The best logo maker is essential for branding your business and standing out online. My team and I have tested the top tools for beginners and professional designers, and everyone in between.
Long before I moved into journalism, I worked in marketing creating written and visual assets. So, I know what it's like when you're looking to design a logo that's right for your business, and how to find the best free logo makers or best graphic design software for the job. For beginner-friendly logo makers, I'm looking for ease of use, helpful templates, and even logo generation. For professional software, I want to see that toolset expand with the likes of layers and effects.
For my money, Canva is still the best logo maker around. This online app goes well beyond logo design, too. It's free, full of assets and elements, and incredibly simple to use, seamlessly slipping into my workflow.
The best logo maker of 2024 in full:
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Best logo maker overall
Canva Logo Maker is our pick for best logo maker. Popular among small businesses, marketing departments, and social media teams, Canva offers features that are as easy to use as they are numerous - totally free.
During our review, we hailed the logo designer as "a good quality service with excellent, easy to use tools, Canva offers much more than just logo creation, and its free option might be good enough to satisfy most in need of a new brand for their business. "
The logo-making option will satisfy anyone looking for a quick way to make a logo for free. But the full design tool kit that Canva unlocks when you subscribe might entice many to stick around even longer.
Like all Canva tools, the design process is very simple. Once you’ve logged in, you’re presented with a basic yet functional interface.
Customization options are quite extensive, with access to numerous elements, from geometric shapes and graphics, to photos and frames. You can make a logo as simple or as complex as you like. You even have the option of uploading your own media for use in your logo design.
Canva packs a wealth of templates, text effects, and styles (with more available when you sign up for a subscription). And most are fully customizable, from font, to size, to color, position and orientation. Each element uses the same editing interaction, making it fast to learn, and play around until you design the perfect logo.
Canva is much more than a free online logo maker, and its premium pro subscription package adds extra features and brand kits to a design app with video and website builder tools (although, admittedly, it's not one of the best website builders on the market).
All Canva designs are ideal for social media posts, invitations, t-shirts, presentations, flyers, you name it. The only thing missing is a 'logo-only' subscription package.
Read our full Canva review.
Best logo maker for beginners
Customizing your preferred template is very simple and is clearly aimed at someone who doesn’t have too much design experience but wants something that looks good fast.
Of course, this is all about the DIY logo-maker approach. The automated templates Wix offers you are based on some information about your business, and about your general design preferences.
In our hands-on review, we found Wix to be a "lean, efficient, and fast service which will have you create your logo and customize it to your heart’s content". We also noted that "Wix’s wealth of combustibility might make its service worth the one-off asking price." And that earns it the top spot in our round of the best logo maker and designer tools.
As such, this makes Wix the best logo maker for beginners (or creatives in a hurry). You can change colors, alignments of objects in relation to others, add additional shapes, move them around, rotate and resize them, that sort of thing.
The price to get your final product is in line of other competing services. If all you need is a logo for a letterhead on online branding, the cheaper option is ideal. When we previously reviewed Wix's logo maker we noted SVG files were only available on the more expensive plan, but now SVG files available even with cheapest plan - which is a welcome addition.
Read our full Wix Logo Maker review.
Best logo maker for customization
What makes Turbologo one of the best logo designers is its AI automation. It couldn't be easier to design a logo online - the moment you land on the homepage, you're directed to add key information, such as your business name, slogan (if any), and the industry you work in.
Loads of templates, loads of customization and design tools - there's a lot to like about this app, but the automatic logo generator is the real star here. Fill in a few details, make some choices over color, and in seconds, the app presents you with a range of unique logo designs.
You’re given free rein when it comes to editing your logo to perfection. You'll even find support for keyboard shortcuts. Options include adding additional icons or shapes, resizing anything directly on the main preview section, altering colors, and having full control over your fonts.
Turbologo might be one of the best logo makers available, but it's not free. You pay a one-off fee per logo, the price of which varies depending on the features you require (such as a transparent background or social media designs), and if you need the ability to amend your creation from 3 months, or up to a year after you’ve paid for the service.
Read our full Turbologo review.
Best logo maker for businesses
Like Canva, Adobe Express is a massive online design app that offers much more than just logo design. In fact, I'd say there's not much in it between them for most users - and if you're already using other Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, Express will sit nicely in the workflow.
The main logo generation section is very simple to use. Detail your business name, industry, slogan, pick an icon, choose a style. That’s all it takes to generate a selection of modern logos. We found many of the auto-generated logos to be underwhelming. Thankfully, you can get creative and refine the results (or redesign them wholesale), so the logo properly represents your business. Using the free designer on mobile, you can only change to preset colors and fonts - again, simple, but here, limited.
Redesigning a logo in the browser allows for deeper customization. You have greater control over each element, letting you call on a vast library of templates, add free background photos straight from Adobe Stock, or upload your own from your preferred Adobe Stock alternative.
Read our full Adobe Express review.
Best logo maker for simple tasks
Hatchful by Shopify claims to be ideal for designing a logo in seconds. Our experience corroborates this, although speed comes at the expense of customization.
Now, that's going to make Hatchful one of the best logo maker choices for those without photo editing skills - or those without time to craft one. However, if you like to tweak your design to make it the best logo possible, you may well be disappointed. Beyond a few superficial alterations, customization is lacking.
You can make limited tweaks, but during our hands-on review, we noted that, "you can make a small number of alterations, but this is nowhere near what you could do with Adobe’s Logo Creator for instance."
