POV: You’ve decided that 2023 is your year to finally go all-in and launch your business that you’ve been dreaming about! You’re scared, but mostly excited to enter this new chapter in your life and build something that you really believe in. But before you get your business off the ground, you have a big decision to make – do you work with a professional designer to create your logo or do you do it yourself?
A lot of founders opt for the DIY logo route because it’s an easy way to save money. And sometimes that’s the best option! But after talking with so many entrepreneurs who DIYed their branding, we’ve noticed some common trends in how it can impact your business. So let’s break down some of those DIY struggles that founders have shared with us and how YOU can make the best decision for your business.
4 Ways a DIY Logo Can Impact Your Business
01 / Confidence
We hear it all the time from founders… “I DIYed my logo because I wanted to save money, but now I feel embarrassed by my branding. It doesn’t represent the quality of what I sell or how I want to be perceived. It just feels amateur and I know that’s holding me back.”
Confidence is one of your biggest tools as an entrepreneur, right? And when you don’t have confidence in your brand, it can seriously impact your growth. If you find yourself not wanting to pitch yourself to new investors, stockists or press features or pursue exciting opportunities because you’re worried about how your DIY brand will look in those spaces, then you need to really evaluate how much that is holding your business back.
02 / Money
If you’re a product-based business, you’re going to make some big decisions and investments around your product packaging. Let’s say you order all of your boxes, mailers, and tissue paper that you need to get started. But a few months later, you start to second-guess the DIY branding that you used because it doesn’t feel as professional or high-quality as you envisioned. Now you’re stuck with a room full of boxes that you don’t really want to use anymore and you have the choice to either (1) redesign everything and order new packaging or (2) just continue using the packaging that you don’t feel confident in. The same goes for your website! You might spend a good amount of money getting your first website set up with your DIY brand, only to decide that it doesn’t match the vision that you had or isn’t converting enough sales and you’re left wanting to redo it all over again.
03 / Vision
Another phrase that we hear often… “It’s hard for me to imagine my business being successful when my branding feels so amateur. I want to get my product in big stores, but right now it doesn’t look like it would belong on those shelves and that makes it difficult to really believe it’s possible for me.”
Although branding is a visual medium, it can also have a very emotional impact on you as the founder. It’s a visual manifestation of where you want your business to go and what you want to be known for. When your branding doesn’t align with that vision, it makes it easy for self-doubt and imposter syndrome to creep in.
04 / Time
Your time as a founder is precious. With so much responsibility and tasks on your plate, you don’t have a lot of room to waste time when building your business. And maybe DIYing your brand seems like a smart move to save time. You just need something quick and simple, right? But once you start gathering inspiration on Pinterest and looking at fonts, colors, etc… you find yourself sucked down a rabbit hole that can easily end up taking up unnecessary time. And that’s what anyone would expect, right? When you try to do something that you aren’t professionally trained in, it’s going to take you more time than it would an expert. So that’s an important thing to be aware of if you start trying to go the DIY route. If you find that you’re spending hours on Pinterest pinning everything under the sun and changing your mind often, unable to land on something that feels right, you might be wasting time trying to do work that isn’t in your zone of genius.
So should you DIY your branding? Every business is different and only you know what’s truly going to be best for your business right now. Our main piece of advice here is to make sure you aren’t just thinking about the short term benefits, but also the long term impact. To help, here’s a quick checklist that clearly outlines if you should or shouldn’t DIY your logo:
You should DIY your logo if…
You feel confident in your creative skills and eye for design.
You don’t have any budget to hire a designer.
You aren’t sure who your target audience is yet.
You are ok with rebranding later on when it’s the right time.
You aren’t planning to add your logo in too many places yet that can’t be changed easily. (like packaging, signage or advertisements)
You should not DIY your logo if…
You don’t feel confident in your own creative skills. (AKA, you could try to DIY your logo, but you know it probably wouldn’t look great.)
You want to create a premium brand experience.
You have a budget to invest in your branding. (Pricing for branding services will vary depending on the design studio, but we recommend planning to invest at least $5,000-8,000 USD if you want to work with an experienced, high-level studio and get a fully custom brand identity.)
You want to do things fully the first time and avoid multiple rebrands.
You want to see faster growth for your business.
In business, the road to success is marked by many small decisions that you’ll make as a founder. And some of the most important first decisions that you make will revolve around your branding. We hope that this post has given you a lot to think about on this topic and helped you feel more confident in the decisions that you’ll make yourself!
If reading all of this made you realize that a DIY logo isn’t aligned with your business goals and it’s time to invest in a professional, in-depth brand – we’d love to work with you! You can learn more about our services here or go ahead and inquire to work with us!
And if you’d like some more valuable branding advice, here are some other blog posts to check out:
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