There are four ways to get a logo, from the most expensive to the least:
Work with a design agency; Work with a design freelancer one-on-one; Launch a logo design contest; Use an online logo maker.
Working with design agencies is typically out of the price range for startups. We might be biased, but we think that running a logo design contest is the best way for entrepreneurs to get unique, quality design for a reasonable price (starting at $299). Working with a freelancer is also a good option if you have a very clear idea of the style you are looking for, and more experience working with and vetting designers.
>> Check out our article on logo design cost to learn how much you should be paying.
However, if you’re bootstrapping your company and just starting out, you may not even have $300 to spend. That’s okay—this is where an online logo maker or logo generator comes in handy. But not all logo makers are created equal, and to help you get the best design possible, we’ve put together this list of the top logo makers of 2019.
What is a logo maker?
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Logo makers—sometimes called logo creators or logo generators—are simple-to-use, web-based applications that help you to create a logo in minutes. For some you input the name of your business, select an icon or font from a stock library and pick custom colors to match your brand. Others are more free-form, presenting you with a blank canvas and a set of icons and tools to build your own logo.
How can I create a logo for free? —
If you want to make your own logo for free, just follow these 5 steps:
Choose one of the free logo makers below or download a free logo design software. Pick a style for your brand and choose colors, fonts and shapes. Create a customized logo based on your style choices. Save or download your logo as a vector file. Integrate your logo into your brand assets. The pros and cons of using a logo maker A logo maker canvasPros: Logo makers are the least expensive option on the market to get a logo. Most are free to use, but many require you to pay to download the files if you actually want to use them. That cost is usually around $5-$60. Logo makers are available 24/7, meaning you can get a logo exactly when you need it. Logo makers are fast! You can have a completed logo in a matter of hours (or less, depending on your level of perfectionism). Logo makers are getting more sophisticated and easier to use all the time. Cons: Logos created on logo makers are are generally generic-looking. Logo creators require the user to have some design sensibilities; logos are generally clean, simple images and it can take a trained eye to figure out what’s “off” about something seemingly so uncomplicated. Many other people are using the same logo makers, including your competitors. That means there are potentially hundreds of businesses out there with the same icon, font and or color combos representing their brand. Some logo makers do give you a logo image but not the vector files you need for a fully usable logo design. These logos are temporary solutions at best.
At the end of the day, logo generators are a cheap and effective method for getting a basic, stop-gap logo. Your result won’t be of the same quality as a logo designed by a professional designer, but sometimes budget or turn-around time is the most important thing! With that said, here’s how to get the most out of a logo creator:
Prep before you make: tips to get the best from a logo maker.
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Before you jump in and get your hands dirty with logo makers, it’s wise to prepare a few thoughts on your logo so you can maximize your efficiency.
Make sure you have the right tools for the job. Custom kangaroo mascot created by Hazel Anne in a logo design contest.Name it
If you haven’t done so yet, a must-do step before creating your logo is naming your company. Not only will the name be an important driver for your logo choice, but also it will probably be featured in the logo design itself.
For instance, I named my recruiting analytics startup day100, because we help employers to get the long-term, “day 100” understanding of their job candidates, instead of the incomplete “day 1” view that they can get from resumes or interviews.
Consider your vision & mission
Secondly, take a moment to consider your company’s mission, vision and identity: who are you as a company, who do you serve, and what do you stand for? It helps to personify your company: are you exclusive or friendly, expensive or affordable, serious or fun?
Decide on the main elements of your visual identity
Once you have some thoughts on paper, consider how this personality would translate into visual elements, like color, shape, and logo type.
Taking again my company as an example, we settled on a bright orange as our main color. This emphasizes the approachable and human part of our product, as opposed to the more serious blue color that most companies in the HR technology space use.
We picked a triangle as be our icon shape, both for its simplicity and for its meaning. To us, a triangle represents the three parties that our platform brings together in the hiring process: employers, candidates, and the candidates’ connections. In my experiments below, I mostly use the triangle shape, but sometimes experiment with other, more complex shapes if I think they tell a good story.
Finally, we decided on combination logo—using both an icon and the company name in the logo—since this is a new venture and we want to build name recognition.
At day100 we worked with a team of freelance graphic designers to come up with the look-and-feel of our brand and web platform, including the company logo. Granted: the wide scope coupled with the limited budget made it so that we had to settle with one of the first iterations of the logo, instead of tweaking it enough to come up with a truly differentiated logo.
This is the logo that we came up with and still use to date:
There’s definitely room for improvement here, so I went ahead and tried 13 logo makers. Below, you will find an explanation of how each works and my own experience of redesigning the day100 logo, so you can have a good idea of what you’ll be getting out of each logo app.
