Ep 89: How To Use Your Personal Brand Logos

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Podcast Show Notes

You know that logos are essential for grabbing the attention of your niche audience. But what’s more important about a personal brand logo using a timeless approach is it makes a solid first impression and becomes the foundation of your brand identity.

Inside this article, understand how a logo helps you become reliable and trustworthy to your niche audience. Plus, I share the three logo designs you need for your personal brand and how to use them.

Why You Need a Personal Brand Logo

Just how you discover your core foundation to create your Brand Strategy and the emotional connection with your audience… your logo and brand identity fit right into personal branding.

This brand identity includes your logo, color palette, and other tangible assets. When used correctly and consistently, your brand identity becomes memorable to your audience and instantly separates you from your competitors. 

When you use an authentic, consistent, and timeless logo for your personal brand, you become reliable and trustworthy to your niche audience. Let’s face it, the last thing you want to do is confuse your audience by switching up your logos and aesthetic with constant rebrands. 

What is Branding?

Branding is the intentional process of creating a unique representation of a product, company, service, or YOU in the consumer’s mind. By using a logo alongside your face, you fuel recognition and amplify differentiation. In short, personal branding means making yourself known as a credible and dependable influence in your industry.

So whether you are a service-based business such as a photographer, baker, or painter – or content-based such as a digital influencer, creator, or curator – you are a personal brand and need a logo.

3 Personal Brand Logo Types

When creating logo designs, there are three main types. They include the main logo, alternative logo, and submark logo.

While there is no one way to design a logo, I’m sharing my logo design method to show off your unique style using a timeless approach.

1 – MAIN LOGO

For a personal brand, your main logo is designed using wordmark or combination mark design styles. And wordmark simply means it’s a font-based logo that focuses on your personal brand name.

This text-based logo is sleek and straightforward and says a lot about your brand. For instance, it can contain icons, original handwriting, illustrations, symbols, or initials.

Most of the main logos I create will have your name, a tagline or website, and 1-2 brand elements.

The main logo can be used on your website, printed marketing materials, and professional publications.

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2 – ALTERNATIVE LOGO

The alternative logo is simply a shorter version of your main logo. For example, alternative logos are variations of your main logo, and they can be a logo without the tagline, a stacked version, icon, badge, etc.

In most cases, this is usually the most used logo from your portfolio. At least it is for me!

My alternative logo is my hand-drawn heart icon with my full name.

You can place an Alternative logo in many locations, such as:

• your website/blog (navigation bar, footer, header)
• as an email signature
• your sales pages (product offers)
• landing pages (opt-ins)
• social media posts (very small on quote boxes)
• and so much more.

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3 – SUBMARK LOGO

The Submark logo is a simplified version of your main logo. Submark logos are usually in geometric shapes like circles, rectangles, triangles, squares, etc.  I prefer the minimalistic approach like a monogram or a simple symbol. 

My submark logo is a circle with my hand-drawn initials inside.

You can use a submark logo for:

• social media profile picture (if a company- stick with a headshot for personal brands)
• favicon image (website tab)
• website/blog footer
• watermark logo (to layover graphics/images)
• digital graphics like blog post graphics
• Instagram posts images
• business stationery
• other mock-up graphics

Above all, submark logos are usually in geometric shapes like circles, rectangles, triangles, squares, etc. Sometimes it’s a symbol that minimally represents your brand.

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Why you don’t need to hire a professional logo Designer

While I offer professional logo design services inside our CORE Brand Marketing packages, I don’t believe everyone needs to hire a designer to create their logo. By knowing a few essential design tricks and standards to choosing your brand color palette and designing your logo – you can 100% do this yourself using a platform such as Canva.

That’s why I created my Brand Identity Basics Course so every beginner can design a logo, color palette, and tagline without paying hundreds of dollars to a professional designer. Inside this mini-course, I walk you through how to select your perfect brand colors, design your logo in Canva, and write your tagline!

I even include several Canva logo templates to start with!

You can get instant access to this Brand Identity Basics Course at kristinkorn.com/brandidentity.

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Why You Need Logo Variations

As you can see, personal brand logo variations are necessary for building a cohesive brand.

You will have decisions to make regarding design choice when you will need to use your alternative or submark logos.

Let’s take a look at those circumstances and talk more about why we have to make that design choice.

When NOT to use your Main Logo

For example, in a situation where your main logo…

• is simply too large and won’t fit your desired space
• is currently horizontal and you need to fit a vertical format
• becomes lost or illegible. An example of this is an Instagram post when the main logo may be washed out with background color and a logo becomes lost in the image.

As a result, you would likely need to choose your alternative or submark logo for this desired space.

Brand Logo Variations: Final Thoughts

In other words, having your main logo, alternative logo and submark logo are each essential to building a strong visual identity. Having just one main logo simply isn’t enough if you are creating a cohesive brand.

Most importantly, what defines a personal brand is so much more than a visual identity. Just because you have a logo … doesn’t mean you have a brand. Follow my KRISTIN KORN Instagram Profile to find branding and business inspiration.

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Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Get the EXACT STEPS to create a distinctive online brand that will make you stand out from the crowd and attract more clients here.
2. Design a Memorable Brand Identity to Instantly Stand Out from Competition here.
3. Hire us to Build a Done-For-You Lead Generation Funnel to get your Brand in Front of New People. (Booked out 4-6 weeks)

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