Create a Professional Blog Logo on a Budget

This guest post is by Samuel of Internet Dreams.

I am a logo hunter! What that means is I almost always stop and look at a new site’s logo. Almost like shooting at it, but with my eyes!

Believe it or not, this now has a profound influence on whether or not I feel I am going to enjoy reading the new blog, or want to check out this new site.

The logo of a site is like the cover image on that new blockbuster movie on the block. As the design of a blog is important in a visitor’s eyes, the logo is that cherry to the top of the ice cream.

Because a logo can have a profound effect on a user, I decided to create beautiful looking logo for my blog. It was tough to think about how I was going to create it, though.

I thought of creating the logo myself, but I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to be able to create one I liked.

But that thought changed down the road, as you will read later on.

A novel solution

Many times, your creations, such as a new design or a new article, you won’t really like. This is fine, since the sense others get from seeing our creative projects is different from ours.

To solve the problem, I decided to hire a designer to design a new logo for me. Nope, the logo didn’t cost me a million bucks. All I did was get a design idea for only five dollars from fiverr.com.

I am not going to lie to you: I did not get a fully done, professional logo out of the box, just for five dollars! But I got the idea and the design layout from Fiverr, and it was worth every single penny.

I will show you step by step how to get this done, and how you can do this yourself without another designer’s help. Note that you will need to have some sort of knowledge of Photoshop to use this technique—but if you don’t, I’ve included some resources to help below.

1. Find a graphic designer using the reviews

This step could be the hardest part of the process. It’s important to make sure you hire a credible designer who gets the job done.

When I look for designers on Fiverr, I usually first send a message to the designer to gauge their interest. If they respond pretty quickly, I know the communication is going to be fine.

As you’re reviewing designers on Fiverr, look for the designer’s rating, and look at the reviews of that individual at the bottom of their profile.

2. Tell the designer what you are looking for.

You need to tell the designer what you want. Try to be as accurate as tell them as much as you can.

Tell them your ideas, because they will definitely need those ideas for their outline. But also tell them the colors and size you want, and give them some concept for the design—such as “excitement” or an object related to your blog.

This is the message I sent to the logo designer to explain what I was looking for:

Name: Internet Dreams

Message me with any questions, and thank you for doing this! :)

3. Don’t expect it to look perfect, since you’ll finish the design yourself.

You are paying this designer only five dollars. Don’t expect them to do the whole work and make a design worth hundreds like the other top logos out there. Remember, you get what you pay for on Fiverr.

I worked with the designer till the outline was exactly how I wanted it to be. This is how I received my “finished” logo from my Fiverr designer:

There’s not much color or texture in the initial design. But the concept of the design is what I really liked. So I took it from there myself!

4. Make the logo look professional with limited Photoshop skills

After receiving your initial design, always thank the designer for his fine job. A designer has certain skills in first thinking up the outline of a certain logo. So, thank him and give him a good review of his work.

Now, it’s your job to finalize the logo!

Don’t freak out, or think you have to be a Photoshop guru. All you are going to do from here is select a font that you like, and add it anywhere on your logo.

The cloud in my logo is what I added to make it more “dreamy.” Also I enhanced the look of the bubbles by using a free PSD created by a graphic artist.

If you don’t have great Photoshop skills, have a look at PsdTuts+. This is the website that I have learned many Photoshop skills from.

How’s your logo looking?

Nothing about this is hard. I am no expert in Photoshop, but I did learn some techniques along the way. Trust me: having a few basic skills in the use of Photoshop is worth it.

Your logo is the brand image of your blog. Many people will recognize your site by the logo you have on it. Not only the logo will be created by you, but also other aspects of the design of your blog will need to be enhanced, and you can do it with those basic skills.

If you do run into some problems on your end and do not feel comfortable to use Photoshop yourself, then that isn’t a problem either. There plenty of places on the internet where graphic designers are waiting to finish your work.

Or, just hire the same designer again from Fiverr, and let them finish the job. It’s your choice!

Have you done any designing yourself for your own blog? If you did, tell us how it went in the comments.

The online world can be a very complicated place. There is too much information all over! My name is Samuel and I own Internet Dreams. Internet Dreams is a place where you can engage and learn how to set up and succeed with your blog or site. Internet Dreams talks about SEO, blogging, social media, and much more….. Follow Internet Dreams on Facebook!