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Logo design
A mark is not designed. It is tested.
Most logos are made for the presentation. The ones that last are the ones that were shrunk, printed in one colour, put on a photograph and pressed into paper before anybody was asked to approve them.
Why marks disappoint later
It looked good on the slide.
A logo is almost always approved in one situation: full colour, one size, on a white slide, in a room where everybody is looking at the same screen. That is the one situation it will never be in again.
Afterwards it goes onto a favicon, into an email signature at sixty pixels, onto a delivery note printed in black only, onto a photograph of the product, onto a van, and — if things go well — onto something embossed, where there is no colour at all and only shadow does the work.
Bianca draws for those situations from the beginning instead of checking them afterwards, which is why the revision rounds are short. A mark that survives the small end and the one-colour end has usually solved most of the rest by itself. What holds it together after that is the identity around it.
How a mark is checked
Six tests, in this order.
The order is deliberate. The first two cost nothing to run and remove most of what does not work, before anybody has become attached to it. You can run both of them on your own logo this afternoon.
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01
Shrink it to sixteen pixels
What it catches
Detail that turns to mud, gaps that close up, and counters that fill in. Most marks fail here, and it is by a wide margin the cheapest failure to find.
Why first
Because it takes ten seconds and removes half the candidates before anyone has fallen in love with one of them.
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02
Print it in one colour
What it catches
A mark that relied on a colour difference to be legible at all. Black on white and white knocked out of black are both required, and they are not the same test.
Why second
Because a delivery note, a stamp and an engraved plate have no colours to offer you, and those turn up sooner than anyone expects.
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03
Put it on a photograph
What it catches
Edges that vanish into a background. This is where a mark finds out whether it needs a protected area around it or a container to sit in.
Why third
Because product photography is where most marks now live, and it is better decided here than negotiated later with whoever took the pictures.
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04
Take the ink away entirely
What it catches
Whether the shape alone carries it. Embossing, debossing, blind stamping and engraving have no colour at all — only relief and the shadow it throws.
Why fourth
Because packaging and anything that wants to feel expensive ends up here, and a mark that only works in ink quietly limits what you are able to make.
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05
Make it very large
What it catches
Awkward joins and the optical corrections that were invisible at small sizes and become the only thing anybody sees on a wall or a vehicle.
Why fifth
Because the far end of the ladder shows different problems than the near end, and fixing them late usually means redrawing rather than adjusting.
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06
Hand it to somebody who was not there
What it catches
Whether the rules are clear enough that a stranger uses it correctly without asking anyone. If they have to ask, the mark is finished but the work is not.
Why last
Because this is the only one of the six that predicts what your brand will actually look like in three years. It is also what the identity exists to answer.
What you receive
Every version, drawn rather than exported.
- Primary, secondary and submarkThe full mark, a version for tight spaces, and a symbol on its own for the places where the name does not fit.
- One-colour and invertedBlack on white, white out of black, and a single-colour version that works when the printing has one ink to give.
- Favicon and app iconDrawn at that size rather than scaled down to it. An exported favicon is a smaller version of the wrong thing.
- Vector and rasterIn the formats people actually ask for, named so that the right one is found without a phone call.
- Clear space and minimum sizesHow much room the mark needs and how small it is allowed to go, so nobody has to guess under pressure.
- Editable source filesYours to keep. If you ever work with somebody else, they continue rather than start again.
The favicon is the one people skip, and it is the version your customers see most often — in a browser tab, next to a bookmark, in a search result. It is worth drawing properly, and it takes an hour. All of these files land in the brand kit.
Send us the logo you already have.
Bianca will run the first two tests on it and tell you what she finds. Often the answer is that the mark itself is fine and only the missing versions need drawing, which is a far smaller job than a new one.