Logo makers, compared
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To give some order to the madness, I’ve rated the tools according to the following criteria:
Ease of use: measures how user-friendly and quick to create a logo the tool is, from Easy to Complex (90% fall in the Easy or Medium categories). Customizability: measures how much you can customize the logo suggestions, e.g. by color, layout, size etc, from Low to High. Cost: this measures how much it costs to download and use the logo you created, from 0 when it’s completely free to three-dollar signs as the most expensive option. $$$ End result: measures how much I love the logo I got—within the constraints of using a logo-maker—from 1 star to 4 stars. ★★★★
Here’s a quick summary of the results. Scroll down to learn more about why I gave each of these logo creators the ratings I did. (And to see examples of the logos I made with them!)
Here are the 13 best logo makers online in 2019 Ease of use Customizability Cost End result 1. TailorBrands
Medium
Medium
$$$
★★★½
2. Logo Makr
Difficult
High
$
★★★½
3. Looka
Easy
Medium
$$
★★★
4. Brandmark
Easy
Low
$$
★★★
5. Designhill
Easy
Low
$$
★★★
6. Namecheap
Easy
Medium
Free
★★½
7. Ucraft
Easy
Medium
$
★★½
8. Logaster
Easy
Medium
$$
★★
9. Canva
Easy
Low
Free
★★
10. hatchful
Easy
Medium
Free
★★
11. Placeit
Easy
Medium
$$
★½
12. Free logo design
Easy
Medium
$$
★½
13. Graphicsprings
Easy
Medium
$$$
★
The best logo makers
— 1. TailorBrands How it works Tailor brands gathers information about your business to help customize your logo solutions.
Enter your company name, choose your industry, describe your business in an open-ended text box, and decide whether you want an icon-based, text-based, or initials-based logo. Next, the app will gauge your type preferences by having you pick your favorites from a series of sample fonts. Ta-dah! A number of logos will be automatically generated for you. After you pick one, you can edit the font and colors, change the icon, or purchase right away.
Seeing multiple logo options in various “in situ” images really helps you picture what you’re getting.Quality TailorBrands day100 logo
Though it takes some digging, there are some really good icons among the mostly basic selections, and the curated fonts and colors pair nicely with them. The fun part about using this app is that when you edit the color or font of the logo, each choice comes with a helpful explanation, e.g. “Your logo has a beautiful balance between class and elegance. We added the perfect orange hues which infuse excitement and vibrancy into the brand.”
Cost $3.99/month for JPG and PNG files $9.99/month for EPS vector files Ratings Ease of use: Medium Customizability: Medium Price: $$$ End result:★★★½ 3. Logo Makr How it works
Logo Makr opens with an optional pop-up video explaining its interface. After that, you are dropped straight onto a blank design canvas to get to work.
Logo Makr is set up to be mostly DIY. You can choose from a robust library of premade icons, or you can also build your own original logo simply using the shape, font, and color tools like any other graphics editor. While this might seem intimidating for newcomers to design, the tools are few enough that, with a little patience, the learning curve is not at all steep. And even if you do skip the tutorial video, there are tool tips to guide you through the interface.
Quality
Given Logo Makr’s focus on customizability, the quality of the logo is dependent on you. So if you struggle with designing anything, this logo maker may not be for you. That said, the potential for quality is high, especially for the price. Out of any of the logo makers that I tested, the graphics library here was the most extensive, and I spent the most amount of time on this logo purely because there were so many quality options to try out.
One of the logos I made using Logo Makr’s templatesCost Free for a low resolution file $19 for full range of files (including PDF and SVG vector) and full license Ratings Ease of use: Requires some learning Customizability: High Price: $ End result:★★★½ 3. Looka How it works
Looka uses AI to help understand your business before generating logos for you. From the 20+ logo examples displayed, you’re asked to pick the 5 that you like best. Then you can pick a color palette, and include any special symbols (like a triangle), and that’s it! The app will work its magic and show you some logo ideas, which you can then customize further with different fonts, colors and layouts.
Quality
The results I received from Looka were modern and professional-looking. Considering that AI is the app’s main driver, I was expecting results that were a little smarter, a little more tailored to me—despite it being a logo generator. But Looka’s concept is cool and the quality was generally better than other logo makers I tested.
Looka’s logo results, based on icons and colors that I choseCost $20 for a low resolution PNG $65 for a full range of design files Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: $$ End result:★★★ 4. Brandmark How it works
Type in some keywords that you associate with your brand, choose from four basic color moods, and then browse the carousel of auto generated logos.
