Chapter 2: Finding Logo Design Inspiration
You walk down a busy street in a bustling city on an average Friday night. What do you see? Color. Shape. Light. So many images clamor for your attention—even if you’re not under all the flashing neon displayed on Times Square.
You see signs. You see fonts, and icons—and ultimately you see branding. But where did all these ideas come from?
One of the first steps that’s often overlooked for a logo design project is finding an inspiration. That’s easier said than done. We’re definitely building upon other people’s ideas.
We don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, because we want to use successful design elements that work. But it’s also important that we remember: No matter how well a certain combination of elements may work—we don’t want to steal someone else’s wheel.
That’s why researching successful logos, symbols, pictures, icons, shapes, and colors that ultimately create an “ah-ha” moment for your client or consumer is a key factor in success. This process leads to the best possible logo design.
How to Find Logo Design Inspiration: A Tried and True Tool
Where do you find logo inspiration?
Whether it’s from that commercial you just saw on TV, or the billboard you saw driving down the road, we are inundated with design inspiration everywhere we go. We subconsciously take in this inspiration wherever we go—many times without even noticing it.
So how is that process translated into a logo? Each person has their own method.
Some of the best logos produced before the Internet were inspired by socializing, walking in the park—traveling to new places, or just staring into space until all of the atoms came together to form an idea.
Have you ever done a Google search for a term and had trouble finding exactly what you were looking for? Searching for high quality, targeted logo design inspiration can be just as difficult.
For instance, if you do a search for “creative logo design”, results pop up and you click. You might find yourself scrolling through a ton of outdated designs. You click the back button, scroll and click on another one.
Back button again, click, scroll and so on. I grew weary of all the searching.
When I plugged in “logo inspiration tool” and “logo inspiration generator” and there was nothing out there to find logo design inspiration more efficiently.
So, to help you and your business to find targeted, high-quality logo inspiration in one location, the Logo Inspiration Generator Tool was born.
It offers hundreds of different ways to move forward with your logo and get targeted ideas for a unique, timeless design.
And really, there are countless benefits:
- It’s Free!
- It’s a quick, easy to use resource
- You’ll save time by finding highly targeted resources all in one location
- Instant delivery of premium quality, hand-picked logos
- Links to logo designs based on category type (blue, modern, creative, etc.)
- You can choose colors based on your preferences
- Links are regularly updated to keep the tool fresh and applicable
How the Logo Design Inspiration Generator Works
Here’s how it works…
Once you go to courtrightdesign.com/logo-design-inspiration-generator-tool, click on a category and the tool will auto-generate links to blogposts based on the criteria that you set.
It may be easier to do a quick Google search for “logo inspiration tool” and it should be right at the top.
You will have countless options for high-quality, professional logos in less than a second by choosing different styles, colors and other characteristics.
For quality’s sake, all the links generated by this tool were closely inspected and narrowed down so you only receive the very best inspiration for your logo. Out of all the logos researched, only about 25% were chosen for the logo inspiration.
I created it to fill a need…plain and simple. After the tool was shared nearly 4,000 times on social media in less than a year, it solidified that there was a true need for this kind of tool.
The amazing feedback from designers, entrepreneurs and marketers has been overwhelming. I couldn’t be happier how this tool has helped so many people along the way, and I’m constantly encouraged by your kind words. So…thanks!
Here’s a more in depth look at the tool…
Under “Style”
• Creative
• Modern
• Minimalist
• Vintage
• Abstract
• Luxurious
• Organic
• Flat
• Type-based
• Monogram
Under “Color”
• Multicolor
• Blue
• Red
• Yellow
• Orange
• Green
• Pink
• Black & White
Under “Miscellaneous”
• (Latest) Trend Report
• (Previous Year) Trends
• Logo Design Process
• Hidden Meanings
• Big Brands Evolved
• Styles & Techniques
• Double-Take Logos
• Meanings of Color
• Punctuation Inspired
• Origami Inspired
“Miscellaneous” also gives you tips on creating logos if you are stuck on coming up with ideas, or just want to look at different techniques. There are some clever logo design inspiration ideas hidden in these links that will spark your imagination.
The logo design generator is meant to provoke your artistic brain and get your juices flowing on a variety of topics related to logo design. It’s the best way to get started if you don’t have any other ideas or if you just want to see what current businesses are doing in a related industry.
