A logo has to work at 16 pixels before it works on a sign.
Most of the places a small business logo appears are small, crowded or in one colour. We draw for those places first.
Where a logo actually appears
Before it reaches a sign, a small business logo spends most of its life small: a browser tab, the round photo on a Google map listing, the corner of a WhatsApp chat, the header on a phone.
So we draw the small sizes first and scale up, never the other way round. A mark that only works large is a picture of a logo.
Three logos we drew
For Vila Flamuri, a family house of apartments in Golem, the mark is a roof over the V and a flagpole rising out of the F. The browser icon drops the roof and the waves, because at 16 px they turn to noise.
For Census Properties, an estate agency in Durres, it is a wordmark: the name in spaced capitals over a thin rule, with the city at one end.
For Iglisi Watch, a watch shop in Durres, it is two words in serif capitals with a gold diamond between them, made to sit white on a dark header.
What the logo has to survive
One colour. A stamp, an invoice printed in black, an engraving on a counter: a logo that needs its gradient to be recognised fails all 3.
A square crop. Map listings and social profiles cut the picture to a circle or a square, so a long wordmark needs a short mark beside it.
Distance. A sign is read from across a street, which favours a few thick shapes over fine detail.
Which files you should end up with
A vector master, as SVG or PDF, that any printer or sign maker can scale. A one-colour version in black and in white. The short mark on its own, for the icon and the profile photo. The browser icon set, and a share image for links.
All of them belong to you, the same way your website should. A logo you have to ask a designer to export is a logo you rent.
Send us the logo you have now, or a photo of your sign, and we will tell you which of these tests it already passes. Get a free audit.
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