11 Tips on How to Start Your Career as a Logo Designer
If you are a newbie logo designer who just jumped into the industry, it will be fine if most of you do not have an idea to establish your career. It is not surprising that numerous designers get lost after a while and end up discouraged. It usually happens when they cannot get clients regularly and meet the work demands.
Most new designers unsuccessfully attract potential clients. Knowing that this job is highly prospective, it is essential to equip yourself with basic information before starting the career. Below are several basics that you can keep in mind to improve your career ways and become the best logo designer.
What is A Logo Designer?
It refers to one career of professional graphic designers. There are numerous careers related to graphic designing, and logo designing is part of this field. This career emerges because a logo is an inevitable part of a business, regardless it is small, medium, or big.
It acts as a visual identity of the business and gives the audience ideas about what the business offer to the customers. Therefore, they use logos for the promotion campaign as part of their branding and put them in their products or services.
It is a strong reason why the need for a logo designer never decreases. Instead, it has improved over the years since the number of businesses also keeps evolving now. If you have the designing skill and keep improving them for this design specialty, it can be a prospective side hustle in the future.
Job Demand
Several surprising statistics on the use of logos in business get significant growth. The logo design market has taken around $3 billion in the USA. It becomes more crucial since, based on survey reports, 67 percent of small businesses spend around $500 for their visual identity design.
Even some businesses are willing to spend around $1000 for good logos as their branding. Aside from the rapidly growing need for a logo designer, most designers currently cannot explore the market for their benefit. It is one of the reasons why most of them have no clues in starting their career in this field.
This condition led to the inability to attract regular clients as they expected in the beginning. Another crucial thing that affects career success and designers must learn is how they communicate with clients. Besides, they must learn how to deal with unexpected situations like rejection from clients.
Tips for Logo Designers from the Design Community
A design community has revealed some essential tips for people who want to take this field as their career. This community provides several responses to the most crucial things related to their queries. Before starting your career as a logo designer, you should consider the following tips.
1.Get to know how people perceive the logo designing field
You might be thinking of getting clients soon as you start your career. Getting regular clients usually happen after you become a good logo designer. Generally, it happens because many people offer their services for creating logos. You can see them on online job platforms like Fiverr.
You must accept that fact and have to create logos that look stand out among others. You can achieve it with time and practice. Doing jobs for free in the beginning is a great way to attract clients for the long term. You can start this career by thinking of it as a hobby when you can do it for fun.
Offer your designing service for free for several months and focus on improving your skill by trying some freelance design works. It can be part of your logo designing practices. As you get used to it and become consistent, clients will look for you rather than finding them.
Aside from free design services, there is some good advice for you as a newbie logo designer. You must include these suggestions in practice to be successful in this field.
2. Learn designing skills
First and foremost, you must learn about designing skills. You can purchase books or find videos that help you improve your knowledge and practice how to create logos. Keep practicing is the most crucial part of this design learning.
You can start by challenging yourself to make a new logo design. Then, you can explore your creativity by creating different designs. The various results will show your progress in designing.
3. Offer the service to the closest people.
After you get used to the ways of designing and making many personal designs show the results to the closest circle. For instance, you can offer your service to your friends in case they need logos for their businesses. Otherwise, you can try finding your friends who are unsatisfied with their company's logos.
Then, you can offer your free services to help them get new and better logos. You have to work the best as the results will affect how your friends perceive your design skills and your quality of work. You can reach more friends to keep practicing and working for free to build your branding as a logo designer.
4. Use social media
Once you successfully create good logos for your friends, you can post the results on social media. There are various social media platforms to show your work, like Instagram, Facebook, Behance, Dribble, and many more. Your sketches and efforts in creating impressive logos help to build a good portfolio.
When you post your designs on social media, more people can see them. If they are interested in your work, they will start following you to keep up-to-date with your newest work. Therefore, anytime they need to make a logo, they can contact you directly. It can be a starting point to charge your design service.
The more logos you post on social media, the more clients to use your service. The key is to post your works consistently so clients will see you as an active and evolving logo designer. It can attract more clients rather than continually posting at the beginning and on hiatus for some months.
It will be good if you can post the logos three times a week at minimum. It allows social media algorithms to keep you as preferable. Some social media platforms also might offer you to their users if you actively and regularly post your designs.
5. Learn how to create a good logo design for clients
Many designers misunderstand that good idea comes from hard thinking. Thinking is essential but is not a primary source of a good idea. Instead, learning the master graphic designer is the key to producing good ideas. You must get some inspiration from your favorite or famous designers.
You can learn how they build their career and follow their spirits to become successful logo makers. It will be good to think of other designers' works as inspirations but never be a copycat. If you are just starting your career as a logo designer, you can have several logo designers for your inspiration.
You can try to make their designs and learn how to do them step by step. As you successfully create similar logos, you can start to modify them, so the results are different. In the beginning, you might follow other designers' works often. However, you will begin to have your style after several years.
Reading logo design books is crucial for this career. There are many books about tutorials for creating logos using the specific designing program and app you can benefit from. They are beneficial for you to make good sketches and execute those properly using designing tools or software.
