How Do I Get a Logo if I Do Not Have One?
By The Velocity Wear Team
You need something you can print, which is a smaller problem than a full brand identity. For most first orders a clean wordmark, your name set in a well-chosen typeface with the spacing sorted out, in a single colour, will print better and read better than an illustration rushed together to fill the gap. Commission a proper mark later, once you know what your business looks like.
What Decoration Actually Needs From a Logo
The requirements are more mechanical than aesthetic. Vector artwork, ideally, because it can be scaled to any size without falling apart. Solid shapes rather than soft gradients if you are screen printing. Enough contrast to survive on a coloured garment. Most importantly, it has to work in one colour, because at some point somebody will need it stitched, or printed on a dark garment, or reproduced small enough to sit on a cap front. A logo that only works in full colour on white is a logo with one use.
The Case for Starting With a Wordmark
A wordmark does the job a first logo needs to do: it says who you are, legibly, at any size. It is also far harder to get badly wrong than a symbol, because there is no metaphor to explain and no drawing to execute. Pick a typeface with some character, fix the letter spacing, decide on capitalisation, and stop. If your name is long, a stacked two-line version solves chest placements where a single line would run too wide across a polo.
Where to Get One Made
A freelance designer is the obvious route and does not have to be expensive for a wordmark and a couple of variants. Design students and recent graduates are often glad of a real brief. Marketplaces work if you write a tight brief and are willing to reject the first round. Generative tools will produce something in seconds, and they are genuinely useful for exploring directions, but be aware of the limits: output is often raster rather than vector, detail is frequently unprintable at small sizes, and originality is not assured. Before you commit a name to a hundred garments, check whether it is already in use, and refer to the Intellectual Property Office's current official guidance on trade marks rather than to anything you read on a forum.
- A vector master file, so the logo can be scaled from a cap front to a back print without degrading.
- A single-colour version, in solid black, for screen printing and for anything reproduced small.
- A reversed or white version for dark garments.
- Exact colour references written down, so nobody is eyeballing your brand colour from a screenshot in two years.
- A simplified variant for embroidery, with fine lines thickened and small text removed or enlarged.
The Embroidery Test Is the Real Test
Ask a designer to imagine the logo stitched at the size of a matchbox and you will get a much better logo. Embroidery cannot reproduce hairline strokes, tight gaps between elements, or text below a certain size, because a needle and a thread have physical dimensions that a screen does not. Anything that fails that test tends to be weak everywhere else too. A mark that survives being stitched small will also survive being printed large, being faxed, being photocopied and being seen from across a car park.
How the Print Method Changes What You Can Have
If your logo is full colour or photographic, DTF handles it without per-colour setup and works across cotton, blends and polyester, which makes it the pragmatic choice for a detailed mark on a short run. Screen printing charges setup per colour, so a two-colour logo runs cheaper than a five-colour one at volume, and a design built to be two colours from the start saves money forever. Embroidery is priced by stitch count and rewards simplicity. It is worth knowing all three before you brief a designer, because the cheapest logo to reproduce is the one that was designed with reproduction in mind.
“"A logo you can stitch in one colour at the size of a matchbox will outlast three that only ever worked on a website header."”
Designing It Yourself Without It Looking Like It
It can be done. Choose one typeface and do not mix it with a second. Set the name, then spend most of your effort on spacing rather than on effects. Avoid drop shadows, bevels, outlines and gradients, all of which are hard to print and date quickly. Keep it to one colour plus the garment. Then look at it small, in black, on grey, and ask whether you can still read it. If the answer is yes, you have something workable, which is all a first order requires.
Do Not Let the Logo Hold Up the Order Forever
There is a balance here. It is not worth printing two hundred garments with a mark you are unsure about. It is also not worth spending four months in revision while your team wears nothing. The twenty-piece minimum makes the middle path possible: order a small run with the mark you have, see it on an actual chest, and decide from there. Logos look different on fabric than they do on a monitor, and the free Design Studio will show you the placement and scale before you approve anything.