Opening a small business is an exciting time but there is nothing like a huge bundle of start up costs to create nervousness. As a result many business owners will try and manage expenditure by keeping things in-house and this often includes them or a family member designing their logo.

While I applaud the effort and entrepreneurship, businesses can run into image problems with a less than professional logo. Aside from a sometimes obvious “home made look” there are various technical issues. Has the logo been designed in a vector format so it can be scaled without loss of detail? Has it been saved in all the file formats you need? There is nothing more irritating than pulling a logo into PowerPoint only to realize that you don’t have it in a format that gives it a transparent background. If you want your logo printed onto t-shirts etc. do you have a format your printer can work with?

The result is that original “free” logo can end up more expensive in the long run as not only does a business owner have to turn to a graphic designer to “get things fixed” but also has the expense of reprinting any business cards, marketing collateral, signage etc.

I have just completed a “please can you fix this” logo project for a Lancaster PA based business, Hands and Heart Therapeutic Bodywork. They were running into issues with their logo in terms of scaling. A complete redesign was off the table as it was originally created by a family member and the client wanted to “tread lightly” and maintain the integrity of the design.

I recreated the hands using much smoother lines and less detail and redesigned the butterfly so it was a lot simpler and more harmonious with the look of the hands.

But this was a little too far removed from the original design for the client who requested the finger detail also be included again, so here is where the re-worked logo ended up.

The entire design was recreated in Adobe Illustrator so it is now completely scalable.

Are you a small business owner whose logo could do with some help? Contact me now, I am Your Creative Partner!