6. Find the right way to communicate with clients
Having good communication skills is crucial because you will meet many people. Clients usually hire a logo designer who communicates their design ideas well. You must learn how the right way to communicate in person and how to communicate via media. Some designers do not like communication on social media.
They think that social media like Instagram does not provide freedom for design presentations. Hence, when clients contact them through social media, they try to switch the conversation to email for faster response. You can choose a call if the conversation becomes more important and serious.
Talking on the phone is a good option, especially if you are a good English speaker with excellent conversational skills. It is also a good choice if you have international clients. Therefore, you can discuss the design directly with the clients to get clear information.
However, if the clients are local citizens of the city where you live, it is better to meet them in person. It will be easier for you to get to know the clients and the logo designs they want. You also can ensure that the logo designs you have made meet their needs and expectations during the consultation.
7. Know how to recover from rejections mentally
Rejection from clients is dreadful for a logo designer, especially one who just began a career. To avoid big losses, you must get some payment in advance from clients, at least half of the total payment. Asking for advance payment helps to ensure that clients are serious about the design project.
Having advance payment also enables clients to respond to your queries. Hence, anytime you contact them to show the design progress, they will respond to you by replying to the email quickly or calling you back. Clients usually do not like your logos because they cannot get your vision. You can deal with this condition.
First, you can ask clients several essential questions before starting the project. A successful project begins with good questions. You can ask clients to tell their business in a memorable quote or iconic single phrase. Then, you can ask the niche selling plan about their businesses.
Besides, you must look for several logos that clients most prefer and reasons why they like them. Likewise, you can ask about several logos that clients do not like and why so. You also have to find an answer to why clients are interested in your service and finally hire you among other available logo design makers.
8. Stick to Your Design Style
When just starting a career as a logo designer, it is okay to do all kinds of logos. It is good to take as many inspirations of logo designs as possible, so you do not get stuck in specific designs. By trying to make a variety of logos, you can improve your design skills and meet clients' needs which can be very heterogeneous.
However, after working in this field for several years, you must start to have your style and stick to it in your future work. Each designer has his design style and becomes his or her own character and uniqueness. Once looking at the design, clients can directly determine to what designer it belongs.
For instance, if you stick to the minimalist design, it can be memorable for clients. Hence, anytime clients need a simple logo, they will consider you as one of the potential options. Clients who contact you will know that you specialize in creating minimalist logo designs.
By sticking to a specific design, you can have a consistent design style in your portfolio. Knowing the fact that you are consistent with that design style, clients know what to expect from your service. Besides, it gives you an additional point as a designer due to your specialty in a more specific design look.
9. Show Logos on a Live Call
Presenting your logos through a video call is more effective than an email. Using a video call allows clients to see logo presentations via screen, and both the designer and client can see each other's response to the design. For instance, if the logos contain a hidden meaning, clients maybe do not understand it via email.
However, if you use a live call, you let clients see the whole sketching process and find the meaning behind the logo. As clients know the entire design process and the hidden meaning of logos, you can reduce the risk of getting rejected. If rejection still happens, it means there is something wrong with the logo.
Honestly, a client understands the business deeper than a logo designer. Watching the whole design process helps clients to know whether their design needs to match the designer's service or not. Aside from exhibiting the logos on a live call, you must remember these two crucial things in your career.
10. Design community tips
Joining the community can be very helpful for designers who have just begun their careers. They can meet many people with similar professions and share experience in handling clients. It gives them ideas about the problems designers face in current logo design processes.
Other designers can offer solutions based on their experience when working with different types of clients. You can take benefit from the solutions and advice given by people who have worked in this field longer. Working individually is not enough to be a good logo designer; you must learn from other designers too.
You must always look for the best way to advertise and sell your design. A design community becomes a good platform for you to learn how to bring your logo designs into the market. It usually opens opportunities for a new job as you get information from your fellow designers in the community.
11. Design marketplace
Getting in touch with clients has now become easier with a design marketplace. Various marketplaces are available, and each comprises thousands of designers with various categories. They are looking for a job, so it can be a good choice to find a reputable logo designer to work with you.
If you require logos or visual emblems as your business brand identity, you can choose a marketplace like Designhill. There are two options that you can choose to find the best designer. You can select a specific designer and work one-to-one with him or launch a design contest to find the winner.
During this contest, numerous logo designers will participate and do their best to become the winner and get the fascinating prize. This will gives you the privilege to access unique design ideas through a single payment. The winner will be recognizable by more people and make them easier in getting jobs.
As a famous marketplace, you must make your design stand out among the rest. It is because this marketplace has high competition. Numerous designers also offer their design services on this platform. Hence, when you become the winner of the contest, other designers will prove your skills.
Final Words
Building a career as a logo designer is not as simple as what comes to your mind. You will face various issues when meeting with clients. The issues become more complex as you work with them often. One of the big problems that logo designers may face is rejection from clients as they do not get their trust.
However, there are several solutions by the design community in response to their needs. New logo designers should focus on improving their skills by offering several free gigs, taking inspiration from influential designers' styles, and developing good communication with clients.