Bakery Logo Design

This is Part 4 from 125 Building Blocks for Your Bakery Business

This chapter explores all the steps needed to design a winning logo that will make sense, appeal to customers, and work beautifully both in print and on screen.

How to Design Your Logo

Once your brand name has been determined, it’s time to design your logo. If you are doing this yourself, make sure to design it in high resolution, ideally in vector format, so you can scale its size according to your needs. It helps if your logo is relatively square since most social media tools require a square image for your profile pic.
Your logo should be legible in both large and small size. If your logo is full of detail, it will all be lost as soon as it’s condensed. In its most basic format, a logo should not include a tag line. In many cases, the logo does not include the business name either. Think of Apple’s logo, which identifies the brand without words.

My logo does contain my business name, but it’s written in chocolate and surrounded by candy and piped frosting. My entire logo is made of edible materials, which does the job of conveying what the business is about.

I also have a more simplified version of my logo for use as a watermark. When I watermark my work, I don’t want the logo to distract from the photo as much, so I often use the above version instead, which is more muted and subtle than the colorful one.

I’ve got yet another version of my logo that is wide and rectangular, with horizontal orientation for use in mastheads. Again, it is made from edible materials.

You can read more about how I designed these edible logos here: the Graphic evolution of Wicked Goodies.

Market Test It

A great way to test out your logo options is to post them on social media and ask your followers to vote on which ones they like the best. Ask for feedback. Listen to what people have to say. Most people are delighted to vote on their favorite and provide their opinions.

Even though friends and family are great and willing advice-givers, it’s more important to test your brand logo on fellow professionals and/or your potential consumer audience. Visit the Facebook groups and chat forums where industry folks hang out. Test your ideas there. Industry professionals are far more likely to have helpful advice.

Collect All the Right Files

You will need high-resolution files of your logo for print documents such as pamphlets, menus, signs, and letterhead. You will need web resolution files for website and social media profile pics. You can always turn a high-resolution file into a low-resolution one but it doesn’t work the other way around. Don’t pay any graphic designer fully for their services unless they have supplied you with high-resolution files. Ideally, you want to collect all of the following:

Logo File Types

EPS = master vector file. It contains all the components of the original design in layers so that any designer can modify any aspect of it. It’s the only type of file that can be resized both up and down.
AI = the same thing as an EPS but is compatible only with Adobe Illustrator (relevant only if the original designer used Adobe Illustrator).
TIFF (or TIF) = large, uncompressed file used for editing and printing.
JPEG = most common, lightweight, universally accepted format for images (best for photos).
PNG = second most common accepted format. Looks better than JPEG when it comes to illustrations but is a heavier sized file. Allows option for transparency (no background) so it’s good for watermarking.
GIF = third most common accepted format. It looks better for illustrations. It’s not as good for photos. It also allows options for transparency so may also be used for watermarking.

The advantage to the transparency option available in PNG and GIF formats is that you can overlay your logo on any photo without a white background filling in the spaces around the shape. JPEG does not allow for this option. A JPEG will always be square or rectangular-shaped like a photo, even if the image it contains is not.
When it comes to JPEG, GIF, and PNG, a person with photo or image-making software should be able to convert your logo from one format to another without too much trouble, as long as they have access to high-resolution files. They will not be able to convert JPEG, GIF, and PNG to EPS or AI files however. That’s why it’s important to get an original copy of the vector file from your designer, if you hired one.