Just found a great new FREE logo maker tool. It’s an online tool, so nothing to download or install.  Called DesignEvo, it’s available at http://designevo.com. I just started playing with it this morning and was able to create a half-dozen logos in about 30 minutes.

DesignEvo is quite intuitive and works almost 100% as you’d expect a graphics tool to work.  It’s quick and easy to take one of the predesigned logos and substitute your company name and tagline.  First, type in the type of business or occasion you want to design.  I typed in ‘photography’.  That gave me 28 designs I could pick from.

DesignEvo selection of predone logos

I then added my company name and tagline

Bammo – here’s what I got.

Done in 30 seconds – seriously.   When you finish and download your design, you get three files:  one JPEG image, one PNG image and one transparent PNG image.  The transparent image can then be laid over any other image in Photoshop or another editing program.

But, you can also start from scratch, picking your background, main shape, specialty icons and type selections.  Here’s an example that I made in about three minutes.

Here are some of its key features:

* 3000+ fully customizable logo templates.
* Over one million icons available to search through.
* Hundreds of text fonts and shapes to choose from.
* Freely customize a logo with powerful editing tools.

Logo designs can be anywhere from 32 pixels by 32 pixels to 2,000 pixels by 2,000 pixels.  That should cover anything an amateur or professional designer would need.

My favorite part of the program is the incredible selection of icons – reportedly more than a million, but I haven’t finished counting them myself.  I typed in that I wanted a ‘birthday cake’ icon and I got literally hundreds from which to choose.  Awesome.  Also, colors can both be solid or gradient. Even if you start with a stock design, you can quickly make it uniquely your own.

The only problem I see with this first version is that you can’t stretch the symbols or icons in one direction only.  For example, they show square shapes to use in your design, but if I wanted to alter the shape of this square, my only option is to grab a corner handle and make it larger or smaller.  There should be center points to grab, so I could stretch it in one dimension only, turning the square into a rectangle.  Right now there are no ovals to use – a rather common shape for logos.  If I could stretch in only one dimension, any circle could easily be converted into an oval.

If they’d make that one change, I think a lot of designers would love this tool.  Even with that shortcoming, there’s tons to like about this program.  If it stays free to use, I’ll be coming back regularly.