LOGO DESIGN BLOG   LOGO DESIGN REVIEW

Few things are as frustrating to small business owners as needing marketing or design materials but not having the means to hire a graphic designer. Some entrepreneurs can’t even afford a few hundred dollars to dedicate to design. And it’s pretty tough starting a business without a logo, website, brochures or advertising designs. Obviously, hiring a designer is the best way to go, but when that’s not an option, it’s good to know there are some alternatives available.

In the past couple of years, a number of useful do-it-yourself (DIY) tools have emerged for just this type of business owner, including services for logos, websites, brochures and more.

Web Design
There are a number of companies online that offer pre-designed, semi-customizable website design templates small business owners can use. Normally there is a one-time fee for downloading the template, which customers can then take and customize. Some services, such as Homestead.com, have a vast array of templates and will even host your site for a reasonable monthly fee. It’s easy to use and a good way to get some real estate online.

Logo Design
Many small business owners with nearly empty pocketbooks try to design their own company logo, often with disastrous results. That’s when a service like Logo Maker.com can come in handy. For just $99, you can design a custom logo and give your business a professional appearance.

Logo Maker.com has also rolled out with a new business card maker tool, which let’s you put your logo on business cards and even get them shipped to you right away.

Brochure Design
Brochures are still best designed by a professional, but there are even DIY brochure design templates out there. The best is MyBrochureMaker.com, which, like the other DIY tools here, uses a Flash application to help you build your brochure. MyBrochureMaker.com still lacks a good variety of templates, but it’s still worth checking out if you have no design skills because the service appears to be free.

There are other websites out there such as makestickers.com, that allow you to do other marketing as well. Of course, there is no substitute for hiring a graphic design company or freelancer, but when it comes down to choosing between a graphic absurdity in Microsoft Paint or getting something nice using one of these services, I’d recommend the latter.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Logo Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.