The simplest way to use the logging module is to call functions directly from it, without creating a logger object. import logging logging.error('xxx') This global logger can be configured via the logging.basicConfig() call: import logging logging.basicConfig(format='-- %(message)s --') logging.error('xxx') # -- xxx -- Due to its global nature, basicConfig has some limitation. First, only the first call actually does something, any further calls of basicConfig are entirely ignored. Second, any function that writes a log message calls basicConfig, so you must configure logging before logging any messages: import logging logging.error('xxx') # ERROR:root:xxx logging.basicConfig(format='-- %(message)s --') logging.error('xxx') # ERROR:root:xxx