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We use AI tools in our own process, so this is not a defensive piece. But the honest picture is more complicated than either "AI replaces designers" or "AI output is worthless".
What AI generators are genuinely good for
- Exploring directions quickly, before committing to any of them.
- Placeholder marks for a prototype, a pitch or an internal test.
- Side projects and personal work where nothing commercial rests on it.
- Generating variations once a direction is decided.
- Showing a designer roughly what territory you have in mind, faster than describing it.
Where they fall down
- Small-size legibility. Generated marks routinely contain detail that dissolves at favicon size, because the model optimises for how the image looks at generation resolution.
- Vector quality. Output is usually raster or auto-traced, and auto-traced vectors have wobbly curves and hundreds of stray points that show up in print.
- Typography. Letter spacing in generated wordmarks is frequently wrong in ways that are obvious to anyone trained and hard to articulate if you are not.
- Category awareness. The model does not know that four of your competitors already use that symbol.
- The system around the mark. A logo is not an identity, and the applications are where most of the value sits.
The ownership problem
This is the part that matters commercially. Copyright law in most jurisdictions requires human authorship, and purely machine-generated output generally cannot be registered. Several logo platforms also grant a licence rather than transferring ownership, and some retain the right to sell similar marks to others.
The practical consequence: you may be unable to register a trademark, unable to stop a competitor using something near-identical, and unable to prove authorship if challenged. For a hobby project this is irrelevant. For a business that intends to build recognition — or that might one day be sold, where brand assets get audited in diligence — it is a genuine liability.
How to decide
| Use an AI generator | Side projects, internal tools, prototypes, exploration, anything where you will not be defending the mark. |
|---|---|
| Use a designer | Anything customer-facing that you intend to keep, anything you may want to trademark, anything in a competitive category, anything that has to work across print and merchandise. |
| Use both | Explore with AI to work out what you like, then have a designer draw the real thing properly. This is genuinely efficient and we do it ourselves. |
Questions to ask any logo platform
- 1Do I receive full copyright ownership, in writing, or a licence?
- 2Can the same or a similar mark be sold to someone else?
- 3Do I get true editable vector files, or an auto-trace?
- 4Was any human designer involved, and can that be evidenced for a trademark application?
- 5What happens if someone else claims the mark?
Want this done for you?
We will tell you honestly whether you need us for it. Send a two-line description of the business and we come back with a plan, a timeline and one fixed price.