Benefits of Using the Logo Inspiration Generator Tool
In order to get started on any project, sometimes it’s best to look at what’s been done and what’s current in the design world. This tool offers hundreds of ways to inspire your design and get targeted ideas for a unique logo.
Once you start finding different designs and looking at different uses of color for logos, you start to see the shape of your own logo. At this point, you should be taking notes or saving links of your favorite logos. Overall, the Logo Inspiration Generator Tool makes the inspiration process even easier. It makes a science out of finding 
everything you need to help create the right logo for your brand.
Other Resources for More Logo Inspiration
Logo inspiration can come from anywhere. Here are a few resources to help you find inspiration:
1. Go Online, but Be Picky
There are a ton of avenues for finding logos online. You can do a quick search for competitors and related businesses in your field to see other logos. This method requires little output on your end, and will give you ideas — but the ideas won’t be very specific. And if you run with the first idea you see, and don’t at least consider what you like from the others, the odds are high that you’ll just recreate someone else’s design.
When looking online for logo design inspiration, you also want to be specific about color choices. Adobe Kuler can help you select themes that will go with your design idea. There are a ton of different resources for color pickers, but Kuler has a lot of users and it’s one of the most well-made online color scheme generators out there.
And really, there’s no reason you can’t be inspired by a series of colors that worked well for someone else if they work well with the associations you want to make for your brand.
The important aspect of design here is to know what you’re trying to communicate with the features you choose. It’s why I designed my tool with the categories I chose.
2. Find Blogs and Sites Dedicated to Logo Design
Logo design sites are abundant. They will probably give you hundreds of ideas, but you should only be picking the best logo design ideas from this pool.
One good resource is 99 Creative Logo Designs for Inspiration by Awwwards. Awwwards is a great site for finding logos and web designs to match. The site contains hundreds of award-winning designs. It’s important that you don’t steal any of these designs, but it can be helpful to see how different ideas come to life or how colors can be used with different shapes.
This site also has a lot of modern design choices to look at. What you want to do here is examine the elements you like about the logo and take 
some time to think about why you like them, and what makes them work.
3. The Old School Approach
There’s no shame in taking your process old school, and going beyond the computer screen.
If you need a logo for an Italian restaurant, go to the source itself! Check out other Italian restaurants. You could also think about the elements of Italian cuisine and even go to a bookstore and flip through pages of books on Italian travel.
It doesn’t hurt to take an hour or two to find something that’s tangible and related to your line of work. Why pass up the chance for some authentic pasta, and an authentic taste of that experience in your design?
Infringement vs. Inspiration
Logo inspiration will come from every direction for some designers. It’s important that you always work in an original point of view and design angle. You never want to copy another logo as that will potentially land you in a legal battle with another company.
The last thing you or your designer wants is to go back to the drawing board after publishing a logo that was copied.
It goes without saying that we should take infringement very seriously. But—if we were to discuss why, the answer would be very simple. You not only take credit for someone else’s hard work while using it yourself. You lose a very competitive edge.
You lose your sense of visual singularity.
The scary part? There can be such a fine line between infringement and inspiration. Some of the most well intentioned people can infringe on someone else’s idea without even knowing it.
I once had a client who wanted part of their logo to be designed directly from an icon they purchased on a stock photography site. They essentially wanted me to copy the design, vectorize it and then trademark it as their own.
I had to explain very clearly why this was something that can’t be done. Thankfully, the client was nice as could be. They genuinely didn’t realize this was infringing on someone else’s idea. I only agreed that we could move forward when they wanted to have something more custom designed.
But this wasn’t a one-off occurrence. It happened to me unwittingly when I started to create a logo for a marketing company in Indiana. They left creative direction completely up to me and didn’t express any preferences.
I sketched out an initial logo idea that I was drawn to the most. It was a minimal-concept design, so I thought there could be a small chance that the design was already used in some form. After some research, I found a logo that was just too close to what I drew up. I scrapped the idea and went back to the drawing board.
Whether you’re a designer, entrepreneur, marketer or blogger, take some extra time to make sure your logo idea isn’t infringing on another design (whether you’re well-intentioned or not). It will save you a lot of trouble down the road.