However, if your logo-creating needs are simple, Hatchful’s offering could be for you. After running through the process, you'll come out the other side with high-resolution images suitable for print, websites, or social media.
Read our full Hatchful review.
Best logo generator
If you're a complete beginner and don't have the time to learn how to use the absolute best software for designing a logo, Looka Logo Maker (previously known as Logojoy) is a great choice for you.
It's a web-based service that can auto-generate logos. All you need to do is add your company's name, as well as provide information on what sort of business you offer, as well as picking a few color choices.
Although you can create a logo as a ‘Guest’, you will need to create an account in order to download it and any other accompanying marketing materials Looka logo maker can create for you. You can use the logos Looka Logo Maker creates for you, or simply use it as inspiration to create your own using another service. You need to subscribe to see the logos and to use them in marketing materials.
In our analysis, we felt that Looka's best logo maker was good, but expensive compared to several others we've reviewed. But the logos generated were very nice.
Read the full Looka Logo Maker review.
Best logo maker: FAQs
Can I use graphic design software as a logo maker?
There are a raft of digital art tools that have the power needed for the very best logo makers.
Xara Designer Pro X is one of the best DTP software tools (and one of the best Adobe InDesign alternatives, too). It's a comprehensive graphic design tool that easily handles bitmaps and vectors, illustrations, photo editing, and making a logo. For those wanting to rapidly mock up professional-standard designs, a license gives you access to over a million stock photos and artwork to incorporate, along with hundreds of template layouts and thousands of design elements.
Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard graphic design software for artists. So, it handles logo designing with ease. The tool has a huge amount of features, which might be overwhelming for beginners and smaller businesses unused to the Adobe style. But it's not as difficult to understand as it first looks. It requires a Creative Cloud subscription, which keeps it regularly updated. With Adobe Illustrator, designing logos is made simple, but highly professional.
Affinity Designer is an illustration software package for Windows, Mac, and Linux published by Serif. Although something of a new kid on the block, it's a powerful platform that is extremely cheap by comparison to rivals, with a one-time-buy license. Don't let the price fool you though as this is a very accomplished piece of software, which will help you effortlessly make a logo for your business.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is graphic design software bundle rather than a single application. The everything-you-need-to-make-a-logo-designer includes Photo-Paint for editing photo, AfterShot to handle RAW files, PowerTRACE to convert bitmap images into vectors, and FontManager for organising the text styles you do actually use. The main star, of course, is CorelDRAW itself, which isn't just a vector-drawing package but also includes desktop publishing tools as well. All in all, it's evolved to become one of the best Photoshop alternatives for many tasks.
How do I make a logo?
You can use the best logo makers to create eye-catching designs even if you've never made one before. Logo makers typically employ a drag-and-drop interface, so all you need to do is select vector graphics, choose a color, and move them into position.
If you're brand-new to logo design (or you need a simple logo fast), it may be worth exploring logo generators. These will build a logo based on key information about your business. While these can be altered and edited to match your vision, they won't typically be unique to you, and often lack a professional design.
You can also use the very best logo makers to modify existing logo templates - the design is in place, and all you need to do is switch text and images to those that better suit your brand.
For more logo design tips, see our guide How to make a logo.
How to choose the best logo maker for you
When choosing which logo maker is best, some of the most important factors are:
+ Easy interface - the best logo makers are deliciously simple to navigate and use, making designing a breeze.
+ Price - not every top-quality tool has a cost, some of the best online logo makers are free - although they tend to operate in your browser.
+ Output - high-quality, high-resolution logos in your preferred format are crucial, especially commercial entities seeking pro-level small business apps.
+ Commercial licensing - if you intend to use a free paid-for logo maker for your own business, or sell your creations, you’ll need a commercial license.
+ Access - logo designers on-the-go need ready access to their preferred logo maker, whether it’s on desktop, mobile app, or in the browser.
Overall, when the best logo maker for you, start by reviewing your needs and design skills. Some of the best free logo designers from Canva and Adobe make the process so simple, even beginners can create professional-looking logos. You can even leave it all up to the AI built into many logo making apps, if you prefer.
You’ll also want to have a clear idea of budget. The best logo makers require subscriptions (in the case of Adobe) or one-off payments (like Turbologo), while the others won't charge a penny - at least for basic designing functions.
However, when selecting a free design app, consider whether it’ll be enough in the future. If your design skills develop further or you need more powerful tools, it’s worth picking a logo designer that offers premium features you can later upgrade.
When it comes to displaying your logo, take a look at the export quality and resolutions. A small logo that looks great on your website or business card might not have professional polish when blow-up for a window display.
Finally, it’s really important to choose the best logo maker for your flow. Everyone works differently, creativity strikes in unique ways, so don’t be afraid to try a few to find the one that’s right for you.
How we test the best logo makers
Our team of experts have tested a broad range of creative design apps and tools, including the best digital art and drawing software and the best Adobe Illustrator alternatives. Whether we're comparing the output of top graphic design tools or analyzing user experience for logo makers, we take the same rigorous approach whatever app or platform we test and review.
When we test the best logo makers and designers, user experience and interface is critical to our assessment. With visual design tools like these, users rightly expect it to be relatively simple to start designing a logo.
We also check how powerful additional tools are for users. For example, many logo maker apps offer automated logo generation. But, not all of them let you continue editing and customizing logos after creation.
Any free design apps must be genuinely free, with additional costs and paid features clearly signposted and hidden fees non-existent. For paying users, we look at the value of the pricing model versus alternatives - and whether clear commercial licensing options are available for business.
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