If you’re looking for affordable ways to work on your small business branding, you may consider going to Fiverr to get your logo designed. The service is cheap and fast, but understanding how it works will help you get the best logo design from Fiverr.

How does Fiverr work?

Fiverr provides a whole range of business services that are extremely low cost. You can hire freelancers to do data entry, programming, writing, and even legal work. Many of the offerings are related to graphic design and marketing your business. Most of the services start at five dollars, hence the name Fiverr.

Just so you understand the lingo, a service offered on Fiverr is called a Gig. The service is offered by the Seller (in this case a freelance designer), and bought by the buyer.

Unlike many logo design contest sites like 99 Designs, with Fiverr you choose a seller to work with and you pay upfront for their service.

How to buy a logo from Fiverr

Let’s walk through the steps you’ll take on the Fiverr website. Logo design is a popular service on Fiverr so you can usually find a link directly to it from nearly any page.

The top of the page poses a question to you about how you want to work the Fiverr sellers, but the lower part of the screen immediately begins showing you lists of seller profiles.

Your first choice is to answer the question: Do you have a specific design in mind? Your options are:

• I know what I want
• I need a design partner

Let’s say you choose the first option, “I have a clear vision in my mind and just need someone to execute.” Then, the screen asks you to choose a design style.

Fiverr gives you seven design styles to choose from. If you know what you want, hopefully one of these options resonates with you.

If from the beginning, you choose, “I need a design partner”, then you get the following choice to make next.

The options are:

• Sophisticated & modern
• Fun & friendly
• Corporate
• I don’t know

But in reality, every single choice brings you back to the same 7 design style options.

You then have one final question about what types of files you want in the end. See below for details about that.

That’s it!

No matter what buttons or choices you seem to be making, you are only answering one question, and it’s about your design style. The only choice you are making is between these seven design styles:

• Flat
• Signature
• 3D
• Watercolor
• Mascot
• Hand-drawn
• Vintage

Finally, Fiverr gives you a “personalized list of Logo Designers.”

Clearly, this is a large list of designers who have checked the same design style keyword that you listed. Therefore there are still thousands of options. It’s now your job to figure out who to work with and how to get your logo design job completed satisfactorily.

How to find the best Fiverr logo designer

The other option, whether or not you bothered with the fairly useless questions at the top, is to review the sellers directly.

The challenge with Fiverr is that you have a huge number of sellers, but it’s hard to figure out who are the good ones. If you ask around, you’ll hear good, bad and even great reviews from people who have worked with freelancer logo designers on Fiverr.

There are nearly 3,500 sellers listed in the category of logo design. No one has time to review all those options. When you consider that they range from very creative, trained designers to hacks who steal images from the web, you need to figure out how to find the good ones.

There are several ways to refine your results. On the left-hand side of the results, you’ll see several groupings of checkboxes that will help you focus on the best seller for your job.

Style

One of the ways you can refine your list of sellers is to to sort by style. You may recognize this list, it is the same 7 categories we mentioned above, plus a new one called “Versatile.” I am guessing versatile means the ability to work in more than one style.

Delivery Time

You also have options about how quickly the sellers will work. In addition to being cheap, Fiverr logo designers work really fast.

I spent some time reading reviews of people’s experience with Fiverr and many explained that some of the sellers end up flipping this around to your detriment when you have a fast turn around. For example, if you choose a 24-hour turn-around and want to get in numerous rounds of revisions, you can’t drag your feet. The logo designer is pretty much hoping to be done with the project in a day. You may want some time to think about the options presented, show them to friends, or figure out how to give the proper feedback.

You may feel rushed with the fast service times.

Fiverr seller levels

You may want to begin by filtering out new or low-level designers. Everyone new to the platform starts as a new seller. They work their way up by completing more gigs, earning more money and having good ratings. You can read more details here. It’s hard to say that the levels will correspond with better design work for a few reasons:

• Everyone starts at level one. So, there may be a great designer who is just getting started with Fiverr.
• Like many online services, there is extreme pressure to give high ratings. Most people will always give 5-star reviews, and give 4-star reviews when there is a significant problem. It is very rare to see a 1, 2 or 3-star review because of peer pressure. I read through a lot of reviews of people’s experience with Fiverr and was surprised by how many told tales of being unsatisfied yet paid the seller, gave a good review and even paid a tip!
• Except for top-rated sellers, it’s a completely automated ranking system. Meaning, people can be completing a lot of bad (but well-reviewed) work and continue up the levels.

