How to create a tutoring business logo in 7 easy, fun steps

Creating a tutoring business logo… This was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make regarding my business. You might be thinking “Choosing your tutoring business logo was a tough decision, get a grip, Kerry!” But honestly, it was tough! I was 100 per cent overthinking the whole process. It was especially difficult because I was paying a graphic designer to make it for me and so I wanted it to be “perfect.” Despite my business coach telling me not to worry too much about my logo and business name because I would probably change it down the line, which I did by the way! I still stressed myself out with this little thing. So why am I creating this blog post? I am here to help you fast-track the creating your logo part of your business and take some stress out of your decision-making!

If you fancy a wee chat about starting your own tutoring business or if you already have a tutoring business and you would like to know the next steps, you can schedule a free 20-minute call with me by clicking here! Ask me anything you like about how to start a business, create a logo or even if you want to talk about if tutoring is right for you! Click here to book a slot and we can get chatting! P.s. I am a chatterbox so I will keep the call to 20 minutes otherwise you’ll be chatting to me all day!

Why is a business logo important?

Before we get into the techy side of how to create a logo for your tutoring business, let’s talk about why you need one! Having a business logo makes you a real business, yes that’s right you are a business owner. When people see that you have a tutoring logo, then you will score brownie points for being super professional and it is something that people can recognise you by.

By creating a logo for your tutoring business, you have something that you can use to promote your services. You can put it on mugs, pens, notebooks, business cards, social media and even a t-shirt which you can wear as a uniform!

What should you do before creating your logo?

There are a couple of things that I recommend you do before creating your tutoring business logo. Choosing these two things took me way longer than they should have! The two things that I recommend you decide on before designing your logo are a business name and brand colours. These might seem like two obvious tips but trust me they are important and can get overlooked.

Think of the most popular brands out there, yes you recognise them by their name alone but you can also identify them straight away by their logo and brand colours. Do you ever remember playing the ‘Logo Game?’ This game tests our ability to recognise famous brands from their logos. If you see a yellow ‘M’ you know instantly that it is McDonalds. When you see the famous twin-tailed siren and the green background, straight away you’ll know it’s Starbucks. I’ll be honest here, I always thought the Starbucks logo was Lady Liberty and just found out it wasn’t when doing research for this blog post!

Choose a business name

Choosing tutoring business names can be a real headache. Do you use your name, do you come up with a catchy phrase? The only person that can decide this is you. I can tell you my business names and how I came about them but you need to think of your business and what will work best.

My very first business name was ‘Tutoring by Kerry.’ Not that I used this name anywhere apart from slapping it on a Facebook business page. In 2021, I really started to learn about how to expand my very small face-to-face tutoring business into an online business. This is the name that took me forever to commit to and at the time I honestly thought it would be my business name forever! Despite my very talented business coach telling me otherwise. My second tutoring business name was drum roll please, Differentiation and Beyond. And yes, I did have some inspiration from Buzz Lightyear here! At this time I was creating differentiated resources for teachers and selling them online.

The problem with Differentiation and Beyond was it didn’t have anything to do with tutoring. So I had two separate business names, Differentiation and Beyond for my online store and Tutoring by Kerry for my face-to-face tutoring.

In 2023, I completely rebranded and ‘Differentiation and Beyond’ and ‘Tutoring by Kerry’ ceased to exist. After much deliberation and to-ing and fro-ing trying to think of catchy tutoring business names, I decided on Kerry Grogan Tutoring. Yup that’s right, my name and what business area I am in. It’s very basic but it tells clients exactly what I do.

This is your business which means you can choose whichever name you like! Whether you use your name or come up with a unique name, make sure potential clients know what you offer. However, don’t stress too much over this part as you can change it anytime! The same goes for your brand colours which we will talk about next.

Brand Colours

Brand colours are the colours that a business uses in its logo and throughout the business. These are important to help with brand recognition and to ensure your business has an appealing, aesthetically pleasing look about it. When you think of Amazon, Spotify, Netflix or Disney, you can probably recall their brand colours off the top of your head and this is powerful!

When choosing brand colours, my tip is to choose colours that your target audience will be drawn to. My first set of brand colours was none existent! My second time around, I chose brighter colours as my resources were for teachers in the classroom and so the colours were more targeted towards students. This time round as I am targeting parents and other tutors I choose subtle, calming colours which have a more professional feel.

When starting to choose colours, you can start with using your favourite colour or Google some colour palettes and see what you like best. No matter what colours you choose, be consistent with them and do not deviate from them. You won’t see my product branding with bright red and green over the Christmas season. Nope, I stick to my business brand colours.

Know your audience

One last tip before creating your logo is to know your audience. Who are you targeting with your business? Is it parents and their children? Teachers and their students? Principals or Vice-Principals or other tutors? Think about your target audience and think about what brand colours and business names would be appealing and memorable to them.