Quality
Despite the simple process, the results turned out much better than I expected. The product generates logos purely based on the keywords you’ve selected, which made it feel less like I was making all the design choices and a machine was just randomizing them (see Free Logo Design).
There were a couple strange icon and font pairings, but for the most part you could hardly tell the designs were put together by an algorithm. The only downside is that you cannot customize the logo without purchasing it, so what you see is pretty much what you get.
A few of the samples provided by BrandmarkCost $25 for a PNG $65 for print and web files, customization tools, and a branding package (business card, letterhead, social media designs) Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: None without purchase Price: $$ End result:★★★ 5. Designhill How it works
You start by picking 5 sample logos that you like, selecting colors, and choosing your industry. You then select up to five icons to accompany the logo. Before you’re able to see the results, you are prompted to create an account. Once you do, choose your favorite logo and purchase.
Quality The typefaces and color schemes made the most out of the icons provided
Initially, the sampling of graphics provided by the platform had me worried—they were basic icons. But Designhill does a pretty good job pairing them with creative typography and appealing color schemes. In the end, I was surprised by how many of the logos were able to make the simple icons work for them, especially given they were the exact same icons used by other logo makers.
The final logo I chose with DesignhillCost $20 for low res PNG file $65 for a full suite of professional logo files, including vector EPS and SVG, b/w versions, and color and font information. $150 buys you a designer for further customizability Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: None without purchase Price: $$ End result:★★★ Decent logo makers
— 6. Namecheap How it works
Enter your name and industry, choose some general font styles that you like, pick three icons, and the app does the rest. Once you’ve chosen your logo, you can edit and download your design files—all without even making an account, let alone paying anything.
Some of the icons provided by NamecheapQuality
Although there was nothing special about the icons or the typefaces, somehow the app managed to pair them into a pleasing composition with little input from me. The final logos were presented with some trendy gradients, and I suspected this might be creating the illusion of quality. So I opted for a logo with flat colors and found that it was still a cut above other logo generators reviewed on the list, in terms of typography, color scheme, and especially price.
The logos paired sleek typefaces and colors with the icons I choseCost Free (includes PNG and SVG files) Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: Free End result:★★½ 7. Ucraft How it works
Ucraft presents you with a blank canvas where you can drag and drop icons, text and shapes to create your custom logo. You’re able to search for specific icons, and there are lots of simple options to choose from. If you get lost, a friendly chatbot is on hand for assistance.
Quality
Because ucraft’s concept is based around an open canvas, it helps users achieve quality results by giving them as many options as possible. It also means that the quality of the logo is dependent on your own skill. In addition to boasting more than 1 million icons, the app provides a full color spectrum tool, and it integrates with Google Fonts to give you a wide selection of typefaces. Some might find all these options overwhelming, but if you have the time and keen design eye, you can come up with something great.
My final logo with UcraftCost Free for low resolution PNG $7 for an SVG vector file Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: High Price: $ End result:★★½ 8. Logaster How it works
Just enter your company name and industry to get started. Choosing colors is the most onerous part of the process (you have to uncheck every single color you don’t want), but otherwise, it’s a simple as that.
Logaster’s logo maker process is simple and easy (see the fields at the top of the screenQuality
Logaster specializes in corporate logos, which made it seem like the perfect fit for me. Because there is little inquiry to the business, the logos are largely generic. But quality-wise, they do lean more toward clean & minimalist generic than overused & tired generic. They also provide the logo in various layouts to prepare it for use on branding materials like business cards, making the flashy mockups displayed alongside the logo samples more than purchase-bait.
Some of the logos offered by Logaster, paired with branding mockupsCost $19.99 for a basic raster file $49.99 for full range of files and layout variations $64.99 for a more robust branding kit Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: $$ End result:★★½ 9. Canva How it works
Sign up (yep, required step), and then you can either browse for template logos based on your industry or use their canvas interface to drag and drop elements—including icons, gradients, shapes, lines and background details.
Everything in Canva is done in squares!Quality Canva day100 logo
Canva is much more than a logo maker, and this is reflected in the number of unnecessary elements in their toolbar. While the photos provided can be used as a presentational tool (sharing the finished logo on social media with a mood image in the background, for instance), this is not explained to users who might not know better than to keep photography out of their final logo design.
You can get a good logo design out of Canva, but the graphics do lean toward cartoonish and hipster—not a fit for every business. Even the categories mostly include items like Band, Restaurants, Cafe, Fashion, Beauty, and fewer professional industries. If your business fits into those buckets, this is a great pick!
Note that vector files are not supported, though a PDF is provided for printing.