Seller language

Finally, you can see what language the sellers indicate that they speak. If you are not an English speaker, this could be helpful to find someone who shares your native language. However, if you are an English speaker, there are many complaints about sellers with very poor English language skills which make it difficult to communicate instructions and feedback.

Review seller profiles

Eventually, you’re going to have to start looking at a whole bunch of seller profiles. Every profile includes examples of their work.

Start by looking at the listings to find people who have samples that you like and have good ratings. Be aware of these issues as you try to spot the goods ones and avoid the bad ones:

• Many sellers showcase about two or three good logo designs, but when you keep scrolling, the quality gets really poor.
• Many sellers include images in their portfolios that they didn’t even design. They’ve been ripped off from web image searches or other online logo showcases. These can be difficult to spot, but some even have a watermark from somewhere else. If you’re not sure, you can use the contact button and ask the seller about the work they are showcasing.
• If a seller has their own website with portfolio samples, definitely check it out. You’ll get to see more of their design work and learn more about them.

The service is so cheap, you have little to risk and that is probably the best mindset to take. Many people admit to hiring multiple designers with the idea that the entire cost is still so low it’s worth it.

Which gig option is best?

Every seller has options for levels of gigs—basic, standard, premium. Each seller uses these names, but each seller individually determines the price and the options included in each tier.

There are some important details that are frequently included with different tiers:

• The number of design concepts.
• The number of revisions. It’s a little unclear how they define a revision vs. a concept. Playing devil’s advocate, it’s seems with unlimited revisions you will eventually get unlimited concepts.
• Vector files or source files included. Read below for critical information about getting the right files.
• Timeline. Some offer more speed for a higher price.
• Quality. Some have made up different names for their services like “ultra logo design” or “HQ logo”. These are not standard terms but probably relate to the level of effort you can expect from the seller.

How to get the best logo design from Fiverr

After you’ve narrowed down your sellers to one (or a few) you will begin working together. Unlike working with a branding firm who can provide you guidance and professional expertise, it will be your job to take the lead. Do not expect a Fiverr logo designer to help you much beyond executing on a design. The more prepared you are to work with your seller(s) the better results you have.

You need to be very clear about what you want and be able to communicate that vision.

Remember, these designers are working absurdly fast, they do not have time to do any research.

5 details to share with your Fiverr logo designer

There are essential elements that will help you communicate with your designer about the type of logo design you want.

1. What makes your product or service special. Make sure you state what benefits you want to be visualized in your logo. Imagine you have a restaurant. Any restaurant can have a logo with a fork and knife. But what are the traits you wish to make emphasize? Is it casual or formal? What type of cuisine? Is it unusual or traditional? You’ll need to identify and explain the unique features of your product or service. Explain how these traits are different and special. Let them know what attributes you want to focus on. Only with these details can someone create something that brings to mind the ideas you want.
2. Find other logos that you like. This is a very simple way to make sure that you and your designer are on the same page. Share examples of other logos that have elements that you like such as colors, fonts, the arrangement of elements, abstract vs. literal, illustrative style, etc. Make sure you describe specifically what element that you like in every logo that you share.
3. Give creative direction. The more detailed you can be about what fonts you like/dislike or what colors you like/dislike the better the results.
4. Describe your ideal customer. Make sure you tell your designer what type of people you want to attract with the logo. It’s up to you to carefully detail who your prospects will be. Are your ideal customers buttoned-up lawyers or Brooklyn hipsters or suburban tween girls? You will want to describe who you are selling to and make sure the designer understands who they are. Remember, many of the designers are foreigners so make sure they understand who you are describing.
5. Tell them how you will use the logo. A good logo should be easily used in all sorts of applications: your website, business cards, signs, t-shirts, etc. But if you have a specific application, especially if it’s unusual, make sure you’ve told your designer. Some examples might be: you need a black and white version for silkscreening; you need a horizontal version for a website banner; you need it to go alongside another logo for a sister brand you’ve already developed.

Communicate clearly

Secondly, you need to make sure all the details you have in your head get communicated clearly. Use vocabulary that will not get misunderstood and back it up with examples.

Let me start by saying that from the reviews I’ve read, many Fiverr designers are not native English speakers and have widely varying amounts of graphic design education or training. But I’m going to make a few assumptions here, that if you communicate clearly on your end, it will help the process regardless.

Start by choosing some adjectives that describe the style you like. Then, try to find examples of other logos or brands that fit this style. Use both words and graphic examples.

