If you love traveling and bringing happiness to people through food, then you’ve probably started dreaming of having your own successful food truck. Essentially a restaurant on wheels, a food truck offers mobility and flexibility—two essentials in today’s cut throat food industry. Such fierce competition means that you’ll have to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd. Start with your logo. After all, that’ll be the first thing your customers will see.

Creating A Successful Food Truck Logo

Consider Your Message

Think of the outside of your food truck as a blank canvas. What kind of message do you wish to convey to passerbys? Be creative and consider the personality you want to express to your customers. If you’re serving up experimental cuisine you’ll have more freedom with your design choices. On the other hand, if your food truck serves traditional American food, you’ll want your food truck logo to be bold but simple.

Another consideration to keep in mind is your business’ brand and mission. If you’re striving for over the top, like former Washington DC food truck Fojol Brothers, “a traveling culinary carnival” known for its costume-wearing employees and imaginative food options—then an equally zany logo will fit the bill. If you consider your brand to be “luxurious, fine dining food truck” (yes, there is such a thing), then a classier logo is the answer. Miho Gastrotruck is a perfect example of how a simple, fine dining food truck logo can also be eye-catching.

RELATED: Creating Food Truck Logos That Match Your Brand

Make it Eye-Catching

Now that you’ve decided on your food truck’s personality, how do you go about actually creating a logo based on it? Designing a logo is easy, but designing a memorable, original one is not. Consider hiring a graphic designer if Photoshop intimidates you. If not, read on.

Your food truck’s name should always be the main star. Otherwise, what good is a logo if your customers don’t know the name of your business? Start by choosing a font that (again) goes along with your theme. Dafont.com is a great resource when searching for fonts by theme. Once you’ve done that, you can begin thinking about color, images and placement.

For this part, you’ll really need to hone in on your artistic abilities. Start your design by going with what feels right. You can always go back and edit things before deciding on the final version. Use a site like Colrd.com to find a color scheme that speaks to you. When deciding on an image, you can look at other food truck logos for inspiration. The Peached Tortilla, for example, has a logo that incorporates an image of a peach and creates a continuous theme with the company name that will be memorable to the customer.

As far as placement of images and text goes, consider the size and shape of your food truck. Imagine what your end design will look like placed on the side of your mobile restaurant. The last thing you want is to come up with a design that won’t transfer into the real world well.

Consider Technology

Once you’re happy with how your logo design turned out, you’ll still need to figure out how it looks at various sizes. Sure, your logo looks great on your truck, but how does it convert when used in smaller applications?

When your techie customers try to check-in to Foursquare or Yelp from your food truck location, make sure they’ll be greeted with a logo that is optimized for smaller screens. You want to come across as a business that is trendy and in the know. Taking this extra step will ensure this.

The Bottom Line

Logos are a critical aspect of business marketing. As your food truck’s major graphical representation, a logo anchors your brand and becomes the single most visible aspect of your mobile food business within your market. For this reason, a well-designed logo is an essential part of any food truck’s overall marketing strategy.

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