Top Five Things When Getting Your Logo

What do you think about our new logo? We are pretty excited about it.

Having a logo is huge. It means so many things on so many levels. Do you need one for your steel pan group? Well that depends....It might be worth the investment if your group has been around awhile or has plan to be a mainstay in the local music community.

Here are our top 5 things to consider when it comes to a logo.

1) Get references - There are a ton of graphic designers or folks who claim to be designers. Make sure you work with someone with a reputation and actual samples to show. Ask colleagues, friends, or businesses who they use.

2) Shop around - One of the biggest shocks for us was the range in prices. Price doesn't necessarily equate into value. So find someone that does quality work at a reasonable price. We saw prices ranging from $0 to $850.  The free quotes came from friends and family members. We actually decided to pay for ours. We wanted to make sure we got what we paid for.

3) Delegate it - The scariest part is how to decide on which designs to go with. The less than ideal way is to decide by committee. It slows down the process especially since everyone has different tastes. Since our organization is made up of musicians, needless to say we are better suited to playing steel pans than picking color palettes. Have one person do it and go from there.

4) Find Examples - The thing that helped us was to remember what we liked in other organizations. We picked a couple of logos that caught our eye and went with that theme. It is easier on the designer if he has some examples of what you like.

5) Get All the Formats - This is critical. We plan to use our logo for many different things from websites to T-shirts. It was absolutely important to have all the possible formats and sizes we needed. If your designer only plans to give you .jpg or .png file, run don't walk to the next designer. It is less costly to get everything up front rather than have that designer or someone else redesign your logo.

Well those are a couple of things we learned. Hope that helps.