Your logo isn’t the problem

Every month a founder sends us a message that starts the same way: “we need a new logo.” We ask three questions before answering, and most of the time the logo turns out to be fine.

What they usually mean

“Our logo looks cheap next to theirs” is rarely about the mark. It is about everything around it — the photography, the type, the spacing, the paper, and the sixteen slightly different versions floating around in WhatsApp groups.

The three-question test

• Can your team find the correct logo file in under a minute?
• Does every touchpoint use the same two typefaces?
• Would a customer recognise your post without the handle?

Customers see your logo about four times a year. You see it four hundred times a day. Your boredom is not market feedback.

Before you brief a redesign, audit what you already have. Print it. Put it on a shelf. Look at it at thumbnail size. Most of the time the fix is a system, and it costs less than the redraw.