Creating a Full Logo and Branding Kit with AI

My entire career has been spent leading marketing teams and driving the charge of building brands that are bigger than our product. The two companies I started and exited from have been branding powerhouses.

I’ve seen endless tweets from intelligent people that say shit like: “You don’t need a logo. You don’t need a domain. You just need to start.” We can respectfully disagree on this.

Everyone has a “product” they are selling. An online app, a digital course, and a newsletter (yes, this is ironic, but I don’t make money from this). But there is only one Apple. One Nike. One Amazon. One Starbucks. You get it.

Everything online is a visual game, whether you’re looking for a new app or new love. A great logo can:

• Spark curiosity and interest

• Instill trust and credibility

• Foster brand loyalty

Don't underestimate the power of a well-designed logo. It's your brand's secret weapon in the battle for attention.

I have now owned two companies and ran many departments on companies that built logos for people, and it’s a giant pain in the ass. Creating a logo is complicated—no one knows that more than me.

It isn't easy because the average person doesn’t know what they want, and logos take time because you’re building from scratch.

AI solves that. If you are still reading, I am finally at the good part. Sorry for being like those people that share their family recipe and give you their entire life story first.

Disclaimer: You will not get a perfect logo from this method, but it will get you to where you and a real designer need to be. I will explain further. We’re not even going to discuss the text, either. We’re focusing on the design of your logo.

Know what you want and what colors you want.

Many times in my life, I have asked someone what they want in their logo, and they say, “I don’t know, something nice.” And then I explode inside.

If you are going to start a business or project, you should have an idea of what you want. You should also know what colors you like. I don’t like the color yellow, and I am not big on the color orange. Meaning I know neither will ever be part of a brand I build.

So let’s say I am opening a coffee shop at the beach and want it to feel tropical.

I have a few options for my prompt.

Prompt: An ultra minimalistic logo of a coffee cup in front of palm trees, cartoon, bright colors --s 750 --q 2

This is what Midjourney spits out:

I dig it, but most people probably would not. Let’s go more traditional. To do that, I am going to change the prompt a little bit:

Prompt: a crisp logo for a traditional coffee shop located near the beach, brown and green --s 750 --q 2 --v 5

You’re going to get a fantastic logo, but you’re going to get weird AI/Alien gibberish text on it as well. I don’t care in most cases because my designer will remove it in Photoshop and add new text anyway.

Now, we will prompt this again, except without text, by asking for just the icon.

Prompt: a crisp logo icon for a traditional coffee shop located near the beach, brown and green colors --s 750 --q 2 --v 5

Okay. I love all of these, but you may not. So this gave me the inspiration I needed for colors, designs, and incorporating the product and the location.

Now I can pull it back a little bit. I want to see a couple of versions of coffee shop logos. Let’s test some prompts:

Prompt: simple coffee cup logo --s 750 --q 2

Now I have enough inspo to take to a designer and say what I like and don’t like. For me, I’d do this:

Prompt: An ultra minimalistic logo for an oceanfront coffee shop, cartoon, tropical --s 750 --q 2 --v 5

First try, and I love the design and colors of options 1 and 4.

Since I love both, I will click U1 and U4 to save larger files to my Midjourney account for download later, and I will also click V1 and V4 to get four versions of each of the ones I really like.

Side note: I knew I’d like something with orange or yellow after I said I don’t like orange or yellow above.

Here are four versions of Option 1:

Here are four versions of Option 4:

Here is my winner:

What should I name my coffee shop? The Surf & Sip, obviously! Thanks, ChatGPT.

Voila - my new logo and branding:

• Name: The Surf & Sip

• Colors: Teal (#91BFAF), Navy (#202D36), Orange (#F98B2F), and Tan (#FEE8C7)

• Font: Lovelo

One final step, let’s prompt Midjourney to build me the coffee shop images so I can get them to the architect who will build it.

Prompt: The inside of a coffee shop on a beach boardwalk, by Anna Lee, with a calming and serene design, natural textures, and blue and teal colors that create a soothing atmosphere, view of the ocean, modern, clean lighting, 8k --ar 2:3 --upbeta --v 5

I love two versions:

Just like that. The Surf & Sip Newport Beach is born.

Jokes aside: Am I opening a coffee shop in Newport Beach?! This exercise made it sound fun. 👀

Final thoughts:

This is not a perfect science, but it’s a fun exercise. You can play with prompts, colors, and a million other variables to get lost in the process. This was a quick exercise to get you thinking about the right prompts for your desired look.

Oh yeah…new Bagel Bots logo?!