Create a Logo for Your Small Business or Website

Learn how to make a professional-looking logo for a business card, a website, or a product, without hiring an expensive graphic designer!

Steps

Make a rough sketch of your logo. Use scrap notebook paper as it's just a rough draft. Sketching on the computer using a program is a good idea as well.
Use a fine-point black permanent marker to re-draw your logo on one side. Now use a blank white computer paper. If you have no large shaded regions, skip the next step.
Flip the paper over. On this side, you will notice that the shaded regions have bled through. Re-color those shaded regions on this side, to give the logo an even shade. Flip the paper over.
Using ONLY colored pencils (erasable works best), color in the areas that need color. When done, go over the color areas again with the colored pencils. If you don't have a flatbed scanner, skip the next step.
Take another sheet of computer paper and place it under your logo, to prevent any shadowing when scanning.
Place the logo in the scanner. If you have a flatbed, place it face-down.
Scan. If you don't need to scan it again before saving the image, skip the next step.
In your scanning software, crop your image appropriately. Open up your raster image editor, and adjust your image until it looks nearly complete.
Import the image into your choice of vector graphics software.
Trace your logo, then colour your logo.

If you plan to replace your background, try to avoid the fill tool. You're better off masking your image because blank paper will have shadows and slight wrinkles that confuse image editing software
You can send your logo to certain professionals like graphic designers, and see your logo put to good use
If you decide not to trace your logo in a vector program, your logo will be blurry should you increase the size of your logo. This is because raster images are just dots on a screen, and not mathematically defined shapes. You stretch and smooth the dots to enlarge the image. This is also why you can't enhance images like on CSI or Flashpoint

Do not copy another company's logo. It usually infringes federal trademark law, and may result in litigation.
If submitting your logo to an official trademark office, be sure to make the logo simple enough to be able to reproduce in black and white. Also make sure it still stands out monochrome and in colour. This also helps when using your logo on documents.