How to design high quality a Logo

Can you design a professional logo under 10 minutes using Photoshop? One of the biggest problems entrepreneurs have when starting a website online is doing something to make their website stand out. Every website you start should be unique in some way – content wise, design wise or something else.
If you look at most of the big websites online, they have high quality content as well as a high quality design. An example is Quick Online Tips – the design is well laid out, content is easy to read, the logo stands out and sets it apart from the other blogs in the niche.
Now, one of the first things you’ll want to do when you start your website is get a nice brandable logo, especially in non-tech niches. For your average visitor, a brandable, fresh logo can help them remember your website and there’s a greater chance of visiting assuming your content and design are up to scratch. Think of it this way – you have the chance of visiting Blog A or Blog B, both of which had high quality content. However, Blog A has a high quality logo whereas Blog B does not – which are you more likely to visit and remember?
If you have multiple sites, especially start-ups, and no design skills, outsourcing logos can get expensive. The minimum you’d expect to pay for a logo is around ten dollars, while prices can go up to hundreds of dollars if you’re looking for something really high quality. When starting though, you’ll want to keep your costs as low as possible – this post will teach you how to create a high quality logo in ten minutes or less, as well as show you an example. I recommend you create your logo on a transparent background in Photoshop so you can directly apply it to your website.
1. Getting a high quality image
Although you can have a plain text logo, it’ll stand out more if your visitors can associate an image with your website. To find an image you can use, simply Google “free icons” and you’ll find a lot of websites you can use.
One of my favourites is Icon Finderwhich allows you to search icons (and filter to show only those which allow commercial use). IconFinder has over 150,000 icons you can look through so you should find something for any niche.
2. Choosing a high quality font
Using a high quality font is just as important as the image you decide to use. Two of my favorites are Calibri and MS Sans Serif, but again, Google will help you find lots of fonts you can use. A good list of fonts (over 100) that you can play around with can be found at Instant Shift – there are some very nice ones there.
You want your font to be easy to read as well as look professional and stand out from the traditional fonts. Try not to use ones that are too common like Times New Roman or Arial – there are hundreds of free fonts out there, so pick one that’s unique!
3. Applying effects
You could find a font and paste it next to a logo, but that probably won’t give you the look you want. To make your logo look professional and fit your website, you’ll want to apply some effects. Three effects you could use are:
Gradient: A gradient is basically where your logo goes from light to dark (or vice versa). You can apply the gradient effect to just your image, just your font or to both.
Reflection: When the Web 2.0 craze started many websites were using reflections in their logos. This is slightly less common now, but it can still look nice if done correctly.
Shading: You can apply a shading effect to the borders of your logo, giving your text a more embellished look. Something else you could do is apply a shadow effect to the image used in your logo – this will help it stand out.
Here’s an example of a logo created using the above method. Time taken? Seven minutes.

The bottom line is that making a simple logo is not as difficult as it sounds, even for those that are not good at design. Play around Photoshop – there are dozens of fonts, images and effects you can try and after a bit of practice you’ll be creating high quality logos in no time!