138: Creating Your Logo (Part 4 of 4)

Okay, so logos are a big deal, right? It can be a little intimidating to make one, but they're essential for any business, big or small. They're basically the face of your brand, you know? They have to convey who you are, what you do, why you do it, and how you do it all in one little image. You're gonna use it everywhere - social media, presentations, marketing stuff, business cards, and more. It's a lot to ask from one little graphic, but that's the job of a good logo.

Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with a whole load of logo design tips, tricks and walkthroughs. Whether you’re a beginner or just in need of a refresh, follow these tips and tricks to help you get started and make a really good logo today.

Links mentioned in Podcast:
LogoMaker
Work with a designer:   Fiverr

Use my Gloss Genius link to start using today!

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel as well!

Visit my Amazon Store for all my favorite products!

Grab your Ultimate In-Salon Training Toolkit!

Website: www.danisekeilitz.com
YouTube: All About Hair

Shop my favorite Eufora Products.

Transcript

1:32

Well, hey there. This is Danise. And this is the Salon Ownership Made Easy podcast for salon owners who are searching for simple solutions to their everyday challenges. I've owned several six and seven figure award winning salons in my 30 year career. With so many changes happening in our industry these days, it seems like salon owners need a shoulder a hug, and a big dose of reality. Think about it. We didn't learn how to be successful salon owners in beauty school. So why don't you let me share what has worked and what hasn't worked for me over the years, you do have what it takes to be amazingly successful. So let's do this. I'm excited. You're here. This is the last of the foundation of your brand identity. We've talked about in this series, How to come up with your brand identity, like what are your values? What do you stand for? How do you want your brand personality to come out to your customers, we've talked about how to select your fonts. We've talked about how to select your color palette, which is a lot of fun. And it's fun to think about. And what do colors actually do. And now we're talking about your logo. This is the foundation of your brand identity, because you're gonna use that logo everywhere, people are going to be looking for that logo. And so you want your logo design to clearly communicate who you are, and what you value as a brand. And it's hard to do and a little tiny logo. So you want to make sure it's visually appealing. Clean. Simple, the more simple and clean and uncluttered. The better because you you've probably seen logos that are really cluttered and you're like, What the heck's going on here? You want it to be classic, not trendy, you don't want to get into these trends of things. Because you don't want in six months to go What was I thinking and you want it to be in your industry, meaning, if you're in the beauty industry, if you're if you cut hair, yeah, you might want scissors in there, maybe I don't know, you might not. But if you are a candy shop, you wouldn't put scissors in there, because it wouldn't make any sense, right. But if you do veer off of that, make sure you do it deliberately. And like there needs to be a reason why. And finally, you want your logo to make a lasting impression. You have to love it. So there's a couple of different ways. I've talked to people who have spent 1000s of dollars on getting their logo created. Please don't do that. Do not do that. There are so many different ways to get your logo done. First of all, you can go on Canva, put in the name of your salon, and pretend like for the sake of this, maybe it's DK salon. So you go into Canva you do d k salon, maybe if you have a tagline, my tagline used to be beautiful, believable hair. And so you can put in a tagline, too, and it'll come up with all these different types of logos for you. And it'll ask you some questions, you know, like, do you want it to look sporty, fun, masculine, classic, modern, that's up to you. And whatever is the vibe that you're trying to do. And it'll come up with all these. And if you find one that you like, you can go in there and tweak it just a little bit. You don't have to, and then you save it. And guess what, there's your logo and you can in you can use it for everything that you do. It's a lovely thing, you change it into all your different colors and your color palette, things like that. However, there are other ways, right? So we are in the creative industry. So I know you have a creative bone in you. But say you, you don't know the first thing about creating a logo and you don't want to get it wrong, right? You can go online. And there's a couple of free places you can go logo maker.com. And it'll ask you some questions about your industry about what you're trying to convey things like that. And they they will do some logos for you. And it's free. There's also some paid versions out there, that they'll create it, but then you can do some different versions of it. And then if you wanted to download the whole package of different types of files, which we'll get into in just a minute, it might cost a little bit. And then there's some freelancers online too, that you can use, and they shouldn't be more than a couple $100 And it's just people out there that work out there. I'm trying to think of the one that I know of. I can't think of it off the top of my head. I'll put it in the shownotes I can't I can't think of it right now. It shouldn't cost you more than a couple $100 and it is actually a person on the other end so you you talk to them. You tell them what you're looking for. I think you have a couple of different times that you can play with it. But if you're spending 1000s of dollars for your logo that is just crazy. You do not need to do that, you do not need to do that. In fact, that's just a waste of money. But one thing I do want to say is, don't just go into Microsoft Word, and type out the name of your salon and use that. No, not yet. And we've all seen it, right? We've all seen a logo that looks like it is just a cursive Microsoft Word, handwritten font. And that's what they use for their logo, we've seen it, that doesn't look very serious. That doesn't look like it's gonna take you very far. That doesn't look like you're, you're in business to do business, if you know what I mean. So I wouldn't do that. There's other ways to do it. When you do design your logo, couple things you want to keep in mind, you want a black version, and then you want a white version. And then you want to create versions that have your color palette in them. So if you have a hot pink, you want a hot pink one, if you have, you know dark blue, do a dark blue one, you do want to make sure that it has a transparent background. So that way, you can just take the logo itself and plop it