Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 10: Customizing Your Blog’s Logo
Posted on May 6th, 2009 by Jim under 30-Day BloggingWe’re one-third of the way through the Workshop, and now that we have stat counters configured to capture our gains (or losses), we can advance into my favorite time of the Workshop… customizing the theme! Let’s start with our new logo. 
Why the Logo Should ROCK!
As far as customization goes, I would spend a bit of time coming up with a fancy logo for your blog. I can usually crank one out in 15 minutes for a new site, but I have been looking at logo customization and design for a while now… so I have a small advantage here. Your blog’s logo will be one of the focal points for the website. And unless you have a crazy header (like the one on theNetFool), you will need something that stands out. Remember, whenever you run a contest, advertise or get press in any form… your site’s logo has to be the go-to way to get traffic to your website. That being said, a dull generic logo won’t cut it any more!
Making a Logo That Will Knock ‘Em Dead
Now that we’ve (over)exaggerated the benefit of having a great logo for your blog, let’s lay out the recipe to make it happen! First things first, here is a list of what I believe to be the top three essentials in any logo that you design or have designed:
- Color Scheme – Your logo should consist of 2 or 3 colors, and fit your template
- Relevance - You need to have some kind of graphic that “sums up” your niche
- Web 2.0 – Keep your design fresh, simple and aesthetically-pleasing
There are essentially two ways that we can get our logo: make it ourselves or outsource the work to a professional/freelance artist. I usually do a combination of the two. For example, the header at TheNetFool.com was made by a freelance artist… but the text-logo “THE NET FOOL” was actually made by me! Before we get into the two methods, let’s see what I did over at Jimvesting.com:
You can see that I followed our three steps. First, it is based on two colors that fit with the rest of my theme. Second, it has a stock chart on it to represent making money as well as finance. Third, it is quite simple and “Web 2.0″, as was the original.How are your logos coming along? Post in the comments and you’ll be featured!
Great Ways to Make Your Logo
The first thing you need to do is find the old logo from the template that we installed. You should be able to find this in the “images” folder within the theme that you downloaded… and it will usually be something telltale like “logo.gif”. What we are looking for here is the proportions of the image; in my case, the logo was 274×52 pixels. Simply put, we are going to be making a new one, saving it as the same file name, and re-uploading our new version with our FTP clients (like we uploaded our template in the first place) to overwrite the old logo with the new!
Now, let’s assume that you cannot use the power of Adobe Photoshop to make your own logo. If you can, you probably don’t need my help on this one (however, if you need a second opinion… feel free to shoot me an email).
We need to look for a designer based on budget, so let’s cover some good low-mid-high budget providers:
Low Budget ($10-50): The best “bang for the buck” designer can be found through a design forum/message board. I recommend DigitalPoint Forums or Warrior Forum since they both have tons of great artist… you just need to look for them!
Mid Budget ($50-100): At the middle of the spectrum lies freelance designers. I’d recommend posting a job at GetAFreelancer.com or oDesk.com to get your design job filled quickly and efficiently.
High Budget ($100-$500): At the top, you can find the premium design shops that specialize in logo making. There are a ton of these, but some of my favorites are Eyepinch Design, SOS Factory and Logo Design Guru.
Get those logos ready or order up a customized version for an added bump-up on your blog’s reputation. Tomorrow, we’ll continue with the customizations at hand to really get the most out of our previously-default template.
-The Net Fool
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related Posts
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 11: Modifying Your Blog’s Header to Perfection
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 6: Researching and Browsing for a Theme
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 12: Customizing Your Blog’s Sidebar
- New Website Design, Contest Approaches!
- Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 7: Purchasing and Installing Your Theme
Nice guide, I think it’ll be very useful for beginners. I had my logo designed by a friend of mine
My website’s logo is really simple I don’t want to be too flashy
Logo is very very important. I love your logo and shoemoneys logo too. Good stuff there. I think one needs to know PS well to know about logos.
i did come across some cool logo’s but as far as it goes i do agree that shoemoney does have a great logo wonder if he did it himself
very god tips for us beginners. I had a hard time finding a person to to make a logo and was lucky to have won a contest…otherwise I would still be lost….
Nailed it right Jim. That’s one difference between a blogger who just wants to blog and a blogger that starts a blog and wants to take it to the highest level possible
I will try it….thanks!!!
Logo is really Important. I have been trying my hand in photoshop to make my own Logo for my blog. My work is nearly complete.
It will go live in 2-3 days.
good for you bud hope it succeeds your desire or hope
Good logo tips. Your header looks very professional. I may consider redesigning at least the headers of some of my sites. I use freelance writers but I never thought of hiring a freelance artist for help. elance.com is another good for freelancers. They likely have good artists too.
Thanks for the post. I’m hoping to progress from the small price range to the medium-high.
I think I need a tablet though
Nice post. More things on my blog to-do list
i have always wanted to make a better logo but not quite sure how to make it a bit more interesting but oh well
Logo designing or branding is very important in building a great personality in the presence people. Mine, was just my own design. Is is simple but lots of meaning.
Should we also attempt to register it for trademark?
haha wouldn’t that be cool to do that than your really established than if since your branding yourself
well, i hired someone to make the logo for my blog., it cost me 20 bucks only and it was one of my best investments ever made. If you want to use his services look for im3d on digitalpoint and check his portfolio
A friend of mine is slacking on my logo but he’s got a week in the meantime I wrote my first post.
I like your style.
I think Word Press is a free, powerful and easy-to-use blogging platform. You can get a hosted blog on the Word Press website that offers a number of options. But if you want a truly customized blog, you’ll need to set up Word Press on your own hosting package.
Himanshu
I think making a logo is the most hard part of the design. Other people and even you will see it all the time.
My theme does’t really support a logo any ideas, should I find a new theme or any other way I could implement it?
Johnny Roof´s last blog ..Simple Ways to Make Your Project Go Well
Johnny-
You can still have a logo with that theme… just look for something transparent to lay over your header image! Ask a designer on DigitalPoint forums to whip one up (I’m sure it will be a matter of $10 or so) and you can use something like a .png with a transparent background to fit the template. Good luck!
Thanks for the quick response I have the logo it is .jpg I have to ask the designer to give me a copy with a transparent background. It should be my avatar it comes up in the recent readers up there but not next to my comment.