Logo Design Board

Overview

Use this skill to turn a brand brief into original logo directions through a compact designer board: public-source designer lenses, brand strategy, concept generation, critique, scoring, and production handoff.

Treat designer distillation as a method for extracting decision criteria, not as impersonation. Never copy a designer's work, a client logo, or a protected mark.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• Design a logo, brand mark, wordmark, monogram, app icon, favicon, or visual identity direction.
• Turn project background, product positioning, or founder notes into logo concepts.
• Use distilled design thinking from public designers or studios to guide logo decisions.
• Compare logo directions, critique a generated mark, or improve a rough symbol.
• Produce image-generation prompts, vector construction notes, and brand-guide starter notes for a logo concept.

Do not use

Do not use this skill as the primary workflow for:

• Legal trademark clearance, infringement opinions, or final IP approval.
• Copying an existing logo, designer style, brand system, mascot, or protected character.
• General poster, illustration, landing-page, UI, or marketing image work where logo identity is not the core task.
• Producing final production files without human review, vector cleanup, optical correction, and legal checks.

Instructions

For full logo work, read both references before producing final recommendations:

• references/designer-lens-framework.md: use when choosing or distilling designer lenses.
• references/logo-quality-rubric.md: use before scoring concepts or selecting finalists.

For small critique requests, use the workflow below directly and load the rubric reference only if a scored recommendation is needed.

Workflow

1. Establish the brand brief:
   • Brand or product name.
   • Category and target audience.
   • Core promise in one sentence.
   • Brand personality with tensions, such as precise but warm, premium but approachable, playful but credible.
   • Competitors and category visual codes.
   • Required uses: app icon, favicon, website header, social avatar, packaging, merch, print, signage, or motion.
   • Constraints: words that must appear, initials, symbols to avoid, color restrictions, cultural or accessibility constraints.
2. Fill gaps conservatively:
   • Ask at most three targeted questions when missing details would change the design direction.
   • If the user wants speed, proceed with explicit assumptions and mark them as assumptions.
   • Do not ask for a questionnaire when the brief is already enough to start.
3. Set the designer board:
   • Default board:
     • Paul Rand lens: idea-led simplicity, memorable symbols, wit without clutter.
     • Massimo Vignelli lens: discipline, grid, reduction, timeless systems, typographic restraint.
     • Paula Scher lens: expressive typography, cultural energy, scale, attitude, category presence.
   • Add one optional lens only when useful:
     • Saul Bass for narrative symbols, motion-friendly silhouettes, and cinematic reduction.
     • Michael Bierut for client context, implementation systems, and real-world usage ecology.
   • Label these as public-method lenses. Do not claim to speak for the real person.
4. Distill or adapt the lenses:
   • Use user-provided sources first: books, interviews, portfolios, talks, case studies, notes, or screenshots.
   • If the user names a specific living or current designer and accuracy matters, gather current public sources before distilling.
   • Extract principles, recurring judgments, red flags, and design questions. Avoid extracting only surface style.
   • Reject any lens that only produces a visual costume rather than design decisions.
5. Define the logo strategy:
   • State the logo's job: what it must signal, where it must work, and what it must avoid.
   • Identify the category code to borrow and the category code to break.
   • Convert vague adjectives into designable tensions.
   • Decide whether the strongest route is a wordmark, monogram, pictorial symbol, abstract mark, mascot-like icon, or flexible identity system.
6. Generate concept territories:
   • Produce three to five directions, not one generic logo.
   • For each direction include:
     • Name of the territory.
     • Strategic thesis.
     • Mark type.
     • Visual construction in plain language.
     • Typography direction.
     • Color direction and one-color behavior.
     • Which designer lenses support it and which challenge it.
     • Image-generation prompt for rough exploration.
     • Vector construction notes for redrawing.
     • Main risks and how to test them.
   • Prompts must request original marks, flat/vector-friendly forms, simple geometry, clean edges, and no imitation of existing logos.
7. Critique like a board:
   • Create a table with each lens as a row and each concept as a column.
   • Separate praise, risk, and required revision.
   • Remove concepts that fail small-size recognition, one-color use, or category distinction.
   • Use the rubric reference to score finalists when the user needs a recommendation.
8. Prepare handoff:
   • Recommend one or two finalists and explain the tradeoff.
   • Provide final prompt language for image exploration.
   • Provide vector redrawing notes, including grid, stroke, negative space, and optical correction concerns.
   • Provide usage tests: 16 px favicon, 32 px app icon, 120 px social avatar, website header, black on white, white on black, grayscale, print, embroidery or stamp when relevant.
   • State that raster output is concept art; final delivery requires vector cleanup and trademark search.

Output Format

Use this structure for a full logo request:

## Brand Read
[brief synthesis and assumptions]

## Designer Board
[selected lenses and why]

## Strategy
[logo job, category code, design tension]

## Concept Territories
[3-5 directions with prompts and vector notes]

## Board Critique
[lens-by-concept critique table]

## Recommendation
[top 1-2 directions, scoring summary, next iteration]

## Handoff
[prompt, vector notes, usage tests, legal/IP caveat]