Logos: a field guide for busy entrepreneurs.
Where they come from, how much they (should) cost and what you (should) get for your money, from dirt-cheap to Fortune-500 corporate.
Starting at the low end . . .
Ever heard the term 'bug'? Bugs are those little stylized symbols that almost look like something, but might also just be an abstract shape, or a combination of two somethings. Often when we think of logos, the bug is what we're really thinking about. Common bugs include the striped globe of at&t; the Apple apple with the bite out of the right side; the four interlocked puzzle pieces for Windows, and the lightning bolt for Gatorade. The big grey m with the blue dot, at the top left of this page, is a bug too.
Well, there are logo-art CDs and Web sites that sell bugs by the bucketload for almost no money. Combine them with type for a do-it-yourself quickie, and your total cost could easily be under a hundred bucks.The downside: As a trademark, this kind of logo can be hard to defend in court.
A little more exclusivity, perhaps?
The next step up is a logo that's mostly a look -- designed purely as art to look good and get some sort of a brand going to build quick recognition and maybe some equity over the first few years of the business.
An independent professional would charge between $350 and $1000, depending on how many concepts the client wants to see in the rough and refined stages. (Some might help with the name, as well.)
An agency with more overhead would probably either charge double the independent's price or throw the logo in as a freebie within a bigger package of letterhead/envelope/business card/shipping label plus brochure and Web site (and/or launch promotion with radio and local print ads and some crossover promotions with other local retailers, maybe a cheap mailer, and so on . . .) that would run $7-20K plus expenses. (The independent can probably be persuaded to take a similar deal, but for half the fees.)
That process should result in a defensible trademark; registration takes about $2K in legal fees.
Real branding. For building real businesses.
The most involved logo-design process is a true branding effort, involving some thoughtful investigation of where the business fits in the current market and looking ahead to possible expansion plans. It should start with a carefully developed message strategy that both client and consultant agree on - and then explore basic concepts with two or three rounds of preliminaries.
At some point, the branding team (client and consultant) should put together an informal focus group to evaluate the finalists. I don't think this needs to be a full-out focus group in the sense of the rented facility with the one-way mirrors and the professional moderator; it can be a group of the client's best customers and a few friends over coffee, as long as the questions are carefully considered beforehand.
And once the new logo is in its final form - along with basic web and print concepts to show it off - it should be the star of a written standards manual that spells out how to use the logo and other identity elements in every conceivable environment from fax cover sheets to cocktail napkins.
An independent would want $3-5,000 for this logo process alone. He/she would also hope to get the brochure, Web site and first marketing programs as natural next steps, but they would usually be separate.
Established national design firms charge in the five to six figures.