Most businesses want a logo. In fact, big companies often pay a lot of money to get a custom-designed one. But, as a small startup, you probably don’t have that kind of budget. You need an alternative. Fortunately, there are lots of free logo design software on the internet that you can use.
But are these any good? They’re free, after all. How distinctive can a logo be, when it’s generated by free software?
We tried a few of these for you, to save you some time.
As it turns out, we think these free logo design software aren’t bad at all. You can make a somewhat unique logo without making major design mistakes. For a startup with a limited budget, we definitely recommend them. You can always rebrand later. Most businesses rebrand anyway when they grow bigger.
Take a look at our test results below.
Where to Find Free Logo Maker Software
There are a lot of free logo maker software on the internet. You’ll find them from traditional photo editing providers like Adobe or printing companies like Vistaprint. You can also find them from somewhat unexpected places like domain name registrars or web hosts like Namecheap.
Even Fiverr has a free logo design software. We suspect this is to bring in potential clients who might eventually hire one of their logo-making freelancers for more customized work.
To find these free software, simply search the web for “free logo maker.” Our search returned several pages of websites offering such free tools.
Be Aware That “Free” Isn’t Free
As with everything on the internet, there are different flavors of free. This applies to free logo maker software as well.
For example, with Vistaprint, the logo you make is free only if you use Vistaprint to print the logo on Vistaprint offerings like business cards. Otherwise, to download and use the logo elsewhere, you’ll have to pay $20.
With other logo makers where you can download without giving them money, you’d still have to “pay.” You’d have to sign up for a free account, which means giving them your business’ contact information. They’ll probably nag you with advertisements to buy their services in the future. (You can unsubscribe to these emails, of course.)
Limitations of Free Logo Design Software
Before you start making your free logo, you should know that these free logo design software lack some important features. These aren’t deal breakers, however, because you can easily fix the issues with other free image editing software that you can download.
Logos are best saved in the PNG file format, and the free logo makers all let you do this. But you may or may not be able to save the logo as an overlay.
An overlay is basically a clear sheet on which you’ve drawn your logo. This way, you can place your logo on any page of any color and still be able to see the color underneath. It’s fairly important to have the logo as an overlay. But, it might not be a deal breaker, depending on where you place your logo.
Sometimes, keeping the logo framed in a rectangle, square, or circle of one specific color looks just fine. And, if you really want to have the logo on an overlay, you can edit the logo using free image editing software and save it as an overlay.
Lastly, the free logo makers won’t allow you to adjust the pixel density of the logo. Depending on where you use the logo, you’ll definitely have to adjust the pixel density. Again, you can easily do this with free image editing software.
You can find directions on where to find a free image editing software and how to adjust pixel density in our main article on making free logos:
The Free Logo Maker Software Tested
We picked three free logo maker software and made some logos to show you how they work and what the results look like. Note we cropped some of the logos so they fit a rectangle or circle better.
Adobe Spark
Adobe, the famed photo editing software maker, not surprisingly offers a free logo maker. It’s quite intuitive to use. Even if you’re not artistically inclined, you’ll still be able to make a decent-looking logo in just a few minutes.
How the Logo Maker Works
At the start of the process, you’ll pick from a number of simple graphics, fonts, and color combinations. These—and especially the color combinations—are pre-designed so that you won’t accidentally pick an unreadable font or a jarring color scheme.
Once you answered some simple questions about your company and picked some designs and fonts, the software generates a generous number of logos for you. You pick the one you like. Then, if you wish, you can manually change some of the settings to customize your logo.
You can design a logo all the way to completion before you have to sign up for an Adobe account. Without the account, you won’t be able to download the completed logo. You can save the logo as a PNG file, but not as an overlay.
Sample Logos
We tested the logo maker using our disgruntled intern Aspen’s secret doggie treats business called Kibbles Shack. Here are the results, which we think will work just fine for a starter business:
Namecheap
NameCheap is a large domain name registrar and webhost. We were a little surprised that they offer a free logo maker. However, it seems that some of its competitors like Wix offer them too, so the web hosting companies are just trying to keep up with each other.
How the Logo Maker Works
NameCheap’s logo maker software might be, at the core, the same one as Adobe’s free logo maker software. Both companies have specific software platform tweaks to give their users slightly different controls and color schemes. But the base platform, icons, and some logo designs seem to be the same.
This is actually a good thing, however. It means both logo makers are easy to use, and the pre-settings make designing the logo fast and easy. You’ll still be able to tweak the logo in the end, so you’ll get a logo different from Adobe’s.
You don’t have to be an existing customer of Namecheap’s to use the logo maker. However, you’ll still have to sign up for a free account to download the logo.
Sample Logos
We made a few logos with the NameCheap free logo maker software. It didn’t take us very long, but we think they look pretty good. They’re clean and uncluttered, and that’s what you want in a logo.
Canva
Canva is a fairly well-known web-based design platform. In addition to its free logo maker, you can also design business cards, stationery, marketing flyers, and similar using Canva.
How the Logo Maker Works
To design your logo, you have to sign up for a free Canva account almost right after you access the logo maker. After that, they nag you with a lot of pop-ups to urge you to sign up for a paid account.
Canva does have a nice design platform with lots of images you can use. Unfortunately, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid account to use them. There is a free 30 day trial, so you can always use that to get the premium images.
Most of Canva’s stock images are designed with quite a bit of detail and look very nice. However, they might not work too well as logos.
Logos need to be fairly simple because they take up very little space. Complicated designs make logos look too crowded and make them difficult to read. You’ll have to be patient and look through lots of Canva’s images to find a few that might work as a logo.
The Canva design platform is easy to use compared to full photo editing software. However, compared to the other free logo maker software, Canva has a steeper learning curve. The platform gives you a lot more control over your design. But this also means it’ll take a little time for you to learn what all the buttons are for.
Canva has many pre-configured color schemes for you to use. So, you can use nice color combinations without having studied color theory.
Canva’s free account lets you save the design to some free storage space. You can also download the logo in PNG format. You’ll have to upgrade your account before you can download the logo as an overlay.
Sample Logos
Here are a few logos we designed using Canva’s design platform. We tried to use as simple a dog design as we could find (and that looks good). Still, to our eyes, the design comes close to being a little too busy, with too many colors, for a logo.
The Free Logo Design Software are Surprisingly Good, at Least for the Short Term
As you can see, the free logo maker software can generate logos of simple design. With logos, simple is what you want. People must be able to see the logo from far away and instantly know that it’s your logo. A cluttered design makes logos less recognizable. So, these free logo makers do an excellent job making a logo.
If you want a more distinctive logo, you can always design one yourself or pay a freelancer to do it for you. But there’s no hurry. Use the free logo for now, and you can always rebrand later. Unveiling a new logo can even generate publicity for your business if you do it correctly. It’ll all work out.
Questions? Comments?
