A gardening logo, or any company logo, plays a considerable role in a business. Aside from representing the company, a logo influences brand awareness and recall among the targeted audience. Ultimately, this impacts a company’s sales and bottom line.
But before we continue, I’d like to ask you a few questions:
- Do you currently own or plan to start a landscaping company?
- If so, do you already have a gardening logo?
I’m asking because the sheer number of landscapers I have encountered without an official logo is appalling.
To some, creating a landscaping logo is all gimmick with no actual bearing on a business. On the other hand, only established landscapers should bear a logo for their gardening services.
If you’re reading this article, it’s safe to presume you do not share those sentiments. You may be planning to make a logo for a landscaping startup and want to know the best practices. Perhaps you already have a logo but are looking to give it a makeover. Whichever it is, what matters is that you have a well-rounded awareness of a logo’s significance.
In this article, we aim to explore the common errors landscapers commit when creating a gardening logo. Keep reading to discover the dos and don’ts of logo design.
How Much Should a Garden Logo Cost?
First, let’s address the elephant in the room.
How much should a landscaping, lawn care, or gardening logo truly cost?
Well, that depends on several factors:
- The designer or agency, including their experience and portfolio
- The complexity of your desired design or vision
- The number of iterations you want
This information should provide you with a ballpark value regarding pricing. Generally, the asking price for a gardening logo is no different from other companies and business models. After all, it is the same service, just a different variation.
The price of a logo for a landscaping business can vary greatly depending on who you ask.
- Inexperienced designers from UpWork may charge $25/hour for experience’s sake.
- More experienced creators may ask for around $75/hour and above to concoct your logo.
- Agencies usually charge per project, costing around $1,500-$2,500 or more.
Where To Look For Professionally Designed Gardening Logos?
Not everyone can become a great logo designer, but great logo designers can come from anywhere.
We do not dismiss the logo-designing chops of any artist. Anyone with working knowledge of design tools like Photoshop, Illustrator or Canva can produce a masterpiece. A $100 logo from UpWork may be better than a $1000 one from an independent artist.
But there’s a caveat.
More popular artists or agencies have far better design experience, which usually reflects in the final output. While any designer can use the same tools, there is more to logo creation than that.
Your logo embodies a significant aspect of your marketing; without it, all marketing efforts will be crippled.
At Landscape Marketing Hero, we help lawn care businesses perfect all marketing fronts, including your logo. If you need an experienced team of designers to craft your perfect gardening logo, book a call.
What Layout Works Best for Garden Logos?
Here’s the thing: there are no set-in-stone rules for logo creation.
In other words, you have complete liberty regarding how your gardening logo will turn out. Whether you want a horizontally shaped logo or a vertical one is your prerogative. What matters is that your logo accurately represents your brand.
Too often, lawn and landscape logos drop apparent hints about the business model. For instance, the presence of luscious plants and the abundant use of green color palettes. You have complete autonomy if you want to conform or do something unique.
While autonomy is granted to every business owner, implementing good design practices is always necessary. On top of saving time, implementing best practices leaves no room for interpretation, ensuring accuracy in brand representation.
Below are the most common errors business owners commit when creating a gardening logo.
Common Mistakes in Creating or Choosing Gardening Logos
Insufficient Research
Believe it or not, designing a gardening logo is 90 percent research and 10 percent design.
It’s easy to wield a pen and do some lines. But not knowing what to sketch disables the hand from drawing on paper.
From a fundamental standpoint, designing a logo is more of a communication challenge than anything else. First, how do you communicate your company’s branding and identity to the logo designer? Second, how does the artist communicate your brand’s essence through the imagery they create?
A deep understanding of your brand paves the way to a solid logo. Conversely, without clear communication, the resulting logo may poorly represent the brand and what it stands for.
The solution:
Prepare a written creative brief that explains every knowledge possible surrounding your landscape company. From what you do, your goals and your target audience to your area of operation, insert them all in. Moreover, articulate your vision for the logo to the artist.
But to accomplish the above, you need to resolve the next point…
Lack of Team Alignment
If you are a business owner, the company is yours to operate. You are at the helm, steering the ship to better tides. However, you commit a grave error when you embrace solopreneurship and keep your team out of your business decisions. While this goes for critical business decisions, the same applies even to choosing the logo.
Everyone is uniquely creative. That means they may provide insightful comments and helpful suggestions to improve the design. But you won’t know it until you try asking.
The solution:
Meet with your team for a brainstorming session. Have everyone contemplate and contribute ideas that will concoct the best vision for the company’s logo. Finalize the inputs on a document and furnish a copy to the designer. Once your artist understands the main concept, designing the logo becomes an easier task.
Misuse of Images and Terminologies
Let me ask you something: what comes to mind when you hear logo?
A company’s emblem?
Their wordmark or text?
Or both the symbol and text?
One fundamental mistake that non-designers make is confusing terminology surrounding logo creation. Everyone— not just the designer— should speak the same language if you want a smooth creative project. This entails knowing the proper terminology.
In logo design, a logo has three variations:
First is the logomark, which represents the symbol or emblem of your brand. Take a look at Landscape Marketing Hero’s logomark.
The second variation is the logotype or wordmark. This is the styled font associated with the brand. Think of brands like Lee or Coca-Cola. As for LMH, here is our wordmark:
The final variation of a logo is called combination, which simply combines logotype and logomark. A famous example of this is Puma. In this case, your logo is created by putting both elements inside a single frame.
As a rule of thumb, it’s ideal to you have all three variations for your gardening logo because this gives you more room for creativity.
Using a Generic Design Concept
Here’s a slap of reality: nothing deadens a brand more than generic imagery.
Look, we get it. A gardening logo will include landscape-related elements like trees and leaves. But to make your logo memorable, you need to add features that make it stand out.
Logos do not have to be elaborate or complicated. Even the simplest designs could be memorable as long as it stands above obscurity.
Unintentionally Using Unsuitable Imagery.
Details matter when it comes to logo creation. Companies must effectively use white space or shapes to their advantage. As such, holistic awareness is necessary to assess whether you deliver the wrong message in your imagery.
Some companies may not realize they produced graphic or inappropriate symbols in their logo. You must be very careful with this aspect.
You know what they say, “the devil is in the details.”
Too Complicated Design
Complex design ≠ good logo
Conversely…
Simplistic design ≠ good logo
A logo treads carefully along the lines of complex and straightforward— striking a balance is critical!
Remember, you will use your logo in many mediums. From T-shirts to van wraps and even posters, you name it. A complicated logo, for instance, that of Levi Strauss & Co., will render poorly in small mediums. On the other hand, an overly basic logo will not make a mark in people’s memory.
Inconsistent with Business Branding
Finally, making a logo consistent with your company’s branding is crucial. Even the tiniest detail can distinguish between a good logo and a bad one. In other words, even without saying you perform gardening services, people must get the hint.
Logo creation is a complex ordeal. While anyone can develop a design, only those who invest time in research can hit the jackpot.
Landscape Marketing Hero can help you create a logo that captures your brand identity and objectives. Choose real experts if you want to craft the perfect logo or improve your existing one. Book a call to learn more.