How to get an affordable and unique logo design

Dan Harrison — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:00:55 +0000

When you launch a website or business, having a bold and representative logo can be a huge advantage. For example, can you imaging the logo for Pepsi, Virgin, MacDonalds, Apple, etc? Having such a strong logo helps people to remember your brand. If you have a logo that’s quirky, funny, or clever, then you’ve made it even easier to remember your logo.

Getting a professional logo designed can be expensive. Design agencies could charge you hundreds, if not thousands for a your logo. For medium or large companies, that’s great! However, for the rest of us with a small business, or even smaller website, premium prices for a logo are just not practical.

However, there’s a great way to get fresh and unique logos from just £30 to 50. I’ve used this technique to have logos such as the Big Eco Directory logo (above), and my consulting business logo Streamlined Thinking (below).

The technique is based on something called a logo contest. What you do is specify your requirements on a design contest forum, specify a prize amount (usually in US Dollars and paid via Paypal) and wait for the designs. To get the best results, you provide constructive feedback on each design that’s made. After a fixed time (around 3 to 5 days) you close the content, choose the winner, and then pay the artist for the best design.

The forum I currently use for logo contests is Digital Point, where I ran a $30 contest for The Big Eco Directory and a $50 contest for Streamlined Thinking. However, in order to run a contest, you do need to be an active contributor to the Digital Point forums, of which I am.

If you have a bit more money ($200 to $500), you can run a contest on 99 Designs which is a spinoff from another forum. However, you don’t need to be a regular contributor to start a contest at 99 Designs. The designs on 99 Designs are of a higher calibre (and more expensive), but the quality of logos from the Digital Point Contents Forum are perfectly good enough if your budget starts at $50.

If you do run your own logo contest at Digital Point, here are some tips:

Limit the contest to just 4 days
Offer feedback on every single design. Try to say what you do and don’t like on each design.
Offer around $50 to $100, as this attracts the better designers. Offer less than $50, and the better designers just don’t enter the contest.

If you want a professional logo designed, but you don’t want to become a member of Digital Point, then please contact me. For a fee of £10 GBP (plus the fee for the design), I’ll handle the running of the contest for you, including getting lots of feedback from you about the designs.

Building a Confident Personal Brand

Dan Harrison — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:31:18 +0000

Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to go to a Women In Technology networking event called Building a Confident Personal Brand. Ok, so I know you’re going to ask… as a bloke, why was I going to an event for women?

Although the event was run by Women In Technology, a company designed to help women build successful and satisfying careers in the IT industry, the events are open to everyone. Clearly the events have a strong female focus, but there is still plenty of opportunity to learn something regardless of your sex.

I must admit, I was one of about 4 men at the event, with around 150 women! I now know how women feel in the male-dominated IT sectors! I certainly felt intimidated at first, but Maggie Berry, the Director of Women In Technology, went out of her way to let me know I was welcome. A number of ladies at the event congratulated me on being so brave, and it was appreciated!

So the event was basically 2 presentations, one on confidence, and then another on online personal branding. Then there was a Q&A session where a panel were asked a few questions from the audience. You can find out most of what was said on the event summary page.

To finish up, there was a networking session. I got talking to Katie Ledger, who’s an advocate of Portfolio Careers, as well as a friendly lady called Sophie who was considering venturing into starting her own Portfolio Career. Last night was the first time I had encountered anyone who was interested in a Portfolio Career just like me. Portfolio Careers, in a nutshell, are basically where you do lots of jobs part time that each appeal to your core values. Often, people who have a number of jobs like this actually earn more and are happier compared to those who just have a single job.

I’m also just starting to build my own Portfolio Career. I have my own websites that I design and develop to bring in an income, then I’ll have my web consulting business that I’m in the process of starting up, and finally I’ll be doing something else that I enjoy that has nothing to do with IT!

So anyway, for any women in IT, I thoroughly recommend Women In Technology events. They run both free and paid-for events, but the paid-for events are surprisingly inexpensive. If you’re a gent, and you have the opportunity to go to one of these events, be prepared to be outnumbered! But also be prepared to learn something and have a great time!

Dan Harrison » branding

How to get an affordable and unique logo design

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Building a Confident Personal Brand

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