How to Create a Real Estate Logo with No Design Experience

If you are reading this article you are most likely thinking about launching your own real estate business in the next little while. Congratulations on taking the entrepreneurial leap!

One of the first steps to turn your business idea into something real is through a logo. Seeing your business name represented in visual form is exciting and allows you to see your entire branding vision instantly.

Your logo will lay the foundation for your entire brand and dictate the creative direction. Stating that your logo is an integral piece to your business’ success is an understatement.

So how do you go about designing a professional real estate logo when you don’t have any design experience? This post will cover the most important design principles when it comes to logo design and include some free design resources to get your logo project underway.

Start With Your Company Name

The first step is to review your business name. Your business name should be concise not just so it’s easier to remember but also in terms of visual balance.

Finding visual harmony with a lengthy name is difficult.

If your name includes legal terms like incorporated or LLC drop those in your design.

If it’s a name containing multiple words you might want to consider the acronym route. The same applies to your slogan.

If you are going to include a slogan make sure it’s to the point and absolutely necessary. You can always include the tagline on your branding material like business cards, flyers and banner ads but not include it in your actual logo.

Study Your Color Options

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of choosing their logo and branding colors based on personal preference.

Instead of going with what looks nice or what you prefer take a moment and study what emotions each color evokes. Marketing and psychology go hand in hand and the influence of color on buying decision is well documented.

Here are some of the most popular branding colors and what they stand for:

• Blue: This is one of the most popular brand colors, which comes as no surprise as it evokes a sense of stability, maturity and trustworthiness.
• Red: Red evokes excitement and grabs attention. If you are looking to stand out this is your go-to color.
• Black: Black communicates a sense of sophistication and is often used for luxury products and services.
• Green: This is an obvious choice for organic and naturally based products and services. Green also represents growth and harmony.
• Yellow: Yellow is a warm color and evokes a sense of happiness, joy and hope. If you go with this color choice be sure to try different shades to make sure you find one that reads well in print and on the web.
• Purple: Purple evokes a sense of nobility, ambition and power. This bold color implemented properly will certainly stand out.

This is a good time to revisit your company’s mission and vision statements. If you don’t have them in place this is an opportunity to draft them.

This process will help you understand what your real estate business is all about and let you choose the right brand colors.

Look for Real Estate Logo Inspiration

Now that you have done your homework it’s time to get into the fun aspect of design – gathering inspiration.

What kind of logo do you like, text based, combination mark or icon only?

To get you inspired look at what your competitors are doing and then expand outside of your niche and look at the real estate industry as a whole. Note the logo concepts you like and pay attention to what they have in common.

This goes without saying but you don’t want to copy what a competitor is doing. You want to create a unique logo that represents you and your business. Having said a bit of inspiration can help you get your creative juices going.

It’s Time to Start Designing

Once you have collected some ideas you like it’s time to put on your designer hat. Don’t be intimidated if you don’t have any design experience.

Luckily these days there a lot of design resources you can utilize to make your own logo even if you can’t draw a stick figure.

Try a free logo maker application like Logo Creator to see how you like the do-it-yourself approach.

If you rather hire a designer you always have that option. In addition to agencies and freelancers there are logo contest sites that you can leverage too. It’s hard to beat free so going the logo maker application route is certainly a valid option.

The design process is typically straightforward with sites like Logo Creator. To get started select your industry, which of course in your case would be real estate, and then choose a template. All of the templates presented are fully customizable.  You can change the name, tagline, fonts, effects, colors, layout and more.

Once you are done you can either download your design in high-resolution format and start using across web and print or save for editing later on.

Golden Logo Design Rules to Follow

When you are designing your real estate logo make sure to try lots of different concepts. Before finalizing any of them gather feedback from potential customers and other business stakeholders.

Of course you need to be happy with your logo but if it doesn’t speak to your target audience it won’t be effective.

As you are getting busy designing your real estate logo keep these golden logo design rules in mind:

• Choose a Simple Graphic: Simple and clean graphics are more memorable than complicated designs. Of course an intricate design shows off the craftsmanship of your designer and looks sophisticated but it often is too much. Another mistake many entrepreneurs make is to go with a literal graphic. Just because you are starting a realty business doesn’t mean you are restricted to a key or roof icon. Bottom line is, clean and simple is more memorable.
• Don’t Use More Than Three Colors: Colors can enhance your design but if you go overboard you can complicate the design and make it look too buys. It’s best not to use more than three different colors. Of course there are exceptions but that requires a very experienced designer to pull of successfully.
• Don’t Use More Than Three Fonts: Another way of preventing your logo design from getting too busy is to limit how many different fonts you use. It’s ok and encouraged actually to use a different font for your tagline and business name. Limiting yourself to three will ensure you don’t overcomplicate the design unnecessarily.
• Avoid Using Heavy Effects: Nothing dates a logo faster than heavy effects. Design trends change and you don’t want to have to rebrand your entire business because you now look dated. Stay away from trendy design effects and using gradients overly aggressively.
• Make Sure Your Logo Scales: This usability test is crucial for the implementation of your logo. Just because it looks good on your laptop doesn’t mean it will translate as well when it’s scaled up to a bus bench ad or car decal. Before you finalize your logo scale it to the extremes to make sure it looks good small and large scale.
• Test Your Logo in Color and Black and White: There may be instances in print where your logo can’t be displayed in color. Make sure you test your logo in color and black and white. If it looks good and meets all other requirements you got a winner on your hands.

Helpful Design Resources

Since you don’t have a design background you should leverage all of the free design resources available to you. Of course, you can’t become a graphic designer overnight but you can educate yourself enough and use the right tools to ensure you come up with a professional real estate logo.

In addition to using logo design applications that offer professionally designed templates use tools like color scheme generators, font pairing and Google Images for inspiration. YouTube is another great free resource were you can find logo design tutorials that might get you inspired.

Ready to Create Your Own Real Estate Logo?

Now that you have gone through a crash course on logo design, are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get started?

There’s no need to be intimidated. If you follow the guidelines laid out here you can’t go wrong. Of course all of these rules can be successfully broken but we’ll leave that to the experienced designers.

The beautiful thing about designing your own logo is that it doesn’t cost you anything and you can create as many concepts as you wish. If you don’t end up landing on a design you love you can always take some of your favourite concepts to a freelancer and have him or her finalize it for you with a professional touch.

Happy designing and good luck with your real estate venture!