Your online store ‘s logo doesn’t seem to matter much to your shopping experience. After all, your customers are only interested in your products, right? In reality, the logo of your e-commerce store is an important element in your brand strategy. For such a small figured composition, the impact that a well-crafted logo has on your brand image and your online store cannot be underestimated. Whether you’re designing it yourself or enlisting the help of a professional, it’s important that you have a great logo for your online store. With this in mind, we are going to give you the different steps to follow to create and have a beautiful logo for your online store.
What is an online store?
Before discussing the definition of online store, let’s first see what an e-commerce is. The term electronic commerce or e-commerce refers to the various commercial transactions carried out remotely via digital media. These different exchanges (sales and purchases) that take place on the Internet can be goods or services.
When you think of electrical commerce, the first thing that comes to mind is an online store. This is a store that has the same characteristics as a physical store , but is online. Also called an e-commerce site, an online store has its own products displayed by a merchant. When a visitor arrives on the merchant’s website and wishes to place an order, he selects the product he is interested in and pays online through payment gateways.
How important is a logo?
The strength of a logo lies in its visual nature. There are several reasons why you should think about creating a logo for your online store. A logo :
- Strengthen your brand awareness
- Represents your company values
- Increases credibility and trust
- Strengthen the loyalty of your customers
Simply having a logo is not enough to create your brand identity. Your logo is memorable and visible in many mediums. It makes you stand out. Creating a hasty and sloppy logo can easily damage your website’s image. On the other hand, a carefully designed, sophisticated logo will demonstrate your credibility and professionalism to buyers. In doing so, it all depends on the art and design of your logo.
What are the different types of logos?
Not all online stores adopt the same type of logo to represent their brands. To stand out, you have the choice between several categories of logos.
- Mascots: These are logos that feature an illustrated character. These are usually in color, entertaining, like cartoons,
- Monograms: designed only from letters. They generally take the initials of the name of the brand it represents. Ideal when the name of the online store is long.
- Logotypes or Keywords / Word-symbols: consisting solely of the name of the online store. They are suitable for companies whose name is short, distinct, and easy to remember.
- Pictograms: represented essentially by an image.
- Abstract logos: are a class derived from pictogram logos. However, rather than using an identifiable image, an abstract form is used.
- Combinations: this is a combination of usually two types of logos to form one.
- Emblems: As the name suggests, this is anything that represents coats of arms, badges, seals, etc. These types of logos usually have a traditional look. But some companies gladly modernize their design to adapt to current graphic trends.
How to have a logo for your online store?
There are several ways to have a logo for your online store. It all depends on the resources you can allocate to creating the logo. First, you can create your own logo. There are logo maker tools that allow you to design a free logo in just a few clicks. If you don’t have graphic design skills, you can enlist the services of a designer to help you with the design. Another option available to you is to use the services of a graphic design agency. You can also use an online editor or just an online logo maker.
What are the characteristics of an effective logo?
You have decided to create a logo for your online store. How do you recognize a good logo? An effective logo is:
- Attractive and professional: should appeal to your target audience and demonstrate your professionalism. Your logo should reflect the image of your business and inspire a sense of trust in your customers.
- Simple and memorable: Your logo should have a simple design and be easily recognizable. This allows the public to memorize it without difficulty, because it is clean, elegant, and not overloaded.
- Unique: be original. Avoid overly obvious design choices.
- Consistent and Appropriate : To create an effective logo, you need to understand your target audience so you know what is appropriate for them.
- Versatile and adaptable: your logo must be versatile and able to adapt to all types of media (digital as well as printed). You won’t have to use your logo only on your online store. In order to optimize the effectiveness of your logo, it is imperative to match it to all media and adapt to its context.
- Aesthetics: whether your logo is black, white or in color, it must be aesthetic. The color aspect is very important. However, you should also be prepared for your logo to be visible in grayscale. Your message should not be unreadable once the color fades.
- Innovative: in your designs, dare! Don’t follow trends, create something new.
- Timeless: Your logo should have a design that stands the test of time. It doesn’t have to depend on modern trends if you want your business to last over time. Consider designing a logo that remains effective even years later.
Online store: the steps to create a beautiful logo
Here are the steps to create and have a beautiful logo for your online sales site.
