The presentation trap
Here's how most first-time logo projects go wrong. A designer puts together a nice big version on a clean white slide, the business owner looks at it, likes it, and signs off. Nobody looks at it shrunk down to the size of a favicon. Nobody prints it in black and white. Nobody checks whether it still makes sense stitched on a polo shirt or squashed into a Facebook profile circle.
Then six months later it's on a van door looking blurry, or it's unreadable on a website favicon, and everyone's confused about how that happened. It happened because the logo was judged in the one context it will almost never actually be seen in: big, in colour, on its own, with nothing else around it.
I've been doing this a long time, and the logos that hold up are the ones that were tested small and tested plain before anyone worried about whether they looked exciting.
Versatility beats cleverness
A logo has to work in more places than people expect: website header, favicon, Google Business Profile, invoice letterhead, van signage, embroidered on a cap, stamped on a coffee cup, printed one colour on a compliment slip. That's a lot of different jobs for one piece of artwork.
The logos that survive all of that tend to share a few traits:
- A clear silhouette that still reads when it's tiny
- Text that doesn't rely on a fine, delicate font that disappears at small sizes
- A design that doesn't depend on a gradient, a drop shadow, or a photo-realistic effect to make sense
- A mark that isn't so detailed it turns into a smudge when embroidered or engraved
If your logo only looks good at the size it was designed at, it's not finished. It's a starting point.
Simplicity isn't a lack of effort
Business owners sometimes worry a simple logo looks cheap, like the designer didn't try hard enough. It's the opposite. A simple mark that still feels distinctive is harder to land than a busy one, because there's nowhere to hide a weak idea behind extra detail.
Think about the logos you can draw from memory, roughly, with a pen on a napkin. Nike's tick. The Woolworths W. They work because the shape carries the idea on its own, without needing colour, without needing a slogan underneath it, without needing three fonts fighting for attention.
If you can't describe your logo concept in one sentence to a friend over coffee, it's probably trying to do too much.
Black and white first, colour second
This is the test I use on every logo before a client even sees a colour version: does it still work printed in solid black on white paper? No gradients, no colour cues, just the shape and the type.
If it falls apart in black and white, colour is doing all the work, and colour is the first thing that gets lost. It gets lost when someone faxes an invoice (yes, this still happens), when a sign writer only has one colour of vinyl in stock, when your logo gets stamped onto a leather product or laser engraved onto a pen, when a newspaper ad runs in greyscale, or when someone just photocopies your brochure badly.
Once it works in black and white, colour becomes a bonus layer on top of a design that was already doing its job. That's a much safer way to build a logo than starting with colour and hoping the rest holds together.
Don't chase what's trending right now
Every few years a particular logo style becomes the thing everyone's doing. Right now it's soft gradients and rounded, friendly wordmarks. A decade ago it was flat, geometric icons with a tech startup feel. Before that it was glossy, 3D, web 2.0 style badges.
A logo built to catch this year's trend looks dated the moment the trend moves on, and trends move faster than most business owners replace their signage. You're not choosing a logo for 2026, you're choosing one you'll still be using in 2036, printed on vehicles, uniforms, and buildings you can't easily swap out.
That doesn't mean your logo has to look old-fashioned. It means the underlying shape and idea should be built to last, even if you refresh the exact colours or fine details every so often. Distinctive and timeless is a better goal than fashionable.
What to actually ask your designer for
When you're commissioning a logo, whether from me or anyone else, it's worth asking for a few specific things up front rather than just waiting to be shown pretty pictures:
- A version that works as a small square icon (for favicons and social profiles)
- A single-colour version, both black on white and white on black
- A horizontal and a stacked layout, if your business name is more than one or two words
- Vector files (AI, EPS, or SVG), not just a PNG or JPG, so it can be resized without going blurry
If a designer can't hand these over, the job isn't finished, no matter how good the main version looks on screen.
Judging the final result
Before you approve a logo, put it through the real tests. Shrink it down to 32 pixels and see if it still makes sense. Print it in black and white. Picture it on the side of a van from twenty metres away. Imagine it stitched onto a shirt.
A logo that survives all of that isn't just something you like looking at on a laptop screen. It's something that'll actually do its job for the next decade, in every place your business shows up. That's the whole point of it.
If you're about to commission your first proper logo, or you're not sure whether your current one is pulling its weight, I'm happy to have a look and give you an honest opinion, no obligation either way.