There are good reasons to hire designers to create advertising materials. However, the cost of good designers is not insignificant. Accordingly, small businesses and solo self-employed are often forced to save these costs. But there is also a cheaper way to get professional advertising material. For this I would like to show you how you can create your own logo. In addition, you will learn how even laymen can achieve professional results in terms of design. I will also show you how to create professional flyers yourself.
With modern tools and templates on the Internet, it is now easy to achieve decent results even without design skills. Moreover, the use of design templates not only saves time, but the results using the templates are usually better than self-creations in semi-professional computer programs.
Because there are now millions of templates for logos, flyers and other advertising materials, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the search. In short: If you want to create your own logo, you need clear search criteria. Therefore, we first create a kind of compass for the appearance of your company. After that, you’ll quickly find exactly the design template that fits your company and your target group.
If you want to create your own logo or flyer, you can use professional templates and a good concept to create great advertising materials. You can find out what the concept should look like in the following tips.
Tip 1: Describe your communication strategy
“If I had eight hours to cut down a tree, I would spend six hours grinding the axe.” This quote from Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. President, perfectly describes how we should go about designing.
Create your own logo yourself – don’t start at the computer!
Before we reach for pen and paper or look for templates for logos and flyers, it is essential to define a communication strategy. But you don’t need to be afraid. We’re not doing a marketing study here. Instead, we’re just focusing on the most important key points.
This will allow us to filter the flood of design templates piece by piece and reduce the search effort. So we invest some time now. In return, we save a lot of time later when searching for suitable design templates.
The core task of advertising materials
Basically, logos, flyers and advertising materials are like means of transportation. They transport the values of our company to the target group. Accordingly, the foundation of the company’s image is formed by the communication strategy, which is based on the characteristics of your company.
The most important message
Advertising materials lose their impact if they communicate too many different things to the recipient of the message. Imagine throwing a ball to another person. She will probably catch the ball easily. But if you throw five different balls at the same time, the other person probably won’t catch any ball at all. It is the same with advertising messages. Thus, the much more efficient strategy is to communicate only the most important unique selling point or value of your company in the logo and advertising material.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the most important unique selling proposition of your company or brand?
- What does your company stand for?
- You should take a few minutes to do this. Then write down your thoughts on this.
Tip 2: Use the power of symbolism for your logo.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Accordingly, you should try to translate your unique selling proposition into a symbolic image with a little imagination. Consequently, this symbolic image will now form the basis of your logo in a reduced or abstract form.
Here is a great example from a provider of online storage with the name “ElephantDrive”: The unique selling proposition of the company is in this case the high data security. A symbol for this is the elephant, because, as is well known, it never forgets. For this purpose, logos and other advertising materials can be derived excellently. If you want to make your own logo, you should use a strong symbolism. Thus, the maximum communication effect can be achieved.
If working out the unique selling proposition and transforming it into a symbol is too abstract for you, you can alternatively use an industry-standard symbol for your logo, although I highly recommend the route described above.
Tip 3: Choose suitable design elements if you want to create advertising materials such as ads and flyers yourself.
What color suits the company? What is the appropriate font? Which layout should I choose? In the following we will clarify exactly these questions.
We should answer these questions not from our own perspective, but from the perspective of the target group. A quote from the USA fits this: “The bait must be to the liking of the fish, not the fisher.” So it’s not so much about finding a design that we like. Rather, we should select design elements that achieve the desired communication effect with the target group.
Colors
First, let’s start with colors. The following table will help us with this. For this purpose, colors, their meaning and popularity are listed. So you can find the right color for your target group.
Fonts
Fonts also evoke certain associations. Thus, the choice of a suitable font is of high importance if you want to make your logo yourself. Accordingly, there are many different fonts. However, almost all fonts can be roughly divided into two different categories: Accordingly, there are fonts with serifs (Serif) and sans serif fonts (Sans).
Serifs are the small trailing strokes at the top and bottom of a letter. Sans fonts, on the other hand, do not use these strokes. As a result, serif fonts look traditional, classic, elegant, formal, and trustworthy. In contrast, sans serif fonts look modern, friendly, creative, and minimalist.
Font styles
In addition, the font style also plays an important role. Good fonts offer all characters in different weights. Below is a table showing the letter “A” in the font “Helvetica Neue” in six different weights.
Thus, the choice of typeface can also influence corporate communication. Thicker fonts tend to be “loud” and more promotional, while thin fonts are more subtle and serious.
Now that you know the typefaces, you can choose an appropriate font that best communicates your company’s values.
Shapes
Finally, the shape of the individual design elements should not go unmentioned. There are several distinctions. Since we don’t want to start a design study, here are only the most important differences.
- Rounded shapes look soft, pleasant, lovely, soothing, warm and lively.
- Square shapes look correct, orderly, serious, safe, perfect, clear.
Let’s sum up: After this section you should have made a choice of color, font and shape that perfectly suits your company and target audience.
Tip 4: Set your design criteria in writing
As a result of the previous tips, it should now be easy for you to find templates if you want to create your flyer / logo yourself. Just like when you search for a car, filtering search results by attributes such as body, paint color and number of seats, you can now narrow down the criteria for your design templates piece by piece.
Finally, you now know which font is suitable for you, which color is most appealing to your target group, and which values or unique selling proposition you want to communicate with your advertising materials. To do this, you should record these findings in writing. That way, you won’t be tempted to deviate from the defined line in the future just because a new pretty template is available. Therefore, you should write down the answers to the following questions. Then you’ll have all the relevant design attributes at a glance when searching for suitable design templates.
What values do you want to communicate? What is your most important unique selling point?
- Is there a suitable symbol or emblem for your company?
- What color should my corporate identity be?
- Do I use serif or sans serif fonts? In which font style? Rather thin or rather bold?
- Do rounded or angular shapes suit my company better?
Summary: What you need to know if you make your own logo
If you want to make your own logo, you should first define a few key points regarding your communication strategy. The same applies if you want to create flyers yourself. Then, with the help of professional design templates, you can create expressive and professional advertising materials.
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