Five kinds of mark, and what each one costs

The taxonomy, and why it is useful

Not a style guide: a set of trade-offs. Each type costs a different amount to draw, to protect and to reproduce.

Wordmark. The name, set and refined as type. Google, Coca-Cola, Tata. Cheapest to draw well, because the letterforms exist and the work is spacing and customisation. Reads immediately at any size because it is the name. Needs no explanation. Weak at very small sizes (a wordmark at 16 px is illegible) so it usually needs a separate icon eventually.

Lettermark or monogram. Initials, drawn as a mark. HP, IBM, CNN. Compact, works small, and useful when the full name is long. The problem is crowding: three-letter combinations are heavily used and a new one is hard to make distinctive. Expect to check a trademark register.

Pictorial mark. A recognisable thing, simplified. Apple, Shell, the WWF panda. Crosses languages, works small, memorable. Expensive to draw well, because a simplified representational form needs many iterations. And if the thing is generic for the sector (a tooth for a dentist, a house for an estate agent) it is weak both as design and as a trademark.

Abstract mark. A geometric form with no representational meaning. Pepsi’s circle, Chase’s octagon, Airbnb’s Bélo. Distinctive, ownable, works at any size. It carries no meaning on day one, so it requires the organisation to build meaning into it over years. This is why an abstract mark is a poor recommendation for a small business with no marketing budget: it is a promise to spend money you do not have.

Combination mark and emblem. Mark plus name, either side by side (combination) or fused (emblem, like a crest or a badge). The combination is the practical default: use the lockup normally, the icon alone when small. The emblem is the trap: Starbucks and Harley-Davidson are emblems and both are illegible at 16 px, which is why Starbucks kept simplifying theirs.

Which to recommend

The honest default for a small business is a combination mark: a simple icon plus a well-set wordmark, delivered as a lockup and as separable parts. It gives them something that works on a sign, on a shirt pocket and as a profile picture, which is the whole list for most clients.

Recommend a pure wordmark when: the name is short, distinctive and memorable, and the client has no need for an app icon. Recommend an abstract mark only when the client has the budget and the patience to build recognition.

What each costs to defend

This matters more than designers usually admit.

• A descriptive or generic pictorial mark (a loaf for a bakery) is weak as a trademark because you cannot stop other bakers using loaves.
• A distinctive abstract form is strong, because nobody else has a reason to use that exact shape.
• A wordmark is protected mostly through the name itself rather than the drawing, which means its strength depends on how distinctive the name is. “Quick Print” protects nothing; an invented word protects a great deal.

Say this to the client at the recommendation stage. It is the difference between a designer and someone who supplies pictures.

Reproduction cost

• Wordmark: cheap in vinyl, awkward in embroidery below 5 mm cap height, fine in print.
• Monogram: cheap everywhere, ideal for embroidery and stamps.
• Pictorial with fine detail: expensive in embroidery, unweedable in vinyl below a certain size, may need simplifying for every machine.
• Emblem with an outer ring and text: needs a redrawn simplified version for small use, so budget for two marks, not one.

The question that settles it

If you could only ever use one version of this, in black, 12 mm wide, on a form: what would it be?

Answer that with the client, and the type of mark usually selects itself.

One more distinction worth naming

A mascot (a drawn character) is sometimes asked for and is a different commission. It is expensive because a character needs multiple poses and expressions to be useful at all, it reproduces badly at small sizes, and it dates faster than any other type. It can be excellent for a food business or anything aimed at children, and it should be priced as illustration plus a logo, because that is what it is.

Similarly, a lockup with a tagline is not a logo with extra words. The tagline sets the minimum size, because it is the smallest text in the mark, and a tagline that is legible at 25 mm forces the whole lockup to be larger than it needs to be. Deliver the tagline version as a separate file with its own minimum size, and make clear that the mark without it is the primary.