a particular business, representing the essence of its purpose and personality. The term “logo” is often used as a catchall to define any emblem a company uses to visually represent its brand. A logo isn’t your brand, visual identity, or an indicator of success. It’s simply the first step to creating your visual identity!

What is a brand?

A brand is the overall experience a person has when interacting with a business. It is essentially the unique identity that the business places in the mind of consumers as a shopper, customer, follower or mere passerby. This can be done through elements like logos, slogans, colours, graphics and messaging, even smells and sounds can go into creating the brand.

Branding is the process of creating the identity of a company or product. This can include research, strategy and the creation of a distinctive set of visual elements we call a brand language that helps consumers associate a unique personality with your products or services.

So you can see, a logo is just one part of the overall brand.

Business context

The business context in which the brand will be used has a huge impact on the size and scope of a project. Are you a plumber or a large consumer business? Will a single business owner run the project or a committee? What is the industry sector you’re operating in? Is it highly competitive? As you can imagine these are all important factors but they can be broken down further by understanding the business problems needing to be solved over a 5 to 10 year vision.

It also helps to establish some kind of a budget. Even though this may change, it will manage expectations before too much time is invested in the designer / client relationship.

Once this is established we then need to quantify the deliverables and scope of the design.

Do you have a brief?

A client who knows what they want and can articulate it clearly to the designer through a brief document will end up with a more affordable and more effective logo.

Do you have a Project Scope or Project Brief? If not, we may need to help you create one. At Flux Creative we use our inhouse Design Brief Questionnaire, it helps new clients provide us with important information about their goals, deliverables, priorities and ideas. They only need to fill out what they think is helpful but the more we know, the more accurate the cost and final outcome can be.

A brief or scope can be quite varied in its size. I have listed three examples of this below:

We can help a plumber put together a design brief over the phone within 30 minutes.
A small start up business may be more suited to completing a Design Brief Questionnaire then arrange a 1 hour meeting to go over all the points raised.
An established business requiring a brand refresh may need us to run a Branding & Marketing Workshop with all the stakeholders. This will establish a Brand Strategy, Framework and Marketing Plan to establish the brand values, style, sales channels and deliverables required in the brief.

Deliverables

Deliverables are physical items that need to be considered and built by the designer in order to fullfil the marketing and branding goals. For example, these could be a logo, stationery, signage, uniforms or even Instagram tiles.

The quantity, size and complexity of these will heavily impact the cost so it is critical to have an idea of what these are if you are wanting an accurate cost. The more specifications you provide, the more accurate the final cost can be and the easier it is to plan your budget.

Typical deliverables may be:

A logo, a logo refresh or a complete brand identity.
A business name and tagline.
Logo variations such as vertical or horizontal format, word marks and emblems.
A branding style guide.
3D visual mock ups for items such as vehicles, signage, garments, stationery.
Website build or redesign of existing site.
Social media channels and assets such as banners, tiles, articles and blog posts.
Printed collateral such as flyers, cards, brochures etc.
Signage, banners, displays, uniforms etc.
Media advertising such as radio, online or press ads.
Marketing plan and implementation.
Marketing launch.

Research & discovery

No brand exists in a vacuum. All companies need to live within certain industry standards and customer expectations no matter how much they’d like to stand out. So to create a memorable logo that is unique but in keeping with your industry sector, a certain amount of time needs to be invested in research and discovery. It is a good way to avoid having a generic looking logo or one that is too far out of left field.

Research and discovery can uncover industry specific colours, shapes or techniques, competition, target market preferences, buying habits, trends, market opportunities etc.

To keep the budget down this research can be done by the client themselves then communicated back to the designer in the brief, if not the designer can do it for you. There are obviously different depths you can go to find this information but either way it really is essential to delivering a successful logo.

Design complexity

It is one area that is easy to overlook but can have a huge impact on the overall budget. Often clients have an idea in their mind of what they’d like but often have trouble expressing it. Through no fault of their own, it is quite common for clients to underestimate what they think is involved in producing good quality design. Mainly because it isn’t their area of expertise.