onto an image and you don't have that box behind it. That is saved as an EPS. Or if you're in Canva pro, you could just take it and remove the background. And then save it without the background. Easy, easy peasy to do. But if you are working with a designer, make sure that they give you some transparent backgrounds. Make sure to that say you get it in different formats. For instance, my logo of my salon, the main logo was a circle. Sometimes that circle didn't serve us, I mean, it was really hard sometimes to put that circle on certain things. Either you didn't have room, like on a business card, we did it. But see if they can do your logo two different ways. If you go on Pinterest, and you look up logos, you'll see a bunch of designers on their, that they'll create a logo that's kind of round or square. And then they'll create a logo that's horizontal, you do want that because there's there's times that you'll want a horizontal logo, maybe the top of your website, maybe stationery, maybe maybe you sponsor a baseball team and your logos on the back of their T shirt and they only have this amount of, you know, room, you might want a horizontal logo, round one would be really small in that space. So this is where you're going to spend the most of your time, because it's your identification of your whole business. And you want to feel proud of your logo. So take some time, take a week, take two weeks, really make sure it conveys what you wanted to convey. Now, I wouldn't take more than that, because please do not get caught up in Oh, I can't even start until I have a logo. You really do need a logo. But don't make that the reason why. I mean, there's so many other reasons we get in our mind. Make your logo, make it fun, but make it deliberate. And guess what, you can always change it later. How many industries have done that? I mean, take Walmart, it used to be Walmart, right? And now, I think it's like a circle thing that we all identify, oh, yeah, that's the Walmart logo. And it doesn't have to say Walmart because their brand is so strong. We rebranded like two or three times within, you know, 12 years. So we started as one logo. And then we moved to a bigger space, we created a different logo with a different font and a different vibe. But when then that didn't suit us anymore. We went and we kind of kept similar things in the logo, but we changed some of the font styles. That's when I started learning about why fonts are so important things like that. And people could still identify that it was us. But it was just kind of shifting, and you can do that. So say you come up with a logo, go with it. Don't think it's set in stone. It's not set in stone, you can change it later. Just get it get stuff going. Get your brand and stuff going get your business cards made, things like that and get down to business once your business is on the ground. Guess what, you can shift it and change it. So your logo just needs to make a first impression. And if you don't have a logo, you're not going to make a very strong first impression. So the thing about your logo, use it everywhere. Use it everywhere. If you have t shirts made use it. If you have a brochure or if you have posters made, use your logo, put your logo on all your Instagram posts, put your logo logo logo, logo logo, consumers crave consistency, and it takes up at least A dozen times have them seeing your logo, seeing your brand. So becomes familiar. So when they think about getting their haircut, the first place they're going to think about is your salon. So once you've created all these things, remember when I said my very first video of this series, he said, make sure you download Canva. You can do all of this in Canva, all of it, I would go for the Canva Pro, like I said, it's $120 a year. And then you can create everything with your brand with your colors with your fonts. So easy, easy, and you can be consistent because consistency is key with your brand identity. That is the biggest thing I want to get across. Consistency is the number one thing. It's for your brand recognition, your brand loyalty, people crave consistency. That way they can trust you. That way they know you're not going out of business next week, things like that. Okay, if you have other questions about any of this, that we talked about in this series, the your your brand identity, your colors, your fonts, how to create a logo, reach out to me, I'm here, I would love, love, love to help you. I would love to hear from you. If you've had any concern, hit, I would even love to hear your stories. If you've had stories like I did, like when I put my logo up on my big band, and people couldn't even read it. I mean, we've all made mistakes, right? So let me know, we can have fun with this. This is what you've dreamed of being a salon owner. This is the start. This is the foundation of being a salon owner and your business. And it's the first time getting it off the ground and you're doing the thing, right? You want to look serious. And by that I mean you have a brand. Well, I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am. I love our industry. I love what we stand for. I love that we get to put our mark on everything that we do. I love that we get to make people feel beautiful, and help their self esteem and help our stylists grow and learn. And we can change the industry by you know, making career paths. I love all of this. It's so much. But that's what I want this channel to be about all the things right, all the things it takes, and how we can make salon ownership actually an easy thing. Okay, take the fear out of it. I know that a lot of people have the goal of being a salon owner. And it is it has brought me so much joy, so much so much in every way of the relationships of money. I mean, I put both my kids through college I had, you know, things like that. I mean, let's not dismiss that it is a business. It's not a hobby. And to make it successful, you got to do all the things it takes to make it successful. You don't just do hair. In fact, being a successful salon owner means you don't do hair anymore unless you just want to, to really, really be successful, you have to step out from behind their chair, and actually help your team be successful and work on the business instead of in the business. That's a whole other conversation. Anyway, until next time, I hope you enjoy your day. I hope you're having fun with your brand. And I can't wait until our next series. See what that's gonna bring again till next time, stay awesome. Hey there thanks so much for listening to the salon ownership Made Easy podcast today. Would you do us a favor? If you got value out of this week's episode? Will you share it with your friends? And while you're at it, go ahead and leave us a review. That way more business owners like yourself will find us and we can help them with the challenges they may be facing too. Thanks again, and we'll see you next week. Take care