Changing logos is not uncommon in football, although it sometimes meets with resistance from fans. Many clubs – including Manchester City, Juventus Turin or FC Barcelona – make adjustments for various reasons in order to create a modern look, to stand out from other clubs or to achieve a better brand identity. FC Bayern Munich also had its classic logo for almost 20 years until it was revised in 2017.
It currently shines in a brighter shine than usual and those responsible must have had something in mind. Designing your own logo can be difficult depending on personal requirements and the tools available. Even if you are not necessarily an artistic genius, it is important to come up with original ideas that represent your brand or project well.
Approaches to solutions with different budgets
There are helpful tools for creating graphics such as Adobe Express. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Users can create attractive designs using drag-and-drop functionality without having extensive prior knowledge. The tool offers a wide range of templates that are easily customizable. The premium version with additional options (more templates, adding a brand logo and extended fonts) costs around 13 dollars per month for individuals.
Alternatively, you can of course hire real professionals. Freelance graphic designers charge 27 – 163 dollars per hour, while the fixed prices for a logo are 326 – 2173 dollars. Crowdsourcing platforms such as 99designs, DesignCrowd, Crowdspring, LogoTournament or Hatchwise offer competitions and solutions in the range of 217 – 1086 dollars. Design agencies vary depending on size and quality up to 5432 dollars per order, but sometimes only from 10865 dollars upwards.
If you’re on a tight budget
The basics of design, color theory, typography and layout can be easily learned online through platforms such as Coursera, Udemy or Skillshare. YouTube also offers a variety of tutorials in which skilled designers share their knowledge with other people. A recommended book is “Logo Design Love” by David Airey. A comprehensive overview of the logo development process as well as practical examples that are useful for both beginners and experienced designers.
The graphic design tool Canva is particularly suitable for beginners who want to create a logo quickly and easily with a large selection of icons, fonts and customization options. The basic version is free, but you have to pay for additional resources. After answering a few questions about preferred style, colors and icons, Looka uses AI to generate several customizable logo suggestions. While the actual creation is free, the fees for downloading vary depending on the package.
Image editing programs for creative ideas
The industry standard Adobe Photoshop offers a variety of powerful features, including advanced image editing tools, extensive filters, layer management and support for various color modes. Photoshop Elements is a simplified version that offers basic image editing functions and is probably easier to understand, especially for beginners.
GIMP is actually free and yet contains a surprising number of features (layers, filters and adjustments). For occasional users or simple projects, the program is perfectly acceptable, but like Photoshop Elements, it is generally not suitable for more complex design projects. If you are serious about graphic design and want to create professional-looking logos, Photoshop is the best choice.
