Lockups, clear space and the smallest it may ever be

A logo is a small family, not one file

A mark that only exists in one arrangement will be rearranged by somebody else, badly. So you define the arrangements.

• Primary lockup. The one to use unless there is a reason not to. Usually icon plus wordmark, horizontal.
• Secondary lockup. Stacked, for narrow spaces: a shop board that is tall, a pull-up banner, a column on a page.
• Icon only. For app icons, profile pictures, favicons, embroidery on a cap.
• Wordmark only. For a sponsor strip or wherever the icon is too small to read.

Three or four files, each drawn and spaced deliberately. Scaling the horizontal one to fit a tall space is exactly what the stacked version exists to prevent.

Relative spacing is the whole trick

Within a lockup, space between the icon and the wordmark must be defined in terms of the mark itself, not in millimetres. Millimetres stop being true the moment somebody scales it.

The convention: express every distance as a multiple of some internal measure — the cap height, the stroke width, or the height of the icon. “Gap = 0.5 × icon height” is true at 12 mm and at 12 m.

Clear space

Clear space is the exclusion zone nobody may put anything into. Without it, your mark ends up 2 mm from a headline and looks like part of it.

Define it in the same relative way. The common conventions:

• The height of a letter from the wordmark: often the cap height, or the height of the “o”. Easy for anyone to measure by eye.
• A proportion of the icon: 25% or 50% of its height.
• The width of the widest stroke × some number.

Draw it. In your usage sheet, show the mark inside a rectangle with the clear space marked out in the chosen unit, with the unit itself drawn beside it. A picture of the rule is understood; a sentence describing it is not.

Set it generously. People will encroach, and a generous zone encroached on still looks fine.

Minimum size, stated twice

Two different numbers, because two different worlds:

• For print, in millimetres of the lockup’s width. “Minimum 25 mm wide.”
• For screen, in pixels of the lockup’s height or width. “Minimum 120 px wide.”

They are not convertible, because screens vary and print does not. State both.

Arriving at the numbers is empirical, not theoretical:

1. Print the lockup at a range of widths on the worst printer you can find: an office laser on ordinary paper.
2. Look at it from 40 cm.
3. The smallest one where the smallest element is still clearly itself, plus 20%, is your minimum.

Do the same on a phone for the pixel figure. Actual devices, not a zoomed view on your monitor.

Then state the separate minimum for the icon alone, which will be much smaller, and for embroidery, which will be much larger.

Responsive marks

Large organisations increasingly ship a graded set: full lockup for large use, reduced lockup for medium, simplified icon for small, single letter for tiny. Each one is drawn for its size rather than scaled.

For a small client, do not build four. Build two (full lockup and icon) and say clearly which is used below the minimum size. Four versions that nobody maintains is worse than two that are used correctly.

What not to allow, and how to say it

The usage sheet needs a short “do not” list, and it should be short enough to read:

• Do not stretch or condense it.
• Do not rotate it.
• Do not change the colours.
• Do not add effects, shadows or outlines.
• Do not place it on a busy background without the plated version.
• Do not redraw or re-set the wordmark.

Six lines, each with a small crossed-out example beside it. People follow pictures; they skim rules.

Test the rules against a real layout

Before you publish the usage sheet, build one page using only what it permits: a letterhead, or a poster, or the shop board. If you find yourself wanting to break your own clear-space rule to make it fit, the rule is too generous and you should change it now rather than teaching the client that the rules are optional.

This also catches the common omission: a lockup that works on white but has no defined behaviour on the brand colour itself. If the primary colour is a deep blue and the wordmark is that same blue, the mark disappears on its own brand background. Somebody will try it in the first month. Decide now what happens, supply that file, and put it on the sheet.