Cost Free to download png file Some icons and templates are priced at varying scales depending on your subscription Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Low Price: Free (premium images cost extra) End result:★★ 10. hatchful How it works
Shopify’s hatchful is a logo maker optimized especially for mobile use (though it still works great on desktop). While other logo makers start with your company name, hatchful is more interested in your brand (with questions about your industry space, values and visual style). Finally, you enter your name and view your logo options.
Quality
This tool is very easy to use and creates modern-looking logo designs with a minimalist touch. Because there were no specific questions relating to the exact nature of the business, the relevancy of the icons can be mixed. You can customize fonts and colors for a better fit, and when you’re finished the logo is free to download and use.
hatchful would be a good logo maker option, but it does not provide vector files at all. That means that logo files are not scalable or printable, and this is a serious detriment given the wealth of other options listed above. The png file I received measured 1200×1200 pixels, which is too small to work for a business in the long term.
However, if all you need right now is a small logo for your website’s header, hatchful can be a good-looking, free interim solution until you’re ready to get an actual vector logo.
Some of the logos offered by hatchfulCost Free (PNG files only) Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: Free End result:★★ Logo makers to avoid
— 11. Placeit How it works
Placeit is owned by Envato, and it offers design assets that encompass logo templates, mockups and even video.
The sample logos provided by Placeit
The logo maker process has you enter your company name and industry, and you are immediately presented with sample designs. You can either select one of these or choose your own colors and icons. When you’re all finished, PlaceIt offers PDF and PNG format, making their logos usable on both web and print.
Quality
The mockup side of their business seems to be their main focus (the name “Placeit” refers to placing designs on mockups), and this was reflected in the quality of logos. Because they only ask for a name and an industry, little conceptual thought goes into the logos. Many of the graphics chosen had nothing to do with my business (including pizzas, a gingerbread man, and even calendars or clocks probably taken from the “day” part of the name).
The customization tools offered by PlaceitCost $39.95 for single logo $14.95/mo or $99.95/yr subscription for access to all other design assets + half off logos Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: $$ End result:★½ 12. Free Logo Design How it works
Once you’ve entered your company name, you are given the option of either having your logo designed by AI or designing it yourself. I tested both options.
Logo templates offered in the DIY option
The DIY option has you choose a logo template that you like, and takes you to a canvas where you can change the font and color and add icons and shapes.
The AI logo maker process
The AI asks for your industry and then generates a series of keywords, asking you to select up to five that you associate with your business (much like a mind map). You then choose from a list of icons, color schemes, and typefaces.
Quality
The AI process was much more promising than the results. Because the product is sold as being run by a computer, I was expecting the app to take information about my preferences and generate something on its own. Instead, it seemed to just mix and match the chosen colors, type styles, and graphics that I chose, which I could have done myself. As a result, the logos were some of the worst that I’ve seen.
I had better luck with the DIY option—so much better that you’d never guess they came from the same site.
My AI resultsMy DIY resultsCost Free for low res PNG file $59 for high res PNG, PDF, JPG, and SVG Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Basic for the AI option. Choose from five font styles and very few colors. Medium for the DIY option. Price: $$ End result:★½ 13. Graphicsprings How it works
Graphicsprings is a bit of a hybrid: you start off in a blank design canvas, but you are guided through each step of entering your name and choosing design elements the same way you would in an automated logo generator.
The GraphicSprings canvasQuality My GraphicSprings day100 logo
While the graphicsprings is one of the few logo makers that offers multicolored icons to accompany your logo, they were some of the most generic and clip-arty designs that I came across. On the bright side, canvas does provide finer control than most others (stroke, shadow, glow effects along with the ability to color separate parts of the image) to support users making their own graphics.
Cost $19.99 for a JPG file $39.99 for PNG and PDF $99.99 for SVG Ratings Ease of use: Easy Customizability: Medium Price: $$$ End result:★ Is a logo maker right for you?
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By now, you should hopefully have better expectations of the quality, cost and process of using an online logo maker. For the budget-conscious bootstrappers, this may be a good starting point to create your first logo—so go ahead and play with your favorites from the list! (Don’t forget that when you’re ready to upgrade, you can launch a 99designs contest to get your logo to the next level.)
For other entrepreneurs, online logo makers may not cut it, as the limitations in quality and differentiation are visible. In that case, don’t forget that you have other budget-friendly options, such as working with a freelancer or launching a 99designs contest.
Good luck!
Ready for a logo designed by a professional? A logo design contest can get you dozens of ideas from professional designers around the world. Learn more
This article was originally written and published in 2017. It’s been updated with new information and examples.
The post The 13 best logo makers and logo generators to try in 2019 appeared first on 99designs.
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