Last updated on December 6th, 2021
A company must have a unique logo so that it gives your business an edge over your other competitors in the market. A logo is a visual language to draw the attention of target audience towards the values a company stands for. Unique logos are preferred over logos having cliched elements to avoid legal copyright issues.
Let’s Take A Look At The Unique Logos To Avoid The Copyright Issues
01. The Importance Of Unique Logo Design
For businesses, a logo design that stands out is important in many ways. A logo is not just a symbol that represents a business. The logo appears in all the marketing materials of a company. A logo is present on a company’s products or services, which the customers see as a first proof that those products belong to that company.
A logo is a visual also for drawing the attention of potential customers. If the visual is attractive and memorable, it will help in catching the customers’ eyes. This is important to compete in a tough market where there are already many new and established businesses.
When a logo design has a sophisticated look, it sends a good message to the audience. This means that the business logo is helping in building a trustworthy image of the business. Most importantly, a logo is printed on a varied of materials such as brochures, websites, leaflets, business cards etc. if the logo is unique, it will add value to your marketing campaign.
For example, a memorable logo will further enhance the value of a business card design of the company. This way, a logo is capable of enhancing the quality level of a marketing campaign.
Every business makes efforts to build brand identity in markets. The identity is essential to stand out in the competitive market where many small to big business are present. With a brand identity, a business can think of converting its customers into loyal buyers of products or services.
However, when you create a logo, make sure that it is a unique design. It should not contain any elements that are the direct infringement of the copyright of the original logo. In that case, your logo design will invite the legal penalties from the original logo owner.
02. Copyrights Matter
Copyright implies that the owner of the design has the exclusive right to commercial use and reproduction. It is important that the design should belong to you in a legal way. For those designers who aspire to make it big professionally, it is particularly important that you create a logo or any other design such as book cover designs should be a legal piece. So, you must avoid any borrowed graphics in your logo design.
The designers should be aware of the things that they cannot have copyrights over. These things include titles, names, slogans, calendars, symbols, variations of letterings or colorings, and measurement charts. Most of these are protected by trademarks. Know that copyrighting is an act of using a trademarked item in varied ways such as citing a text or design as your own, using it in advertisements etc.
There are copyright laws that every designer should follow. Make sure that you are not infringing the copyrights of others in your logo design. Unfortunately, mall and medium-sized business owners often do not care about designing a unique logo and original logo for their business.
They want to save money and use clip art and stock images in a logo, which is also a quick way to have a company logo in place. Business owners make this mistake very often by offering their logo design job to an amateur who has no clue about copyright laws.
Copyright issues are most frequently rise for the business owners when they reach the authorities to own such a unique Logo. For copyrights over a logo, it is essential that its design must be unique, which means that it must not look similar to other designs and arrangement of the elements of colors, fonts, lines etc. must be unique.
It may be that if you are using a stock vector image, it has been already used by someone elsewhere since its downloading is freely accessible to all. This implies that your logo design is no longer unique. Moreover, spotting stock vectors in logos is pretty easy as they have familiar shapes such as silhouettes and globes.
A surefire way to avoid legal issues is to create your logo in your own way using unique elements. It should be your own design that has no borrowed elements of colors, typefaces, symbols, images etc.
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03. Avoid Stock Images
Make sure that you do not incorporate any stock images in your logo design. A unique logo has no cliched elements including the stock images. Such a logo will lose its credibility and the trust of customers. The customers will easily know that the logo design has some borrowed elements. This does not speak well for a business that such a logo represents. People take such a business less seriously and it impacts them negatively.
Another issue with the use of stock images is that they are often only for personal use and not for commercial purpose. Often, designers fall into the trap. They think that they can use the images anywhere. But logo creation is a commercial activity when the logo is used for a business. So, owner of the stock image may sue you in the court of justice. You may have to pay a heavy penalty for using the images for a non-personal purpose.
Downloading stock images from websites is easy but you will be facing troubles when you incorporate those images in a logo or website design. There are many websites which allow you to download stock vector image. Business owners think that since they can download, they can use the image without any issues. But that is usually not the case and instead, they come across several troubles.
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04. Use Your Own Logo Concept
To create a unique logo, have your own concept for the logo. You can get one such concept by quickly drawing many concepts on a piece of paper. You will have 5-6 sketches from your own thinking and brainstorming. Those concepts will be your original drawings. Then, select one of them and develop it further into a professional logo.
05. Use The Colors Strategically
Another key point to create a unique logo is to pick your colors in your own strategic way. Every business has a different brand message to deliver to its target audience. Research the business to find out its core message, depending on its specialty. Then, select some colors that best convey the message. Colors evoke emotions. These emotions then help make an impression on the minds of the potential customers.
So, choose the colors that can evoke an intended feeling. This means that if you know your brand message, your choice of colors will be unique. Most importantly, take a good look at website design of your client. Use the colors used on the website and other graphic designs such as a brochure.
06. Use Legal Typefaces Only
One of the legal issues that arises regarding a logo is that it has the use of a typeface that is not protected under copyright rules. Though many expensive typefaces are now freely available online still they may not be available free for commercial use.
Other typefaces may still be under copyright rules. So, find out that the typeface you are using is free of copyright issues. If there is a need to take permission, take it before using it in your logo design.
A safe way to use typeface is to visit brochure design and other graphic designs materials of your client. Then, you can take the typeface used in the brochure, hoping that it will be a legal font. But consult your client if the typeface used in the design is legal or not.
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07. Hire A Professional Designer
A professional logo designer understands the significance of a logo and will ensure that it is free of any legal issues. So, the designer will ascertain the unique use of colors, typeface, images etc elements. An experienced designer will discuss the logo concept with clients.
Moreover, the designer will come out with a logo that stands out. This means that the logo will look unique amongst the competitors’ logo, eliminating any legal issues by graphic design jobs.
To get unique logo concept, you can crowdsource your logo work to Designhill, which is a leading marketplace for business owners and graphic designers. At this marketplace, you will find dozens of new logo design ideas delivered to you by as many graphic designers.
Your investment in the logo is entirely safe and secure as the site has 100% Money Back Guarantee policy. We hope that these key points will help you avoid copyright issues when designing your logo.
Conclusion
Copyright issues make a logo design controversial and time-consuming for a business. You have to fight legal battle to save your logo. So, create a unique logo design that is based on your brand message. Make sure that your logo has the use of only specific colors, typeface, symbols etc elements. Avoid using stock images and stock symbols in your logo.