There are a number of growing websites that either showcase fancy designed logos (logopond) or for fee they sell (pixellogo) pre-designed logo marks that you can chose. Either way fancy logos are a new phenomena  in today's business and marketing world that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. There is a myth that logos can make you successful, or if you have nice logo you will recognized more than a competitor with a bad logo. To me, a registered designer and legitimate brander, logos don't mean anything, they are not worth anything and don't exactly contribute to all your success. Logos are identifers and nothing more. They are like a sport team's jersey, when you are standing in the crowd and watching the game the different color jerseys allow you to know which team is which but teams don't win simply because they have a pretty logo!

Most of the new clients i meet daydream about their project starting with a logo. Among the first things they talk about is how they want a really nice logo to with their project, meanwhile i'm still trying to ask questions about what the project is about anyways. Since my approach to any project begins with a lot of research and broad market study i tend not to pay attention to design details until every part of the project is clearly identified, even after that i don't jump into design until i know what i want the design to mean. Caring for fancy logo is like to walk into a sport clothing store, pick out a team jersey you like best without knowing what sport they play, where they are located and who plays for them, it just doesn't make sense.

There is a clear different between a fancy logo (pretty logos) and functional logos. Logos should be designed with a printing methods in mind, they also have to be web ready and be able to fit within the layout of a site, but most importantly, they should reflect who you are as a company and what you stand for with your branding and strategy. Pretty logos are dime a dozen and they changed often for their lack of functionality and the problems they cause when it comes to promoting, printing and mentally establishing them. Functional logos are cost money, they normally as a part of corporate identity package (business card, letterhead, invoice, envelope) and they also come with a guide book of how the logo should be used for different purposes.

Pretty logos can be bought online for $50 or less, even if you hire a designer they won't charge more $250. In my years i've worked on probably 50-60 corporate identity packages and the prices ranged from $5,000 to $125,000 and they are still around to this day, some have even made it big.

So before you jump into finding the flashiest, prettiest, and smartest logo idea, please answer the following questions with as much details as you can:

• What is it my company does best? (industry, market, type of service, benefits)
• How do i want people to see my company? (flashy, expensive, honest, legitimate, new, old, reputable)
• How serious am i with this new business?
• if website, What's the layout of my current site?
• if website, How much information is on each page? (if too much info >> go with simple logo)
• if website, How SMALL the size of the logo might become? (test to see if logo is readable at a really small size)
• How many colors? (more than 3 colors and printing will be really expensive, the magic number is between 2 or 3)
• when the logo is designed, Does it answer all of the above questions?