Design Your Own Logo: What a Symbol Says About You

Think about the Nike swoosh — it's just one curved line, no words, yet almost everyone on Earth recognizes it instantly. That's the power of a great logo: a few shapes and colors that tell people who you are before you say a single word. Today you'll design a logo for yourself.

- What makes a logo recognizable and memorable - How color choices change how people feel about a brand - The difference between a wordmark, a symbol, and a combination mark - How to sketch and refine your own personal logo

A wordmark is just stylized text, like the Coca-Cola script or Google's colorful letters — no picture needed. A symbol (or icon) is a picture with no words, like Apple's bitten apple or Twitter's bird. A combination mark uses both together, like Adidas's three stripes plus the word 'adidas' underneath. Beginners often reach for a combination mark because it's the most flexible — it works with or without the words attached.

Red is used by brands like Netflix and Coca-Cola because studies show it grabs attention and can suggest energy or excitement. Blue, used by Facebook and PayPal, tends to read as trustworthy and calm — which is exactly why so many banks use it. Green often signals nature or growth (Starbucks, Whole Foods). Designers pick colors on purpose: a kids' toy brand and a law firm would rarely choose the same palette, because the color needs to match the feeling the brand wants people to have.

Professional designers use a 'napkin test': if you can't sketch a logo from memory on a napkin, it's probably too complicated. The Nike swoosh, McDonald's arches, and the Twitter bird all pass this test easily. A logo also needs to work tiny — like on a phone app icon — and still be readable, so designers avoid thin lines and tiny text that disappear when shrunk down.