Design a logo and a one-page brand kit

What you'll learn

How to design a simple logo and a one-page brand kit, the page a business hands to anyone who makes something for it: logo, colours, fonts and a few rules. You will do it for a real business near you, or for your own project.

Choose a real client

A café, a tailor, your aunt's shop on Instagram, a school club, or your own app. Real is better than invented, because real businesses have real constraints. Ask the owner what the business stands for in three words, for example "fast, honest, local". If you design without asking, pick the three words yourself and write them down.

Sketch before you click

On paper, draw twenty tiny ideas in ten minutes. Letters, a shape, an object, a mix. Most will be bad; that is the point. Circle the three that are simplest and still mean something.

Build the logo

In Figma or Canva, rebuild your best idea with basic shapes and type.

• Make it work in one colour, black on white, first. Colour comes later.
• Shrink it to 32 pixels. If you cannot tell what it is, simplify.
• Make two versions: a full logo with the name, and a short mark or icon for profile pictures.
• Use a free font you are allowed to use commercially, such as one from Google Fonts. If the business name uses Kyrgyz letters like ө, ү and ң, check the font has them.

Pick the colours

Choose one main colour, one accent and one neutral. Write down each colour's hex code, such as #1F6F50. Check that text in your main colour is readable on white.

Make the one-page brand kit

On one page or frame:

• The full logo, the short mark, and both on a dark background
• The three colours with hex codes
• The fonts for headings and text, with sizes
• Clear space and minimum size: how much empty room around the logo, and how small it may go
• Two do's and two don'ts, for example "don't stretch the logo", "don't put it on a busy photo"
• One mockup: the logo on a sign, a cup, a bag or an Instagram profile

Export

Export PNGs of the full logo and short mark on transparent background, and the brand kit page itself. Put them in one Google Drive folder.

Before you submit

Set your Figma or Canva file to "anyone with the link can view" and open the link in a private window. Submit the share link and the Drive folder with the PNGs. Use only images and fonts you have the right to use.