What is the face of any gaming YouTube channel?
The channel name? Can’t argue there, the name is pretty important.
Ok, the second most important thing that attracts the audience to your channel?
The content? Ok, I guess that’s important too.
Let’s just get straight to the point!
I’m talking about the logo for the YouTube channel! (As if the title wasn’t a giveaway)
The gaming logo is your brand! That’s the first pictorial engagement that you will have with any incoming audience and potential subscribers.
The logo is your channel’s representation: The colors, geometry and customization of the design represent your channel’s content!
People usually don’t pay much attention to the logo for their gaming channel but it’s pretty important!
Read on and find out why a logo is crucial to the growth of your gaming channel.
Why do you need a logo for your gaming channel?
The channel logo and name are the first two things your audience will notice.
If you don’t pay attention to your logo, you might not be able to properly market your brand.
The following are some of the reasons why graphical branding is important in the YouTube world.
- First impressions
The first impression of your channel will be represented by your channel’s logo.
A professional-looking YouTube logo is required to take your identity to the next level.
It not only helps to market your brand by demonstrating to your audience who you are and what your channel is about, but it also helps to develop trust and credibility with your followers.
Professionals make sure that their channel logo reflects the kind of content they upload.
For example, you can find a cute melon for cocomelon’s YouTube channel, because they cater to children.
While VanossGaming has a mask of Fong’s character model in Grand Theft Auto Online as their logo, (which is also their official esports logo by the way).
Your logo will be a direct representation of your channel’s content, so make sure it’s relevant to it.
- Making A Name for yourself
Imagine if KFC didn’t have Colonel Sanders, or McDonald’s without the iconic Yellow ‘M’.
I mean they don’t seem significant if you think about it, because you go there for the food.
Yet, it’s impossible to imagine them without their signature logo!
That’s the power of branding! It lets a business project itself, all it stands for, its mission, and quality extremely quickly.
When you see the Big yellow M on the side of the road, you know immediately what you are going to get. You don’t even have to see the world Mcdonald’s. You can see the big M on the other side of the world and you immediately recognise and trust that Mcdonald’s will serve you up exactly what you know and love.
Branding is crucial for new gamers and visitors who are viewing you for the first time.
A logo is easy to remember and gives a strong first impression.Plus, it makes it very easy for people to quickly identify that a product or video is from your business. And with that brand comes quality and trust.
You may quickly turn new visitors into long-term devoted subscribers by establishing trust and demonstrating professionalism.
You certainly need strong content to go with it, but branding also plays a role.
- Merchandise:
Once you’ve established a brand, you may always offer merchandise that is exclusive to your brand and logo.
It’s a fairly normal practice and, to be honest, a fantastic way to do business.
The Youtuber, Shroud, is a prime example of this.
His logo is utilized on weapon skins, and he receives millions of dollars in royalties as a result of it.
And it’s not uncommon to hear YouTubers advertising their ‘merch’ in their videos.
Their merchandise is unique only because of the logo.
So, if you plan on launching your merchandise anytime soon after building a large audience, you will need a cool logo.
- Representation:
The key advantage of a good and distinctive logo is that you obtain a really unique logo that sticks out and helps your company create a professional brand name.
It’s a trend amongst popular YouTubers, that they create a logo that represents the main content on their channel.
But as they progress, grow and diversify their content, they update their logo.
You will find many popular YouTubers with their own animated image as their logo, this is because their content is not solely dedicated to one genre anymore.
The only thing that will remain constant in their videos is their face, so they make it their logo!
- It Looks Cool
Last but not least, you need a logo on your YouTube gaming channel because it looks extremely cool!
You can customize it with aesthetically pleasing vector designs, icons and a lot more!
The sky’s the limit when you’re creating a logo for your YouTube gaming channel.
Read on and find out how you can create a basic logo for your gaming channel.
How To Make A Basic YouTube Logo For Your Gaming Channel?
Creating a logo is not that difficult.
Thanks to modern software and the straightforward tools and tutorials you don’t need a degree in graphic design to make a logo for your YouTube channel!
Let’s see how you can create your YouTube gaming channel logo.
Although there are a lot of logo makers online (free and paid), I’ll be focusing on Canva, the free logo maker.
Let’s get started!
Step 1: Navigating to Canva Logo Maker Dashboard
Head on to Canva Logo maker and click on ‘Create a Logo’. You don’t even have to sign up to the website right away. You can just start making.
Step 2: Choosing A Template
When you click the Logo Maker button, the program creates a new document with the size 500 × 500px.
You may navigate among the many templates on the left side of the page, which are arranged by industry.
If you work in the food business, for example, you can explore all of Canva’s designs by clicking on See all next to Food/Drink Logo.
When you click one of them, a bigger version will display on your blank canvas.
You may also hunt for anything particular using the search box at the top – We’ll search for ‘Gaming’ templates.
When you hover over a template, you’ll notice Free written on it.
Only Pro users get access to the ones with the crown.
