Creating Your Law Firm Logo

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. And in these days of increasingly short attention spans, the opportunity to make that first impression is often only a few seconds. During those fleeting moments, your law firm logo does some heavy lifting. Yet many law firms give little attention to the image that introduces, and represents, them to the world. That’s a lost opportunity.

What a Law Firm Logo Is (and Isn’t)

A law firm logo is more than just decoration; it’s communication. In a sense, it is your firm’s signature, a consistent, recognizable endorsement. In law, even more than other professions, clients choose firms they trust. Your firm’s logo is a visual signal of your law firm’s credibility, trustworthiness, and reputation.

Your logo is an important component of your branding, but it is not your brand. The logo is a symbol, while the brand is the meaning that the symbol evokes: your law firm’s values and culture, and the emotional response that people have to the firm. In short, your law firm logo is a visual anchor, calling to mind what your firm means to people every time they see it. 

A logo is the nucleus of the visual representation of your brand. As such, it’s a springboard for other elements of your visual brand, including color palette and typography. When it comes to designing a law firm website, a strong logo is like a painter having a full set of brushes at their disposal, opening up a world of possibilities for expression. A weak, bland, or uninspiring logo is like having a single broken brush: it’s possible to create with, but that creativity will be constrained. 

Given the importance of a logo to the development of a visual brand, it’s important to understand just what goes into an effective logo.

Five Characteristics of a Good Law Firm Logo

A law firm logo with impact doesn’t happen by accident. There are certain characteristics that strong logos have in common, whether for law firms or other types of businesses:

Simple

Given the impression that a logo makes on viewers, there’s a natural temptation to ask the logo to convey a lot of information, or even tell the whole brand story. But the simpler a logo is, the more memorable and effective it is. That means a clean, straightforward design, but also includes limiting colors in the logo to one or two and ensuring any typography is clear and legible. 

Timeless

An effective logo stands the test of time, looking just as meaningful in ten or even twenty years as it does today. It’s meant to be a consistent visual representation that builds trust over time. The best logos don’t chase trends; they suggest stability. 

Distinctive

If a logo is meant to evoke your law firm’s brand, it stands to reason that it must be original, distinguishing your firm from others at a glance. At the same time, law is a conservative profession, and a logo that’s too unorthodox could undermine the impression you want it to make. 

Scalable

Use of your logo across print and digital media creates a cohesive identity and unifies your brand across channels. For that reason, your logo should be versatile and scalable, looking just as good on a billboard as it does on a business card.

Reflective of Your Firm’s Brand

The most effective logo is one that clearly evokes your law firm’s identity and brand, whether traditional and steady, innovative and modern, warm and compassionate, or bold and decisive. 

At The Modern Firm, we work to ensure your logo meets all of these criteria, so it can do what it’s intended to: help viewers recognize and build trust in your firm.

Our Logo Design Process

Some attorneys have strong opinions about their logo; others haven’t even considered whether they need one. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, The Modern Firm’s design team can work with you to develop a logo that’s just right for your law firm. 

Step 1: Design Preferences

As with our website design services, we offer multiple services to meet varying needs, including custom and express logo design options. The fully-custom logo design process gives attorneys maximum input into their logo design, allowing them a wider range of options in bringing their logo vision to life. For law firms that don’t require that level of creative collaboration, we also offer an express process, in which they are presented with a range of logo design options whose colors and typography can then be tailored to their preferences. 

Attorneys who opt for the fully-custom logo process complete a logo questionnaire that takes a deep dive into their preferences for imagery, typography, color, iconography, and more. The questionnaire explores everything from inspirations for the logo to where the firm sits on the scale from “casual” to “corporate,” “simple” to “luxurious,” and others. The information provided helps us better understand the firm’s needs and gives our team a jumping-off point for envisioning the logo. 

Step 2: Conceptualization and Creation

Based on the information gathered from the logo questionnaire, the brand platform, and other interactions with the client, our Creative Director prepares art direction for one of our designers. This direction ensures that the logo design isn’t just aesthetically pleasing, but that the visual elements align with the brand’s identity and that colors, typography, and imagery support the intended message. With art direction in hand, the designer brings to life at least three unique logo concepts.

Step 3: Presentation and Revision

Once the initial set of logos is designed, it’s shared with the client, whose feedback is critical. Many attorneys find it difficult to verbalize what they want their logo to look like, but much easier to identify what they do and don’t like about a specific design. The process continues to be collaborative, with the attorney’s input shaping subsequent rounds of design until the ideal logo emerges.

Expanding the Use of Your Logo

As mentioned, the logo is the starting point for law firm website design, dictating color choice, typography, and other details of the website. But your law firm logo has applications far beyond your website. 

Repetitive use of a logo across different media is important for a law firm, because it builds brand recognition, trust, and credibility. The more people see the same logo on websites, signage, social media, print advertising, and so on, the more familiar they will feel with the firm and the more likely they are to see it as an established, reputable business. 

Consistent, repeated use of the logo also means marketing campaigns across digital and print channels amplify and reinforce each other, which maximizes the impact of every dollar spent on marketing.

Get Started with Our Logo Design Services

Your law firm logo is what introduces your firm to others and reminds them of your practice every time they see it. Make the most of the opportunity it provides. Contact The Modern Firm to get started creating a logo that invites people into your firm’s story.