logo-maker

Logo maker

Make a logo, not an illustration. The subject is reduced to a symbol that survives being shrunk to the size of a favicon, and everything that does not survive that is cut before it is drawn.

Two things decide whether the result is any good, and neither is style: what is left out, and whether the silhouette reads as one shape.

Pick the path first

There are two ways to produce the artwork, and the choice is made once, before any design work:

• An image generator is available — use it. Follow prompt.md, which turns the design rules into a prompt and lists what to reject on the way back.
• No image generator — author the mark as SVG. Follow vector.md. The output is a file the project can keep, diff and re-export, which is often the better answer for a product that already has a repository.

Do not claim to have generated an image without one. If neither path is open, say so and stop.

design.md and palette.md apply to both. They are separate files so the two paths cannot drift into two different design languages.

Workflow

1. Find the subject. If the request names one, keep it. If not, and the working directory is a product, read the README, the package metadata and the landing copy before asking anything — what the product does, who it is for and how it should feel is usually already written down.

2. Ask once, if you must. One consolidated round of questions covering the product, its audience and its tone. Not a branding workshop, and never a second round.

3. Propose three directions before drawing. One line each: <subject> — <what it says about the product> — <the shape it makes>. When the subject is fixed, vary the treatment instead: composition, silhouette, which region carries the second colour, what the expression does. When it is not, tie each subject to a different thing the product claims. Three arbitrary animals is not three directions.

4. Offer a batch. Six candidates, two per direction, labelled A1–C2. Wait for agreement unless the request already authorised drawing.

5. Draw them, each as its own square asset. Never ask for a grid or a contact sheet in one image — compose the comparison afterwards from finished marks.

6. Check every one against the rejection rules in design.md and palette.md before showing it. Name the rule anything fails; do not quietly repair it and do not claim a pass you did not check.

7. Report each candidate's label, subject, palette, saved path and size, and what if anything is still wrong with it. Then ask which to refine.

The one check that decides it

Render the mark at 32 × 32 and look at it. If you cannot tell what it is, the design has failed, however good it looks at full size — and no amount of colour or detail fixes it, because detail is what broke it.

Everything in design.md exists to make that check pass.