If you want to run a successful accounting firm, your logo is something important to consider. A CPA’s logo is often the first thing a prospective client sees, and even if they’re not design aficionados, your logo sends them unconscious signals about what you do, what your values are, and how you conduct your business.

The right CPA logo helps you stand out from the crowd, attract the right audience, and look poised and professional in any context. So whether you’re handing out business cards, building your LinkedIn network, or considering your website design, a CPA logo is an essential piece of your marketing collateral.

Things to consider when choosing your CPA logo design

It’s relatively easy to design a logo. There are online tools that allow non-designers to tackle designing their own logos. Alternatively, you can go the traditional route and hire a professional designer or logo designer. It doesn’t have to be ridiculously expensive — you can even get a free accounting logo. But it’s also not something to just do without giving it much thought. After all, your logo is a key part of your brand identity and shows up in a lot of places.

Here are some considerations when it comes to CPA logos:

1. Establishing trust - you’re efficient, accurate, and reliable

We don’t need to tell an audience of accounting professionals that a lot of people have anxiety about their taxes and finances. They find the whole thing intimidating and often bury their head in the sand instead of tackling the problem and seeking out help. So trust is key.

Your logo should help you establish trust with prospective clients. Choosing the right colors and fonts signals that you’re an established practice and can be trusted with your client’s personal or business financials. 

2. Exuding authority and confidence - you’re professional and qualified

In a similar vein, your logo should be strong. This is not a place for flowery fonts or excessively creative symbolism. People want their accountants to be solid and stable; no muss, no fuss. 

Professional designations are also important, so think about incorporating your CPA designation into your logo or name.

3. Standing apart from your competition - make your logo memorable

With so many different accounting practices out there - from the global giants to the local practices, it can be hard to come up with a CPA logo that’s completely original. And that’s okay. 

But you may want to consider who your immediate competition is and stay away from too much resemblance between your logo and theirs. Odds are, you’re not competing with Deloitte or KPMG. But there might be some local practices you get unhappy clients from or online tools that you feel are stealing your trade. 

Do a little research and think about how they are presenting themselves. List what you like and what you don’t. And try to come up with something that’s familiar but not too same-same. 

4. But align with what’s out there - don’t go too crazy

It can be tempting to want to stand apart completely. If everybody is navy blue with some kind of graph, maybe you should be pink with a flower, right? Well, no… actually.

Remember that you want people to understand what you’re selling. A pink logo with a flower might be great for a florist, a wedding planner, or even a spa. But most people won’t think about a CPA when they see this logo, even if it says “Accounting.”

So generally, you want a professional logo to stay in the vein of what others are doing but add a pinch of originality rather than throw everything out and start from scratch.

5. Appeal to your ideal client - who are you trying to reach?

It can be tempting to navel-gaze when it comes to designing a logo. What captures the spirit of your practice, and what expresses your values?

But think that it’s 50% looking in the mirror (and reflecting on who you are) and 50% looking at the window (and considering who you’re trying to reach.)

If you’re running a young practice trying to appeal to digitally savvy entrepreneurs, you’ll probably have a different look than a practice that serves a conservative, older generation. 

6. Consider where your accounting logo lives

A logo is an important piece of brand collateral that will live in many places, including your:

• Website
• Social media
• Business cards
• Stationery
• Signage

Your logo needs to work in both digital and physical places. It’s a good idea to ‘stress test’ your shortlisted design in a few of these settings to ensure it works practically. You might also want an icon version of your logo for things like social media.

Accounting logo design principles to consider

Now that you’ve spent some time thinking about what your logo should stand for and exude, you’re ready to think about designing it. Whether you do this yourself or choose to hire a logo designer, it’s helpful to know some of the best practices to develop a good brief to evaluate your options against.

1. Keep your accounting logo simple

Across all industries, logos are getting simpler and simpler. Rather than using a lot of design elements, many simply stick with the wordmark (i.e., the company name) in an arresting font and/or color. Give yourself permission to keep your accounting logo super simple.

If you do decide you want a design element that will support your name, make sure it’s not overly complicated. Look at logos from PwC, KPMG, and Ernst & Young and note how the design elements are really stripped back. 

This avoids too much visual clutter in your accounting logo, which would make things feel overwhelming or chaotic. Common symbols used by CPAs and accounting practices include:

• Simplified graphs showing growth
• Arrows going up and to the right
• Graphic treatments of the firm letters (as we see in Ernst & Young)

2. Consider your colors

You may be tempted to use your favorite color for your accounting logo. But it’s important to be aware that colors evoke different emotions. It’s probably no surprise that blue is a popular color for CPA and accounting logos because it’s traditionally associated with banks and the financial sector. But it’s not your only option. 

Good choices include:

• Blue is the most popular choice of traditional banks and the financial sector. It exudes calm authority, stability, and professionalism.
• Black, while sometimes associated with evil, it is also serious and solid. This can be a good choice for a firm that wants to appear strong.
• Red is the opposite; dynamic and energetic. If you are trying to appeal to a younger clientele or offer a more dynamic kind of relationship, red might appeal.
• Green is the color of money but is also associated with ethical brands. If you specialize in accounting for non-profits or have another ethical angle, green might be an excellent primary or accent color.
• Yellow/gold accents - many well-known accounting firms add yellow-gold accents to liven up more traditional grey or navy logos. 

3. Consider your font

There are thousands of font options out there, and it can be a bit like going down a rabbit hole when you start looking at fonts. But before you become overwhelmed by the options, remember our first design principle: Simplicity. 

Above all else, you want a font that is easy to read. Stay away from cursive or curly fonts; not only are they hard to read, but they’ll evoke all the wrong things for an accounting firm or CPA.

Ultimately, you may choose a serif font or a sans-serif font. Serifs (shown on the right below) are the little decorative tapers or lines at the end of a letter in some typefaces. Sans-serif fonts (on the left)  don’t have those decorative elements.

Serif fonts are traditionally used in newsprint and publishing, so they can feel more traditional and established, and even scholarly. Serif fonts are popular with accounting firms for these reasons - they help establish trust and a sense of implied heritage. (PwC uses a serif font.)

Choosing a sans-serif font means a font that has clean lines that are the same width throughout (with no serifs.) Sans serif fonts are popular in the digital age as they evoke cutting-edge modernism. If your practice is targeting young entrepreneurs, they might find a logo in a sans serif font to be less ‘stuffy’ and think of your practice as more current and cutting edge in terms of digital adoption and understanding the realities of their business or personal life. (KPMG uses a sans-serif font.)

The weight of the font (how thick the line of the letter is) will also help establish your logo as more established, solid, and trustworthy. All three logos above have pretty heavy line weights. So don’t choose a font that is too spidery and might seem light or flimsy.

Your logo helps form a client’s first impression

Similar to how we make an impression of someone by taking in a million little details and analyzing them unconsciously, a logo creates an ineffable but lasting impression about what your accounting firm does and what you stand for. 

While a CPA logo is a simple design element, remember that it’ll appear in many places. So it’s worth spending some time and getting it right. Whether you work with a graphic designer or logo designer or use an online logo design tool, you’ll need logos in various file types.

Your designer or online tool will provide a vector logo design that you can instantly use on stationery (envelopes, letterheads, business cards), your website, and social media accounts, and even supply to vendors for swag and signage with ease and convenience.