If you’ve been following my posts in the past, you know that most of what I post relates to writing, reading or fiction in one way or another. However, every now and then I stumble upon something that just makes me pause and look a little closer. This time it’s actually not an app specifically for writers, although you will see that it could come in handy.

What Is It?

The app that made me look twice this time around is called DesignEvo (https://www.designevo.com). It’s a completely web-based app with one simple goal: help you design a unique logo for you to use, whether it be for use with your business card, website or stationary. It could be for a business, book or maybe even an app.

How Do You Do It?

The process itself is simple. Go to their website and click on Make A Free Logo. On the next page, you’ll be presented with the easiest option to accomplish this. Pick a logo design and associated font for your logo from an existing library of designs and then customize it to your heart’s content.

If you prefer to go the independent route and do something of your own, you can do that as well. The app has a library of thousands of icons in a variety of categories. Match that with a unique font and it won’t take you long to actually create something unique.

Once the logo is complete, you download it. This takes the form of either a free download for a low-resolution version of the logo, or you pay for print-ready versions.

What To Use It For

The question then becomes, what would you actually use this for? After all, don’t most businesses get their own logo made and spend thousands of dollars on market research and such?

Yes, the big ones certainly do. However, if you’re a writer or another creative person that isn’t that handy with the artsy part of creating but just need something basic, I think DesignEvo could do the trick. It could be a logo for your website, a title for your book or maybe even something for that podcast or YouTube channel you’re working on.

Giving It A Go

Naturally, I had to take this app for a spin and see what I could do with it. As it turns out, I had the perfect subject matter: a short story.

Ok, wait. A logo for a short story? Yes, kind of. I have a short story that has been brewing in the back of my mind for over a year. It’s one of those futuristic, sci-fi tales that just have to have some sort of a bad guy. In this tale, there’s a corporation (good or evil, I won’t tell) that plays a major role: Foresight Industries.

Like I said, I’ve had this in my mind for a while and I even have something of a rough outline for it. In fact, it’s a bit more than a short story since it involves some other media aspects too and it is for these “other” things (which you’ll find out more about some other time) that the logo for Foresight Industries is needed.

So, with a goal in mind, I got to it. On the homepage, simply click Create Free Logo and you’ve started the process.

Next, you have to decide whether you want to use one of the many thousands of templates or go your own way. In DesignEvo, a logo consists of the name and the icon. Both are included in the templates but both can also be individually picked and matched.

I opted for the latter after a bit of browsing and clicked Start from Scratch in the upper right corner. Again, if you prefer to just pick a template, just click through one of the many categories on the left until you find one that works for you.

At this point, you’ll find yourself in the editor. This is where you compose your logo using the three available elements: icon, text and shape.

I began with the text. I was looking for something a bit futuristic in nature. Scrolling through the various fonts and trying some here, some there, I finally found a couple that works for Foresight Industries.

Then, I wanted some sort of logo, also with an eye to the future. This is a bit tricker and it took a bit longer to find what I was looking for. The key here is, well, search for keywords. In my case, my icon was found under the keyword future. How appropriate.

In my case, since this is merely for a fictional story, I was done after adding a splash of green to the background and changing the actual size a bit. I downloaded the logo for later use in my…project.

However, if you want to use a logo you create here for more professional purposes, you should consider one of the paid packages. The free download provides a very basic image file in low resolution. Here’s what the download looks like:

In other words, it wouldn’t be ideal for printing but it’s definitely good enough for my purposes. Review the different pricing structures and what they provide, especially from the perspective of copyright and trademark licensing is important.

Conclusion

Is DesignEvo worth using? Well, it depends. For someone like myself that is as at home in Photoshop and Gimp as I am driving a car, I can easily whip up a logo like the one above myself. I admit, however, that the icon itself would take significantly more time and the time it takes to find a good font with a good license also can take hours. So, from that perspective, even though I’m perfectly capable of making something like this myself, I find the convenience of DesignEvo attractive. I suspect that I may end up using it for one project or another in the future.

Should you try it? Well, it’s free to give it a whirl at https://www.designevo.com so you’ve got nothing to lose, right? As for me, now I need to sit down and write the story featuring Foresight Industries…

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