We’ve been told all our lives that we shouldn’t judge a book by its character. We’ve been told from the beginning of blogging that content is and always has been king. We’ve been told that appearances don’t matter, because it’s substance that will always prevail in the end.
These may all be admirable ideals, but you know as well as I do that we simply don’t function that way. We will judge a book by its cover. The first impression that we get of a poorly designed blog may not necessarily be overcome by stellar writing, because we might not get that far.
And one of the first things that people will notice about any company, whether that’s a blog or a trendy boutique, is the logo. Your logo matters. The colors you choose matter. That’s why it pays to get a professional to design a great logo for you and here are six excellent choices to get you started.
99designs
Tapping into the power of the crowd, 99designs offers you access to a large community of professional designers who are anxious to create the perfect logo for your blog or company. The logo will be delivered in both print and web-friendly art files so you can use it everywhere and the 100% money-back guarantee ensures you’ll be happy with the results.
Pricing starts at $399, offering around 30 logo concepts from “good” designers. Pay more for more designs and better designers.
crowdSPRING
You can outsource a lot of work at crowdSPRING, including web design and naming projects. Logo designs are also a part of the mix and there have been over 50,000 projects posted to the site to date. Featured by Forbes, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, crowdSPRING also offers a 100% money back guarantee.
Instead of imposing a set pricing schedule, crowdSPRING lets you set your own project price. Just know that more money will naturally attract more designers. Typical logo requests usually start at around $200 and go up from there.
DesignCrowd
With over half a million designers, DesignCrowd really does have a crowd of designers who want to compete on your logo design. The first designs usually trickle in within a few hours of posting a project and you can choose the logo that you think best illustrates your company’s grand vision. Over 100,000 businesses have trusted DesignCrowd to date.
Projects start as low as $99, but that only includes one designer and up to three designs with three revisions. The most popular package is $249 for 50+ designs with unlimited revisions from unlimited designers.
LogoArena
Want to survey a wealth of possibilities before making your final decision? When you host a logo design contest with LogoArena, you should expect to receive between 50 and 200 concepts (or more). From there, you can provide feedback to further refine your preferred logo before receiving the final EPS files to use as you see fit. The concepts are 100% original and come with a money-back guarantee.
Going through the design brief, you define the styles of logo you like and where you’ll use it. Typical “contest” packages range from $249 to $499, but you can set your own prize amount if you’d like too.
Logo Design Team
Perhaps the greatest strength of Logo Design Team is its established experience and presence in this creative space. In the over 10 years the online service has been in business, the 120+ professional designers have dreamed up over one million logos for over 200,000 brands. They say they have the largest portfolio on the Internet.
The basic budget package is $69 for three designs from three designers, stepping up to $149 for eight designs from eight designers and $229 for 12 designs from 12 designers. They all offer full copyright with a turnaround time of less than 48 hours.
Fiverr
Finding that the packages described above are too rich for your blood? For startups and solopreneurs with more modest budgets, Fiverr is always an option. Just realize that you might get exactly what you pay for, as many of the “professionals” on Fiverr tend to use pre-designed templates for fast turnarounds. This is true not only of logo design, but for many projects.
As the name of the site clearly indicates, pricing can start as low as $5, but independent designers on Fiverr oftentimes offer premium add-ons for their offerings too.
Do you have a great logo for your blog or online business? Did you hire a professional to do it? Did you use a crowdsourcing or design contest site?