I was hoping https://mybrandnewlogo.com/how-it-works was a little more in depth of how it actually works but I suppose if they gave away their secret they wouldn't make any money :)
I'm guessing they have a stock library of vector art somewhere. I'd love to know what library / libraries they have used.
Edit / added:
On a different topic. I routinely by logos from Fiverr for about slightly more than these (typically $80 - $100) and generally speaking the one's from fiver weren't using any stock art.
That's an incredible resource. Thanks so much for posting. I'm wondering how the licenses apply if I modify an icon, or merge two together. Happy to attribute both authors but would that even be allowed?
Edit: it is.
> Yes, you can modify and build upon the symbol as long as you follow proper attribution requirements. You can use the icon for free as long as you attribute, or pay via a NounPro subscription
It’s pretty easy to do your own due diligence. Just look at reviews and past projects. Contact them and ask for more of their portfolio; it’s an interview after all.
If they do a poor job even after that, make sure you review it fairly with detail so that others don’t fall into their trap. You also have control of releasing funds, which can be used last resort as leverage for them to try again if they delivered poorly.
It’s a little more work to find the good ones but they are there, and in my experience the extra effort can save you a lot of money.
That made some logos Im very interested in (and we happen to be looking for a new logo). Just wondering if the icons are internally created or from another collection?
Edit: Looks like they're not unique icons, damn.
Edit 2: Since they're using nounproject, I hope they're properly licensing the works and not just assuming they're creative commons so it's free. I'm not seeing any credits given on their site or anything about the logo including the royalty free license.
I don't really see any difference between this and the others such as Logojoy. What I don't like about these services is that some tout AI generated logos etc etc when really they just take some input and generate the same logos over and over. There is no real AI going on.
Pedantically, AI really encompasses and represents a broad range of ML approaches, many of which are fundamentally just algorithmic. If there's a rubric for producing these and its intended to simulate the approach a human might take, one could argue it's artificial intelligence.
This devolves really quickly into debates on semantics. Which is not a bad thing, but it means it's important to be clear on definitions.
I've heard Artificial Intelligence snarkily defined as "whatever computers can't do" - once a human understands the problem well enough to make a computer solve it, solving the problem is no longer "AI".
What this says about human intelligence, if-and-when a computer can perform the full set of tasks a human can perform, is left as an exercise to the reader.
In any case, right now, a computer can provide answers to certain problems much more quickly and accurately than a human, and can provide more optimal answers. Whether a particular computer does this via hand-tuned heuristics, brute force applied to simple algorithms, or statistics over massive data sets, or some magic "AI" voodoo, it does it.
Take the KNN: an absurdly simple algorithm that can do some pretty impressive stuff.
People file it under ML without a lot of hesitation because it can reproduce or approximate human output.
I think the flexibility and self correction of an algorithm is what defines ML, but AI isn't so rigidly defined. If you can do something that seems like it came from a human you probably have a good argument, even if your approach is simple.
Back in the mid-00s there was a logo sweatshop called Arteis (later bought by HP) where people of widely disparate creative backgrounds pumped out logos for businesses, some as many as a few dozen a day. They, too, all looked pretty much cut from a template, because thinking requires time and the pay was about 1/10th you'd pay an equivalent Graphic Designer to do it over their lunch hour. It's just generating pretty cookie-cutter stuff whether by hand or by machine.
For many use cases, whether it's technically AI or not isn't really relevant.
I'm at the point where I don't have a budget for a designer, but don't have the design talent to make a good logo myself. It's either Fiverr or an automated tool, and this particular one was the first tool I've used where I was ready to snag the first designs it generated to use on a business card. AI or not, whatever they're doing to generate these works better than my alternatives.
Yeah, this is more like a random logo generator than something that's ML powered. I guess it could be using PCA or something on the backend to filter out "bad" logo designs.
I'd like to see more variations with the shapes. You see stars repeated a million times, it would be nice if the stars were actually different in size, shape and design.
I have a degree in AI, and studied it back when it wasn't popular. If I've learned anything, it's that AI is nothing magical. This system is more like classic machine learning using decision trees. It would be nice to try a real neural network, but I haven't found a way yet to come up with neural network generated vector shapes that also look nice.