If you use Canva on a frequent basis, you may want to consider upgrading to pro at some time which only costs $9.99 a month. It might be worth paying for one month just to get the pro designs, then cancel your subscription.
This blank page is your canvas where you’ll create your masterpiece!
You can start customizing and playing with the different effects and templates.
Since we’re focusing on the logo of a gaming YouTube channel, search for ‘Gaming’ in the template search bar to get an idea.
Step 3: Color Customization
You can select any template you fancy and customize the elements of that template.
From changing the logo, background, adding custom pictures and adding your personalized text!
The key to creating a great brand identity is to keep your colors consistent throughout all marketing materials.
This means you utilize the same one or two colors (no more than three) for your logo, website, business cards, social media, and so on. These colors usually don’t include black and white. So you logo could be made up of the colors red, green, and yellow, plug black lines, and a white background.
So, after you’ve decided on a template, you’ll need to adjust the colors to fit your channel’s identity. This covers the icons’ colors as well.
Simply click on the various things and then on the color at the top of the screen.
The color picker will be launched as a result of this.
When you click the plus symbol, you may choose from Canva’s color palette or write in the precise color code.
Then, choose Change all to make the change to the full logo.
While Canva includes a range of designs with different background colors, you should always alter the background color to white.
Your ultimate objective is to be able to utilize the logo on a variety of backdrops.
My aim for this example was to create a gaming logo for Career Gamers.
So, the color contrast I chose was White-Purple and Cyan – Same as our theme.
Time to get rid of that Huckster 97 and replace it with the channel’s name!
In this case – Career Gamers!
Step 4: Font Customization
Double-click the text in the logo and replace it with your company name and slogan (if the logo contains those).
Using the dropdown menu at the top of the screen, you may change the font.
To minimize clutter, you should restrict the typefaces to no more than two.
Fonts should also be consistent with those used on other branded items. You may use a distinctive font for the business name and then use a more conventional font for the tagline.
Step 5: Adding Additional Elements
If you don’t have much expertise with graphic design, it’s recommended not to clutter the logo with unnecessary graphics or text.
This will make the finished product seem less professional.
Here’s an example of what NOT to do:
Having said that, you may experiment with other components to best fit your vision.
The logo may be ungrouped by clicking the Ungroup option in the top toolbar.
This allows you to reposition individual graphic elements, make them larger or smaller, and modify their opacity.
You may also choose a different icon from the Elements menu on the left, then click Graphics to search for an icon that suits your brand.
When you click one of them, Magic suggestions will appear underneath it.
These are icons in the same style as the previous ones.
Here’s how I added the serpent in the background. Click to watch the 23 second video below.
Step 6: Finalise
Once you’ve decided on the colors, fonts, components, and layout, it’s time to build many variations.
This way, you may use the logo in a variety of contexts.
To begin, duplicate the logo numerous times in the document using the Duplicate button at the top of the canvas.
Then, modify each page individually.
Only one logo should be black and white (the icon can be grayscale).
Another may display just the symbol, while another could show the whole square. You may also experiment with reversed colors.
It’s also a good idea to have several sizes, particularly if you want to print this at some time.
After completing the design of your choice, simply click on ‘download’ on the upper right corner and download your logo as a .png.
Do you see how easy it was? Canva provides you with amazing customizability and ease.
The only problem is that it’s free and the templates are accessible by everyone.
There’s a slight chance your logo can look the same as someone else’s and if that happens… well… awkward.
Some free logo creating websites also don’t allow you to print the logos created on these websites and sell them on merchandise.
While another drawback is having a creative block before even starting!
To avoid all of that, you can opt for hiring somebody to create your logo for you!
Read on and find out.
How to get somebody else to make your Gaming channel’s logo
There’s no shame in admitting that you can’t pick out the best contrasts or create the best digital art yourself – even with the help of software.
In that case, you can hire a graphic designer to do it for you!
You can just tell your friends you couldn’t spare the time to create the logo for your channel so you hired someone else to create it for you… no biggie.
You can find graphic design agencies or directly contact freelancers from freelancing websites like Fiverr, Upwork, Peopleperhour, etc. and ask them to create a logo for your gaming channel.
Keep in mind that logo designing doesn’t come cheap!
You can let them know about your requirements and discuss the details.
Of course, you need to take a few things under consideration when hiring a freelancer for creating a logo for your YouTube gaming channel, which are discussed here.
Other than that, you can also opt for a tutorial to learn how to create a logo that will be visually appealing to your audience.
Nothing beats personalization in creating your logo!
While you risk plagiarism and not getting what you want when hiring someone else to create your logo for you.
You will never experience that when you are the creator of your own YouTube channel logo.
So, if you are still considering creating the logo to your YouTube gaming channel yourself, then sign up to our newsletter.
We’ll soon have a course on creating logos for YouTube and it will surely help you in making the perfect logo for your YouTube gaming channel.
So Sign up to the Newsletter today to be the first to know when the course is ready.