Logo maker, designer or design contest
Before anyone asks what the logo should look like, there is an earlier question: who is going to draw it?
A small business has three ways to get a logo. A logo maker hands you the tools and the templates. A designer takes a brief and comes back with concepts. A contest puts the brief out to many designers at once and lets you choose. The routes differ in cost, in time, in how much of the thinking is yours, and in what you own at the end.
who draws it?
maker: you drive
designer: a brief, then rounds
contest: many entries, pick one
The three routes
Same subject, three very different arrangements. The difference is less about how the logo looks and more about who does the thinking, when you pay, and what you are left holding.
DO IT YOURSELF
You pick an icon or a template, set the name in a typeface, try colours and download the files. It is the fastest route and the thinking is all yours, including whether the result is distinctive enough to stand on its own.
HIRED
One person, or a small studio, takes a brief, asks questions about the business and comes back with concepts, then refines one through agreed rounds of revision. You pay for judgement as much as for drawing.
CROWD
You post a brief and a prize, and many designers submit entries against it. You give feedback, narrow the field and pick a winner, who hands over the files. You see a wide spread of ideas for a fixed amount.
no scores None of the three gets a score or a star rating. Where one suits a situation better than another, the reason is given in a sentence.
A logo is a file you will hand to a printer, a sign maker and a web host for years. Owning that file outright matters more than who drew it.
Before you choose
Most disappointments with a new logo trace back to one of them being left unasked until the files arrived.
The route decides the process, but the same handful of practical questions applies to all three. A logo made in an afternoon and a logo made over six weeks both have to be owned, delivered in the right formats, and usable on everything from an invoice to a shopfront. Asking early costs nothing; asking late can mean paying for the work twice.
ownership
Ask for the copyright, or a licence broad enough for every use you have in mind, in writing. A file you can download is not the same thing as a mark you own.
files
A vector original (SVG, EPS or PDF) scales to a sign or a van; a PNG alone does not. Ask for colour, one-colour and reversed versions too.
originality
Templates and stock icons are shared by other buyers, and contest entries can borrow. A mark you want to register as a trademark needs to be distinctive.
revisions
Designers usually quote a set number of revision rounds. Contests and makers handle changes differently, so find out before you start, not at round three.
size
A logo has to read as a browser icon and a social avatar as well as on a shopfront. Ask to see it at a few millimetres wide and in a single colour.
timing
A maker can be done the same day. A contest runs for as long as it stays open, and a designer works to a schedule you agree at the start.
In what order
Picking a route first and working out what you need afterwards is the usual way to end up paying for two logos.
Who it is for, where it will appear first, and the two or three words it should suggest. Half a page is plenty.
Decide both before looking at any route. The routes are priced and paced differently, and the numbers narrow the field quickly.
Then put the ownership, the files and the revisions in writing, whichever route it is.