I'm trying to keep the focus on AI to a minimum on my site. To me it doesn't matter. It's just automated logo design using lots of math. And lots of custom algorithms to generate colors and to position shapes.
It would be great for the system to at least move further down the logo image cue and not reuse the first three pictures or so. Could you add a button to fetch a new portion of images?
Not sure what you mean by fetching a new portion of images?
One of the upcoming deploys will get a feature where you can pick a logo and make new variations based on its fonts, colors or layout. A quick prototype showed that it really helps with getting to a good result fast: Like the colors? generate new fonts / layouts. Like the layout? generate new colors / fonts.
This is really cool, some great logo redesign inspiration.
A couple of thoughts:
1) If you make the logo designs page shareable (step 2, https://mybrandnewlogo.com/logo-designs), I would love to get feedback from a few people. If you don't want to store things persistently, even storing the input params (name, color, slogan, etc) in the URL would be great.
2) I love that the name can be read as my "brand new" logo, or as my brand, new logo.
When you purchase a logo package, you'll actually get multiple color variants: full color, black and white, white on transparent, black on transparent, etc.
I used 99designs a few years back to get my company's logo. It was cheap, fast and good. You get to choose from several designs submitted by real designers and work with them to fine tune it. I am still very happy with the results.
Seems very nice, but it also appears like they have few stock images per keyword/topic and they would be overused after a relatively short time. Am I not getting something? Are they supposed to take out an image once the logo is sold?
The most amusing thing about this website is that they obviously had an actual designer do some work on it at some point, yet it implies that designers can be easily automated out of the process.
All of the "logos" this thing generates are completely thoughtless: it simply searches the Noun project based on your inputs for a vector image, then sets it next to a random typeface. Anyone with a modicum of design experience can tell you that these "logos" that it generates are a complete joke. If you're honestly considering using one of these yourself, just head to the noun project and search for an icon to plop down next to your favorite typeface—you'll probably come up with a better result.
Yeah, to me this seems great if you're working on an open-source project or are just barely getting off the ground and just need some sort of logo. I can see myself using this for silly projects where I just want to have a placeholder or temporary logo for a made-up name while I think about what I really want it to look like.
All of our internal webapps use some sort of logo on their readme.md, generated from sites like these
None of our internal webapps produce revenue or are customer facing, but developers like some kind of identity for their pet projects. These sites are perfect for this sort of thing.
I don't believe that designers can be automated out of the process.
I made this service because after years of co-running a design agency, I saw an increase in the need for logos, but a decrease in the willingness to pay for it. For bigger companies, it's no problem to hire a design agency to do their branding process. And yes, you can do more thoughtful and tailored design. We still do this at our design agency.
On the other hand, there are lots of people who simple don't have the budget for a logo design process, don't have illustrator / photoshop skills, and just really want something nice for a good price. I tried my best to create an online, automated solution that's specifically made for these people, the freelancers, the side-hustlers, the startups.
Don't let the negativity get to you. Obviously no kind of automated logo service is going to displace high quality custom design work, but this service is great for small projects that just want a presentable logo today so they can focus on other things. Most of YouTube runs on affordable royalty-free music in the background too.
I do logos sometimes for long-time graphic design clients and friends. A lot of times what they'll do is use an app like this and then send me the results, with a list of things they don't like about it, or a few tweaks they'd like made to the shapes. For example, "this oval shape but in 3D and more classy" or "this font but with these two letters customised like this."
I actually really like this arrangement and have on more than one occasion sent these kinds of links to my clients, with "as a starting point" or similar phrasing. For people with ideas that are not visual yet, it really helps them speak the designer's language, in a small way.
But yeah, I make the same money (rate, I don't really need extra design work) with this arrangement as I do without, and it's more pleasant for the client, and they see the value of my work... It's not bad! Sometimes it's nice to do away with the designer-as-sole-visionary role and more concretely embrace what the owner has to say about their brand. They're usually open to feedback and ideas too, if any.