This often comes into play when designing a logo. For example a text based logo will be a lot simpler and easier to create than a unique illustrated graphic logo. Both of these logos may require the same amount of concepts and iterations but the illustrated logo will be far more complex and take far more time to create. Especially when exploring styles and graphic details.

Where will the logo be used?

Where you plan to display your logo will have a direct effect on your design and on the overall cost. Maybe you own a construction company and you plan to use your logo on T-shirts, truck decals, and signs.

Or perhaps you’re a consulting business that will be using your logo mostly online such as a website, landing pages and social media channels. Think about the applications that matter most and what type of logo you will need to stand out in these environments.

In almost all cases, keeping your logo design simple with a clean layout will help ensure it is clear, recognisable, memorable and looks great everywhere. Here are a few common places you need to consider:

Online: Website headers and browser tabs, email signatures, slide deck, invoices and receipts.

Social media: Profile photos, cover photos, image posts, email marketing, social tiles, ads.

Print: Business cards, brochures, posters, corporate documents, car decals, clothing, brand packaging.

You may need slightly different logos to adapt to different mediums, for example embroidery requires a line graphic with clear colours and shapes. A website header is better suited to a horizontal logo design where as an Instagram tile suits a vertical (stacked) logo format.

All this can impact the cost.

Do I need a style guide?

With all of your logo files complete and ready for use, you may need to establish guidelines for your brand. A brand guide establishes rules for brand consistency into the future, so that any producer or staff member can develop marketing material inline with the brand styles and values. Perhaps you have multiple divisions or categories within your brand, or you have different creative rules based on various events or sub brands – the brand guide is the place to specify all of these details. It could be a 1 page guide or well over 20 pages, just depending on your company size and needs.

A basic Style Guide could include:

A cover page
Logo guidelines
Color palettes
Typography
Usage examples

A more detailed Branding Style Guide could also include:

A mission statement
Visual rules around images and icons
Tone of voice
Specifications for assets like document templates, packaging, email marketing and more.

You get what you pay for!

All designers work on a time and materials basis, multiplied by their hourly rate. Basically the time they invest in delivering a successful outcome plus outgoing material expenses such as printing or stock images.

When a designer costs a project it is basically an estimate of the time they expect to invest in delivering a successful outcome. Some designers may have a business model where they aim to deliver a logo for under $400 and others for no less than $2,000. Essentially they are pitching a vastly different level of research, exploration, concepts, visuals, consultation, knowledge, skills and quality. The $400 logo will have a fraction of the time invested in all these areas. You will still end up with a logo but the research will be minimal, the artwork may be from a stock library, the graphics, fonts and colours will be basic and the logo options limited.

This is where the client needs to put a value on their brand image and consider customer impressions. Choose the design investment that suits your business. Remember… “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression”

Ways to reduce costs

The deeper an agency or developer has to dive into Search Engine Optimisation and Content Marketing the more time they need to spend. This can include keyword and competitor research, copywriting, optimising titles, headers, body text and more.

If you’re a small business with a low budget there are ways to reduce logo design costs even further. If you’re a local tradie and don’t need to evolve into a bigger brand but need something strong and memorable, here are a few ideas.

To reduce costs logo design further:

Know what you’re wanting to achieve.
Do your own industry research and discovery.
Write a detailed brief using our Design Brief Questionnaire.
Create sketches of your logo ideas, no matter how bad they are.
Consider plugging your ideas into Ai to produce a visual reference for the designer.
Be willing to start with ideas from logo stock libraries.
Limit the amount of logo concepts the designer creates.
Consider a more text based logo and avoid complex illustrations.
Get the designer to create only one version of your final logo.

Conclusion

Great brands do not happen by accident. They are the result of research, discovery, critical thinking, collaboration, interpretation and execution, however there are different levels of these ingredients that can serve a similar purpose. It all depends on the value you place on your brand and the impression you’d like it to make in the market place.

To find out more, feel free to reach out to our team at our Contact page.