How to create a tutoring business logo

I am going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to create your tutoring business logo. You can always hire someone to create your logo if you aren’t techy or can’t be annoyed with the hassle. You can find graphic designers on social media who are extremely talented. I used the amazing Golly Miss Molly from Instagram for my second logo. Let’s get started on my 7 easy, fun steps to creating your tutoring business logo.

Which software will you use?

The first step when creating your tutoring logo is choosing which software you will use. For my first logo, I used Microsoft Word, I cringe now thinking about this! If you are going to use Microsoft, I recommend using Microsoft PowerPoint rather than Microsoft Word as it has more features when designing graphics. My personal favourite which I use A LOT in my business is Canva.

Canva is an amazing graphic design tool which you can use for everything in your business. You can create a free account however, to use some of the better features you will need to upgrade to a pro account. You can also get a free education account as a teacher, BUT you cannot use the things you create on this account on your website or logo as you may be breaching the Canva terms of use. To use Canva’s features in your logo you will need either a free or pro account.

Selecting a size and shape for your logo

When creating a logo, you can choose any size or shape that you like. However, you need to think about where you are going to be putting that logo. Depending on where your logo is going, depends on what shape and size I would recommend. I have three formats for my logo – one circle logo, one circle picture logo and one rectangle logo which I use on my website, t-shirts etc. My business logo is the same in each, it’s just the format that is different. Don’t panic, you don’t need to create three logos!

For my circle logo, I used the size 3600px by 3600px. This is a perfect square shape. I then added a circle element to create my circle logo. Once I had my circle the size which I liked, I began to design the inside of my logo.

Think about where you are going to use your logo. If it’s for business cards or a website, the shape itself doesn’t matter really. However, if you want to use your logo on a social media page such as Instagram or Facebook, a circle shape is perfect for the profile picture on these profiles.

Design how you want it to look

Now you have chosen the shape of your logo, your business name and brand colours, it’s time to design the main part of your logo! This part took me, embarrassed to admit it, but it took me weeks! I had to decide whether I wanted clip art or not, what fonts I should use, and which style I preferred. In the end, my logo ended up very basic but I am pleased with it.

Don’t panic if this part takes longer than you would have liked. Sketch out some ideas or doodles, look online for tutoring logo samples and envision how you want your tutoring logo to look. Play around with different styles and fonts to see which works best.

Choosing Fonts

Just like choosing brand colours, you should choose three or four fonts that you use throughout your business. This also helps with brand recognition and connection throughout your business. I have four fonts that I use throughout my business and these make an appearance on my logo, website, social media posts and the resources I create.

Adding clipart

When choosing clipart and whether to put it on your logo or not, you will need to check the terms of use to make sure you are allowed to put it on a logo. You don’t want to put a tonne of effort into designing your logo and the next thing you’re getting slapped with a breach of copyright!

Creating a Photo Logo

I never thought of creating a photo logo before until I was working with Molly, my graphic designer at the time. She recommended having two logos with one of them being a photo logo. Wow, the anxiety I felt over this part! How can I have my face on a logo? People will probably think, “Oh look at her with her face in a logo!” I was also worried about putting my face out there! However, after a quick photoshoot, which consisted of me standing in the corner of our house which had the best lightning and plainest background and my partner taking headshots on our camera, I sent Mollie the photos and hoped for the best!

I’m glad I didn’t listen to those anxieties floating around in my head because having a photo logo has made my business a lot more personable. Families are hiring me to tutor their children, their pride and joy and so seeing my face when they contact my business is both reassuring and professional. Who cares what people in the staffroom say, I am my brand and having my face on my logo shows that I am a real human.

To create a photo logo, simply get a friend or family member to take a photo of you, from the waist up. Take the logo you’ve already made and make a copy of it. For my photo logo, I put myself in the background and then put a mini version of my logo at the bottom and my name.

Saving a logo

There are three ways that I recommend saving your logo. The first is saving your logo as a PNG. The second way is to save it as a JPEG. The third way is to save it with a transparent background. PNGs are a high-quality, digital images which I save most of my business graphics as. The images are crisper and clearer although they do take up a bit of extra space as the file sizes are larger than a JPEG. The main difference between a JPEG and a PNG is the file size and quality. You can save your logo in both of these formats on Canva and Microsoft PowerPoint.

When saving a PNG and JPEG version of my logo, I leave the background as a white square. The reason I do this is because when uploading the image to social media, the circle shape of my logo will fit perfectly into the profile picture sections.

The last format that I save my logo is with a transparent background. This is great if you need to overlay your logo onto certain products or want to upload your logo onto t-shirts or stationary. It means you just have the circle shape and no white background behind it. Don’t forget to save your logo in multiple places, just in case!

Where should you put your logo?

Now that you’ve created your amazing logo, where should you put it? That’s easy, everywhere! Your logo is the perfect way to market and grow awareness of your business. I recommend putting your logo on your social media business pages, your website and any resources you create. You can put it on a t-shirt, business cards, a mug, you can put it anywhere because it is yours!