Take inspiration from the competition or famous brands
Not sure where to start when creating a logo for your online store? You don’t have a concrete idea? Start by finding inspiration in what is already being done. Get inspired by the logos of those famous brands, the competition, or those logos you admire. It’s always interesting to take inspiration from what other people and companies are doing.
In addition, you can visit certain sites to get an idea of current trends , as well as how to orient a design. Take enough time to immerse yourself in what is already being done. Note the emblems that catch your eye and see what you would like (a symbol, initials, the full name of your company, …). Then use them as the starting phase of your thinking.
Determine your target audience
Understanding the needs of your customers will help you create a logo that matches your audience. Knowing their tastes is one of the many things to consider when creating a logo that’s both appealing and unique. What would your logo want to communicate about your business and how would it do it? By creating a logo that is attractive and conveys a clear message, you will be able to increase your visibility.
Choose the right colors
Make the right first impression on new shoppers by choosing colors that reflect your brand’s offering. With effective use of color, you will be able to arouse the emotions of buyers. In fact, the color of a logo can influence a visitor ‘s buying decision . Are your colors bright, cheerful, dark, moody, contrasting, monochromatic, neutral? Do they complement each other? With the right color scheme, just by looking at your logo, customers will get an idea of what you have in your online store. Above all, remember to reflect the colors of your logo in the color scheme and overall design of your online store.
Moreover, it is also important that your logo is not only based on color. Sometimes your logo appears in black and white on other media. If by changing your logo to black and white or grayscale, some parts become unreadable, plan to use more contrasting colors.
Choose shapes
Choose the shape your logo will have.
- Angular,
- round,
- Both of them,
- symmetrical,
- Adjacent,
- Stacked,
- Concentric?
Choose the right typography
It is important to choose a very readable typeface for your online store logo. In reality, the readability and understanding of the message of your logo depends on the font. Go for fonts that have crisp, clean lines, much like Sans Serif fonts. If you doubt the readability of a font, step away from your computer to see if the logo is still readable from a distance .
Also, don’t use a long enough font so as not to complicate the task for those who will see your logo. Generally, three kinds of fonts are used for logos: Serif fonts, Sans Serif fonts, and Script fonts.
Choose symbols
With the symbols, you will be able to quickly communicate the offer of your online store. If you’re going to use one, choose something that matches your store’s products as well as the other elements of your logo.
Of course, it’s important that your logo stands out. But, you definitely don’t want it to be too cluttered or have superfluous elements. This could limit your marketing efforts.
Make the logo versatile
When designing your logo, versatility is key. The shape of your logo must be able to adapt to different media. This means that you should choose a format that can be enlarged or reduced without compromising the design. Make sure it is legible regardless of the size or color applied to it. Also, remember to avoid images and fonts that are too flashy and ostentatious. Your image may look nice on a large scale, but once scaled down it becomes blurry.
Use logo creation tools
There are tools, software, free and paid programs that can help you create a beautiful logo for your online store.
- Logaster
- FreeLogoDesign
- ZillionDesigns
- Squarespace Logo
- Hipster logo generator
- Canva (creation of standard logos)
- Adobe llustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
How to create my online store?
Maybe you are planning to create an online clothing store? Here are some steps to follow. Wanting to create your store assumes that you already have a precise idea of the product to sell, carry out the market study, and create your business plan.
Choose a legal form for your online store
It is necessary to have a legal status to open an online store. Depending on your objectives, there are several suitable statuses. The auto-entrepreneur status is the most recommended for those who wish to devote only part of their time to their activity.
Choose reliable suppliers
If you are going to sell without stock, it is a good idea to choose the dropshipping model . For this, you must work with reliable suppliers who can deliver quality products to you.
Choose an online store creation platform
Although creating an online store requires little cost in the beginning, using a platform is not free. You can use a CMS in SaaS mode like Shopify or an open-source CMS like Prestashop. When you choose your e-commerce solution, you will have to:
- Register on the platform
- Choose an online store template
- Customize the design of your online store
- Import items to your store
- Connect a payment gateway
- Configure delivery settings
- Choose a custom domain
- Publish your e-commerce site
- start selling
In conclusion
Creating a logo for your online store can be time consuming. Above all, don’t get discouraged when you can’t get a clear idea at first. Brainstorm sessions, resume over and over to come up with the perfect idea. In addition, after creating your logo, strongly consider registering your trademark so as not to cause trouble for your online store. Not having a copyright for your logo is exposing yourself to malicious competitors. Finally, take action now.
