8 of the best free logo design tools

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Creating the perfect logo design is never an easy task. To do the job properly requires a full understanding of the client company's mission, its brand identity and the message it wants to convey, and then the skills to distil all that information into an instantly recognisable visual mark. 

A professional logo design needs a lot of research, plenty of iterations and of course the right tools – almost always Adobe Illustrator CC – but if you're in a rush or simply don't have the budget, there are lots of ways to do a decent enough job online.

Here are eight of the best online tools that can help you create a full-blown logo, or at least build some concept that can later be worked up into a finished design. All of them are free to use and most will let you download a low-resolution version of your logo for free, however if you need a scalable vector version of your logo then you'll usually have to pay, but thankfully the prices are all pretty reasonable.

01. Hatchful

Hatchful instantly generates plenty of potential logos to customise

Shopify's Hatchful is one of the easiest free logo makers we've seen; simply feed it a few useful facts about the business you need a logo for, decide on the style of logo you need and how you'll want to use it, and it'll generate a stack of potential logos for you to browse through. Once you've found one that hits the spot, you can adjust the font, palette, icon and layout until everything's just right, and then download your logo in all the forms you're likely to need.

02. Ucraft Logo Maker

For a more hands-on approach, Ucraft's Logo Maker gives you just enough tools to create your own logo from scratch in short order. It's basically a bare-bones vector editor that gives you a big selection of icons to play with and supplement with text, shapes and colour until you achieve the look you're after. You can download your finished logo as a PNG for free; if you'd prefer a scalable SVG you can have it for just $12.

03. LogoMakr

LogoMakr has a friendly front end and lots of options

A slightly more sophisticated option comes in the form of LogoMakr. It offers the same basic tools as Ucraft, but with a friendlier front end and a few more options and fonts to play with; the only thing we'd like to see is the option to use gradients as well as flat fills. Again it's a matter of finding a suitable icon and bringing in all the text and shape elements you need to build your logo design; once you're done you can download a free PNG version, or for $19 you can get it in SVG and PDF flavours.

04. Designhill Logo Maker

Designhill's generated logos look great, but they'll cost you

Designhill's Logo Maker is another easy way to quickly come up with a fantastic-looking logo for practically any company. It starts you off by getting you provide all the basic information it needs – company name and the nature of the business, plus preferred symbols and colour schemes – and then it uses this to generate a collection of professional-looking logos that you can then customise. This part's completely free; once you've hit the right look you'll have to pay to download your logo, with prices starting at £15 for a basic low-resolution file.

05. DesignEvo Free Logo Maker

With over 6,000 templates, DesignEvo gives you almost too much choice

Whether you want to build a logo from scratch or work from a ready-made template, DesignEvo's Free Logo Maker can help you out. It has a searchable selection of over 6,000 templates to choose from, enabling you to quickly find a good starting point for your logo, but if you prefer to do it yourself you can start with a blank layout and build a logo using symbols, shapes and fonts. When you're done you download a free low-resolution logo; for scalable vector versions prices start at $24.99.

06. Tailor Brands Logo Maker

TailorBrands gets a handle on your tastes then generates a logo to match

Using an AI-powered system to generate a suitable logo for your brand, Tailor Brands' Logo Maker is the perfect tool for anyone who can't face scrolling through hundreds of templates to find the perfect logo design. Instead it asks for the name of your business and a description of what it does, as well as getting you to choose between an icon, text or initial-based logo, then it uses a 'This or That' tool to get a handle on the design style you're after. With all that information to hand it goes to work on creating a logo that you can then customise if you want; when you're happy with it you can download a low-resolution for free, or pay for high resolution files.

07. Canva Logo Maker

Canva's Logo Maker is just part of its online design suite

Canva's online design tools cover a whole lot more than logos, but if a logo's all you're after then it's ready and waiting to help you out with its Logo Maker. Like many online logo creators it'll ask you about your company and get you to select a handful of templates you like the look of before it comes up with a design that you can customise using its intuitive tools. There are plenty of free elements to play with; if you need more choice you can pay to use a larger selection of premium elements. Once you're done, you can download your finished logo as a PNG or print-ready PDF for free.

08. MarkMaker

Keep on scrolling and clicking until you hit the perfect logo layout

MarkMaker uses a simple, clever approach to creating the right logo: type in a company name and it'll start generating suggestions, and by clicking on the ones you like it'll create ever more designs informed by your preferences. You can further influence the process by adding information about what your company does. Keep on scrolling and clicking until something crops up that you love, then hit the edit button to fine-tune it; there are loads of options and sliders to play with until you hit that sweet spot, then you can download your logo as a PNG or SVG; both are free, but you can throw in a little donation if you like.

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• 5 logo design apps for beginners

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