Completely agree with your points. I do graphic design for some friends guilds in a few video games (free labour, I do it for fun) and people are horrible at describing what they want. As such, these days I tend to send a few rough drafts or some sample images other people made to get a feel for what people actually want.
This kind of rapid prototyping technology, while not that great for creating a final project, is an excellent tool for aiding in communicating what is wanted, especially if simple enough so that a client can use it.
I disagree. For side projects or bootstrapped companies these “cookie cutter” logos are exactly the right thing to get something into the Wild. Once you find some traction/income/investment then it makes sense to go full designer route.
Unless you've never created anything in your life try be a bit more supportive of others who do.
I tested it and it kicked off a few ideas. Some were very close to usable for a side project I'm working on, where I don't need a 300-hour logo, I just need point-of-parity logo.
I typed in "cocoon" and it gave me typewriters as my logos...Nice website, but deliverable, not great.
Silver-lining: There will "always" be work for designers who take their time to understand the depth behind a logo/company and create something unique.
Step 3: Randomize 1 and 2 as well as position and colors.
I wish good design was algorithmically that simple, but is not. These are good logos for maybe a placeholder or testing something out, but they will never have the quality of a real well thought design.
Was thinking much the same; we have a product[1] in the same space, but a much larger inventory, all created by hand. Not sure the "AI" space for design is quite good enough for this price point.
That's true, but if you parameterize enough variables and generate enough combinations, you'll eventually find a result with great design. For a non-designer like myself who might want a neat logo on a software project I'm working on, randomly generating stuff like this and picking the best one is something I'd try before opening up Illustrator or hiring someone.
I think the main problem with this service is that the parameters are probably pretty simple and it's gonna mostly output generic patterns.
Someone could trivially put all sites like this out of business by creating a chrome extension that just extracts the SVGs it shows you from the page and downloads them.
112 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 61.4 ms ] threadI'm guessing they have a stock library of vector art somewhere. I'd love to know what library / libraries they have used.
Edit / added:
On a different topic. I routinely by logos from Fiverr for about slightly more than these (typically $80 - $100) and generally speaking the one's from fiver weren't using any stock art.
It'd probably be more useful to have a list of words to select from, rather than guessing which ones will be useable by their algorithm.
[0] https://thenounproject.com/
Edit: it is.
> Yes, you can modify and build upon the symbol as long as you follow proper attribution requirements. You can use the icon for free as long as you attribute, or pay via a NounPro subscription
If they do a poor job even after that, make sure you review it fairly with detail so that others don’t fall into their trap. You also have control of releasing funds, which can be used last resort as leverage for them to try again if they delivered poorly.
It’s a little more work to find the good ones but they are there, and in my experience the extra effort can save you a lot of money.
Edit: Looks like they're not unique icons, damn.
Edit 2: Since they're using nounproject, I hope they're properly licensing the works and not just assuming they're creative commons so it's free. I'm not seeing any credits given on their site or anything about the logo including the royalty free license.
[1]: https://thenounproject.com/developers/
I've heard Artificial Intelligence snarkily defined as "whatever computers can't do" - once a human understands the problem well enough to make a computer solve it, solving the problem is no longer "AI".
What this says about human intelligence, if-and-when a computer can perform the full set of tasks a human can perform, is left as an exercise to the reader.
In any case, right now, a computer can provide answers to certain problems much more quickly and accurately than a human, and can provide more optimal answers. Whether a particular computer does this via hand-tuned heuristics, brute force applied to simple algorithms, or statistics over massive data sets, or some magic "AI" voodoo, it does it.
Are there non-algorithmic approaches to ML?
Take the KNN: an absurdly simple algorithm that can do some pretty impressive stuff.
People file it under ML without a lot of hesitation because it can reproduce or approximate human output.
I think the flexibility and self correction of an algorithm is what defines ML, but AI isn't so rigidly defined. If you can do something that seems like it came from a human you probably have a good argument, even if your approach is simple.
You definitely get what you pay for, either way.
