Customized Logo vs The Logo Mill

Logo Dilemma

Customized logo or free logo design to save you money. What is best for the business? What is best for continued branding? This is a true struggle for a lot of new or small businesses.  When starting a business, there is not always a lot of money to do everything to build and brand the business. Pinching pennies hear and there or bootstrapping the business with pay from a regular job will make the word “customization” sound expensive and scary.  

The Logo Mill

Free design sites where you can create your logo and your branding materials is extremely popular and convenient for businesses. One can even set up company colors across their branding to make things even easier. It takes the worry out of what logo design will represent the company, because you have several pages of clip art to choose from.  The very same clip art millions of people have access to and use as logos or in marketing designs. You talk about confusion in the market place. Most businesses don’t even consider this part, because of the excitement of giving their business an identity.

Convenience and easy is what a lot of us, including the author, enjoy most about “here are the designs now pick what you want”.  It is like a kid, with big eyes, standing at an ice cream truck trying to decide which flavor they want. These design studios are truly needed by all business including designers, but when it comes to business identity, not marketing, that will follow you ‘till the business close or is sold, a customized logo you own is the way to go. 

Time To Trademark – Reading the Fine print

Business is good and people are identifying the brand. The business now needs to trademark the logo. During the trademark research or when talking to a trademark lawyer, it is discovered the ownership of the logo does not belong to the business and ownership will remain with the logo mill; and in most cases cannot be bought due to the number of people using it. This is a devastating blow for a lot business whom has fallen in love with the logo they designed using someone else’s templates, clip art, fonts, etc.

Most people don’t read the fine print located with the terms and conditions of the logo mill. Let’s face it, all companies have these extensively long boring pages of rules, policies, terms, conditions… But, reading the fine print would have made the decision of customized logo or logo mill a bit easier.  Even with design companies and freelancers, ask the question, “will I own all rights to this logo when you are done”?

Customization To the Rescue

A business is about ownership. Having a place at the table to make decisions and having a voice. Why would a business not opt in to own a customized logo; as this will be the non-verbal voice that will speak for them when they are not around? Spending a little now will save you a lot in the long run. Customization allows the business to have a voice in the creation of the graphic that will follow them ‘til then end.  

Customization sounds expensive and it can be. This is where shopping around comes into play. There will always be a good designer with a decent price to fit in your budget; you just have to do a little foot work. Having a logo design that is all yours and not the same as everyone else’s will save you the headache, frustration, time, and cost of rebranding and remarketing with a new custom logo design you had to get customized anyway.  Getting it done right the first time around, allows businesses to stay focused on growing the business forward.

Each business deserves its own distinctive identity, that will set the business apart from others.  Just knowing the logo chosen from a sheet of logos will show up on other businesses, which can cause confusion in the market place, is enough to pay for a customized logo.  A custom logo design, is the because way to give a business its own stamp, first & last name, colors, etc.  Love your business enough to want to stand out from the pack. Customized whenever possible.

Interview Questions for Your Logo Designer

Finding the right designer can be nerve racking. Here are a few strong questions to ask upfront. Make sure you are with a designer that you can talk to on a regular basis like Rise of Dark Dawn. You can’t customize something if you don’t have a say so in what your story is.  No one can tell your story like you.

1. Will you release complete ownership of the design over to me to use, reproduce and trademark as I will?
2. Do you have a document that shows you are releasing the full ownership of the design to me?
3. How do you begin defining a story for a client?
4. How long have you been designing?
5. Will I have a say in the direction the design is going in?
6. Will I have direct access to the designer if I have questions or changes?

Add your own questions as you go along. Happy Shopping!