After years of running a design and branding firm, I know that people use design words that they don’t fully understand.

Requesting a ‘simple’ logo design

The most common example of an overused and misunderstood idea is when people look for a “simple” logo design.

The hallmark of any well-designed logo design is the ability to reduce a business into the most essential items. With only a few exceptions, most logo designs should be simple or minimal.

Looking at Fiverr, the “Flat/minimalist” style has the largest group of sellers who have tagged their work in this style. It is nearly four times more than any other individual category. I would argue that many other design styles should always be minimalist as well. For example, “mascot” is another Fiverr logo design style. When you think of all the sports teams that have mascot logos, they are all minimal in style. These are not Audubon wildlife engravings. These are logos.

Using incorrect words

If you are not trained as a designer you may be incorrectly using some designer terms (or, the seller may have an incorrect understanding of a term you use correctly). So always try to give a concrete example for everything.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point. I once had a client tell me that she wanted an easy-to-read, sans serif typeface. So I came back with designs using these types of fonts (Futura, Arial, Helvetica). The client looked a the designs and seemed frustrated and confused and said, “No, I wanted a sans serif font.” When I ask for an example of fonts she’d like me to consider she said Times New Roman or Garamond. Those are serif fonts! She had the words mixed up.

Always show what you want, in addition to using words.

Make sure you get the source files

Finally, make sure you get the right files from your designer when you complete the gig.

There are several times along the way when you need to decide what types of files you want to receive when the project is complete. Many of the sellers provide different types of files depending on the tier of service you want to pay for.

If you used the “Find your logo designer” tool, one question you are asked is “Will you need to edit your logo?”

You’ve probably learned that your logo design should be fixed. Any branding expert will tell you that you should not be adjusting your logo. But it is the wrong answer to say “no” here because that means you will not get the “source file”.

You will definitely want the source file, even if you never edit it because this is the best quality file. Take my word, you want this file!

Logo file types on Fiverr

You will find that Fiverr logo design sellers use the terms “source file” and “vector file”. Like many things on Fiverr, there is not a universal definition of these terms. A vector file means that the logo design has been created using a vector based program, usually Adobe Illustrator, rather than a pixel based program like PhotoShop. Vector files scale from very tiny to billboard-size without seeing any degradation in the look of the design. By contrast, a pixel-based file will start to look very poor if you try to scale it too big. If you’ve ever tried to scale a graphic you pulled from a website, you know what I’m talking about.

Always pay for the vector file like an Adobe Illustrator (.ai file) or Illustrator eps (.eps) file from any seller you work with.

The term source file is a little ambiguous. Some designers may have a source file where the design elements are still in layers. Sometimes, the type within the logo design is “live” which means it is editable. You’ll need to have the specific font to be active on your computer to make it work, but this could be important if there’s any chance that your business name will change.

Conclusion: How to use Fiverr to get the best logo design

Fiverr is extremely cheap and fast. It’s hard to match the low-cost using any other logo design service. But to get a logo that truly represents your brand and has a professional look and feel to it, plan for some hard work on your part.

Before you start

Before you engage a seller, create a clear creative brief. This should outline:

• how you visualize your brand
• your likes and dislikes with fonts, colors, imagery
• a clear description of your ideal customer
• a description of what makes your product or service unique and what attributes you want to focus on

During the logo design process

Don’t engage a seller unless you have the time to put into the process. Be prepared to:

• react to design concepts and give clear feedback
• use the right words, along with examples to get what you want
• keep the project moving quickly to match the seller’s turn-around schedule

After the gig is over

Hopefully, you get a logo you love! Save all the vector files. Even if you don’t use the files, your other partners may request them in the future. Frequently, printers or other designers may need the vector or eps version of your logo to design your website, social media channels, or other marketing materials.

If you did not get a great logo, you’ll have to determine if trying another seller will go any better. Not everyone working on Fiverr is well-trained, able to follow direction or capable of creating something you like.

Also, it may be a wake-up call that you do not have a clear vision for your logo and brand. Or are unable to clearly express your idea to others.

Tip: Now that Branding Compass offers wordmark logo designs, you may want to consider that instead of relying on Fiverr. A logo from Branding Compass will be based directly on your unique brand insights and designed specifically to attract your ideal customer. Plus, you’ll be able to to choose colors and fonts directly from your branding report and work with a professional designer to get a logo you love.

Branding Compass now offers wordmark logo designs

A logo from Branding Compass will be based directly on your unique brand insights and designed specifically to attract your ideal customer.

get a logo you love