I'm at the point where I don't have a budget for a designer, but don't have the design talent to make a good logo myself. It's either Fiverr or an automated tool, and this particular one was the first tool I've used where I was ready to snag the first designs it generated to use on a business card. AI or not, whatever they're doing to generate these works better than my alternatives.
I'd like to see more variations with the shapes. You see stars repeated a million times, it would be nice if the stars were actually different in size, shape and design.
I'm trying to keep the focus on AI to a minimum on my site. To me it doesn't matter. It's just automated logo design using lots of math. And lots of custom algorithms to generate colors and to position shapes.
One of the upcoming deploys will get a feature where you can pick a logo and make new variations based on its fonts, colors or layout. A quick prototype showed that it really helps with getting to a good result fast: Like the colors? generate new fonts / layouts. Like the layout? generate new colors / fonts.
nsfw: https://imgur.com/PoP8dtv
https://imgur.com/a/gXF9Xwb
A couple of thoughts: 1) If you make the logo designs page shareable (step 2, https://mybrandnewlogo.com/logo-designs), I would love to get feedback from a few people. If you don't want to store things persistently, even storing the input params (name, color, slogan, etc) in the URL would be great. 2) I love that the name can be read as my "brand new" logo, or as my brand, new logo.
You can share a couple of your logo pages on social, and gather feedback from your friends.
2. That's the idea, glad you like it :)
Too many logos out there are aren't really "logos".
This service has pretty generic results, IMO.
That is, be sure to check you didn't end up with a stolen logo.
I just need a quick placeholder logo for a blog so I don't want to spend $$
All of the "logos" this thing generates are completely thoughtless: it simply searches the Noun project based on your inputs for a vector image, then sets it next to a random typeface. Anyone with a modicum of design experience can tell you that these "logos" that it generates are a complete joke. If you're honestly considering using one of these yourself, just head to the noun project and search for an icon to plop down next to your favorite typeface—you'll probably come up with a better result.
They're not replacing a professional designer as much as they're there for folks who don't have a designer / not going to but would like a logo.
None of our internal webapps produce revenue or are customer facing, but developers like some kind of identity for their pet projects. These sites are perfect for this sort of thing.
I made this service because after years of co-running a design agency, I saw an increase in the need for logos, but a decrease in the willingness to pay for it. For bigger companies, it's no problem to hire a design agency to do their branding process. And yes, you can do more thoughtful and tailored design. We still do this at our design agency.
On the other hand, there are lots of people who simple don't have the budget for a logo design process, don't have illustrator / photoshop skills, and just really want something nice for a good price. I tried my best to create an online, automated solution that's specifically made for these people, the freelancers, the side-hustlers, the startups.
(i.e. keep it fair by choosing among the better logos the generator creates)
To my untrained eye, it's hard to spot the difference $10,000 makes.
I actually really like this arrangement and have on more than one occasion sent these kinds of links to my clients, with "as a starting point" or similar phrasing. For people with ideas that are not visual yet, it really helps them speak the designer's language, in a small way.
But yeah, I make the same money (rate, I don't really need extra design work) with this arrangement as I do without, and it's more pleasant for the client, and they see the value of my work... It's not bad! Sometimes it's nice to do away with the designer-as-sole-visionary role and more concretely embrace what the owner has to say about their brand. They're usually open to feedback and ideas too, if any.
This kind of rapid prototyping technology, while not that great for creating a final project, is an excellent tool for aiding in communicating what is wanted, especially if simple enough so that a client can use it.
I tested it and it kicked off a few ideas. Some were very close to usable for a side project I'm working on, where I don't need a 300-hour logo, I just need point-of-parity logo.
Silver-lining: There will "always" be work for designers who take their time to understand the depth behind a logo/company and create something unique.
Step 2: Load a bunch of icons with alt names.
Step 3: Randomize 1 and 2 as well as position and colors.
I wish good design was algorithmically that simple, but is not. These are good logos for maybe a placeholder or testing something out, but they will never have the quality of a real well thought design.
[1] https://www.brandcrowd.com/maker
I think the main problem with this service is that the parameters are probably pretty simple and it's gonna mostly output generic patterns.
That isn't the ringing endorsement one might imagine it to be.