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Many business owners consider Canva a steal when confronted with how much a logo design can cost them when they shop around for a graphic designer.

It sounds like a good deal. For the low price of $10.99 for a subscription, you can develop a logo and use it for your small business. When you compare it to a $500 fee for a graphic designer’s quality logo design, you might think that they’d be mad to do anything else.

But there are a few catches when you look at the fine print.

There are more things to consider than the price when you are looking to have a logo design for your small business. Formats, usability, and exclusivity are some of the most crucial for small business logos.

I always suggest hiring a graphic designer when looking to create a logo design for your small business. They will be able to have the best expert opinion when creating a logo. The best option would be to hire a logo designer who uses Adobe Creative Cloud exclusively, especially if they know how to use Adobe Illustrator. 

You might consider this overkill when you could create a logo design yourself, but here are a few reasons:

Why use a graphic designer than DIY for your small business logo

You might hear yourself saying: “Why do I need to hire a graphic designer for my business start-up logo?” 

You’d be surprised at how often this comes up when I talk to clients.

You might feel like you struck gold when you find logos on Canva, Creative Market, or a logo-generating website. You see all the options and are star-struck with the creative seen there, and only at a fraction of the cost of a graphic designer’s services.

 What you don’t see on those pre-made logo websites is that various other small businesses have used those logos. It doesn’t matter where they are or where you’ve found them. Those logos are somewhere else and being seen by other clients for those businesses.

A graphic designer will produce a unique logo for your small business. The concept doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it does have to be unique to your small business.

Add the fact that graphic designers will know other effects to create your business’ logo. If you decide to do it yourself, you might not know how to use Adobe Illustrator well enough to create what you want or, at best, you can’t create it to the degree that an experienced graphic designer could.

What can Canva offer you with a logo design

Canva is a great resource when you want to find inspiration for your business’ logo design. Canva also offers many other options when it comes to social media template designs, but it shouldn’t be your end goal with a free or $10.99 subscription for your business logo.

If you feel stuck in what you want in your logo design, look into what Canva offers. Maybe you can find ways to incorporate elements into your business’ logo. If nothing else, you may discover aspects to avoid so you can set your business apart from the competition.

When you output your business logo design from Canva, you also lose a few options. 

Canva will only export their content in the forms of jpegs and lower resolutions. When it comes to social media graphics, that can be reasonable. In the future, you’ll need more options to make an effective logo design.

Canva also holds particular or all rights to your logo design imagery. Each logo designed is not exclusive to your business, and imaging has certain limits.

What can Adobe offer you with a logo design

Now that you know what Canva has to offer for your business logo design, I’ll give you a few reasons why Adobe Creative Cloud is the better and best choice when creating a logo design for your small business.

Customizable

When you hire someone who knows how to use Adobe Illustrator, you’re able to customize it. 

You might have an idea or no idea about what or how you want your business’ logo design to look. There is no wrong way to approach that concept. Either way, your logo designer will and should have an idea about how to determine how to proceed. 

Every logo design can reflect the ideas and preferences of a business owner’s goals. We can change colors, fonts, and shapes to your heart’s content.

Proper formats

Many business owners don’t have a clear idea of how many formats a logo design needs to be fully functional. 

A logo design should have four formats to work on multiple platforms: .jpg, .pdf, .png, and .eps. A quality graphic designer will know this and provide these formats to a business owner. If a business owner decides to use Canva or any other logo design software available to them, they will most likely only get the .jpg version.

Graphic designers will also be able to help you identify and utilize each of these formats effectively.  

High Resolution

When you create a logo design in Canva, you’re most likely only going to have a version suitable for the web. This format will mean you have about 72 to 150 dpi.

A graphic designer will be able to provide higher resolutions when they use Adobe Illustrator. You should have at least 300 dpi for a higher resolution and, if they are in vector format, they will have the ability to be used on more significant projects.

Depending on the project, a low resolution could work, but you should always have access to your logo design in higher resolution and vector formats.

If you’re looking for a logo designer for your small business, see if my services fit your style. You can see my portfolio and my services to see what support I can offer you.

You might just be looking for more help with your visuals for your small business. If that’s the case, look into joining my bi-weekly newsletter to learn about various graphic design ideas and tips.