Every business needs a logo. But not every business owner has the design skills to make it. Even if you aren't an artist, you can generate a range of basic logos for free at these sites.

Some of these sites do a simple job of mixing and matching elements.  While others will help you find icons, fonts, or colors to build something of your own. There's something for everyone. And after this, you won't need to be an expert who knows how to design a logo in Illustrator.

1. Launchaco Logo Builder (Web): Simplest Mix-and-Match Logo Builder

Launchaco is the simplest free logo builder I came across. If you have no design skills and want a few basic ideas to start, this is the web app to try.

First, type your company's name, which Launchaco then presents in various fonts. In each pack of three fonts, you have to choose the one you like the most. Launchaco helpfully explains the emotional values attached with each font, thus making your choice easier.

Next, select a color scheme, where the app again explains the feelings it will inspire in viewers. And then you select up to three icons out of Launchaco's library.

Give it a few seconds and Launchaco will show you a range of different logos. It will mix and match the typefaces, color palettes, and icons as it sees fit. Keep scrolling down, and the site will keep generating more logo options. It's almost endless.

Even if you like one, you can still edit it further. Change the color, text, icon, or layout as you see fit. There's a quick-share option to show your business partners, or you can download the whole package as a zip file.

The package includes icons, options of the icon placed in different positions next to your company's name, and monochrome options too. A text file tells you the fonts used, as well as the icon's designer, so you can make further edits or hire a designer too.

2. Logo Foundry (Android, iOS): Free Logo Builder for Mobiles

If you're more comfortable with a mobile screen and want to build a logo, the Logo Foundry app is your best choice. It has a huge repository of free icons and fonts, is easy to edit, and gives you downloadable logos without any watermarks.

The app provides a grid layout in which you add shapes or text, and the grid helps you align elements easily. Don't underestimate the usefulness of this grid. The wide range of icons and typefaces is geared for creating logos, so you will see options that are a bit different from simply choosing a font on Google Fonts or other free resources.

Each shape or text box can be edited as much as you want, with options like opacity, color hues, flipping, mirroring, and so on. A saved logo isn't necessarily a final product, as you can still change it later, even after downloading it as a PNG or JPEG.

Download: Logo Foundry for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Logo Dust and Free Minimal Logos (Web): Free and Open Source Logos

Free Minimal Logos has plenty of free to download logos and icons which you can use commercially and royalty-free

Professionals, quite rightly, charge for their services when you want them to design a logo for your business. But there are some designers who have made their logos and icons available for free on the internet. Businesses can use these for commercial purposes.

Logo Dust has a repository of 47 free logos that can be downloaded unlimited times, used by anyone, for both personal and commercial projects. You get the SVG vector file format, which means you can increase the size of the logo without any loss in quality, and easily change other elements like color.

Free Minimal Logos by Matt Nunney is a similar site with a collection of logos that adhere to minimalistic design standards. These logos come in the form of PowerPoint files, which makes it easier to edit logos with text. But you can easily copy them to an image editor and convert them to SVG or other formats.

4. Logomak (Web): Understand Color Schemes and Fonts for Logos

Logomak provides logo guidelines for color schemes and fonts

Logomak is a guide for making logos. It doesn't create a logo for you but helps you narrow down the choices for fonts and colors, based on what you want to convey.

First, choose the industry you are in, and pick three tags that best describe the values you want to convey. It's all right if your industry or main value isn't listed, choose whatever is closest.

Based on your choices, Logomak will choose three main colors for your logo, along with multiple color schemes based on each color. If you aren't a designer, this is valuable information.

Similarly, Logomak will provide font options based on your tags. You can even type your company name to see a preview of what it will look like, and then download the fonts.

You can download a few logos auto-generated by Logomak, or simply choose to use Logomak as the guideline it is meant to be. Once you have the base points of color schemes and fonts, you'll find it much easier to tinker with design software and create your own original logo.

5. Logo Rank (Web): AI Tests How Good Your Logo Looks

Logo Rank has Smart AI to test quality of your logo

So you made a logo, or your designer made one for you. Brandmark, one of the paid logo making apps on the web, has a free tool to test how good that logo actually is, based on an AI system trained with over a million logos.

Upload your creation and Logo Rank will test three major parameters. Uniqueness tests whether it is too similar to several existing logos, which is bound to get you confused. Legibility tests if it can be easily recognized from a distance. Color/contrast tests whether people are bound to react positively or not.

Combining the three tests, you will get an overall score from Logo Rank, which can help you determine if you should stick with that logo or get a new one. If you are creating logos with stock icons, this tool is especially useful to double-check your design skills.

Design a Logo with Microsoft Word

You might think that to create a good logo, you need professional software like Adobe Illustrator. But that's not true. If you have a clear idea of what you want out of the logo, you can use the above guidelines and then use existing software.

Even a simple image editor like Paint would do, but you can actually make a logo easily with Microsoft Word. Office workers are bound to be more familiar with this software that most design tools, and it's surprisingly simple to manipulate shapes, text, colors, and even odd characters.