How to Make a Startup Logo Without a Designer (2026)

Short answer: You can make a perfectly usable startup logo yourself for $0. Check the name first, pick one free icon and one free font whose licences allow commercial use, assemble them in Figma or Penpot, choose one colour, then export an SVG master and the icon sizes Apple, Google Play and browsers ask for. Hire a designer later, when customers have proved the brand is worth spending on.

Every price, licence and size below comes from the vendor's or regulator's own page, checked on 11 Nov 2026. The process and opinions are ours and are marked as such.

TL;DR#

• Clear the name first. Search the USPTO Trademark Search system and the UK IPO trade mark search before you draw anything.
• Start from licensed parts. Lucide is ISC licensed, Heroicons is MIT licensed, and most Google Fonts use the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
• The tools are free. Figma Starter and Penpot's Professional plan both cost $0. Adobe Express Premium is US$9.99/mo.
• Be careful with AI. The US Copyright Office says "prompts do not alone provide sufficient control" for copyright (Part 2 report).
• Export the right sizes. 1024x1024 px for Apple, 512x512 px for Google Play, and 192x192 plus 512x512 px for a web manifest.

Disclosure: ZeroRaised publishes this guide and is a launch site for bootstrapped products. ZeroRaised has no commercial relationship with any tool, icon set or marketplace named here and earns nothing if you use them.

What a bootstrapped startup actually needs from a logo#

An early logo has three jobs: read clearly as a tiny browser tab icon, look tidy on a launch page, and stay out of legal trouble. Our read: most early logos fail by being too complicated, not too cheap. Gradients and mascots turn to mush at small sizes. Aim for a small system rather than one image:

Step 1: Check the name before you design#

A logo built on a name you cannot use is wasted work. Before opening a design tool:

1. Search the name in the USPTO Trademark Search system (the USPTO's guidance page is here).
2. If you sell in the UK, use the UK IPO search, which offers search by number, by owner, and by keyword, phrase or image.
3. Check the domain and social handles you want.

We cover classes, fees and filing in how to trademark a startup name. Once you have a draft icon, run it through the UK image search too.

Step 2: Pick wordmark, icon mark or both#

A wordmark is your name in a well-chosen font, perhaps with one customised letter. It is the fastest, safest route. An icon mark is a simple symbol, and you need one anyway because a full name does not fit in a favicon. Our read: make both, use the wordmark where space is wide and the icon where it is square. If your name is long, its first letter on a coloured square is a respectable icon.

Step 3: Use one free icon and one free font, with the licence checked#

Start from a professionally drawn icon or typeface and adapt it. What matters is the licence.

The SIL Open Font License text says OFL fonts "can be bundled, embedded, redistributed and/or sold with any software", but not "sold by itself." Some Google Fonts also use the OFL's Reserved Font Name option, which matters only if you modify and share the font file itself.

Two cautions, both ours:

• A stock icon is not unique. Anyone can use the same Lucide rocket. Modify it (stroke weight, a cut corner, two shapes combined) so the mark is yours.
• Never use another brand's icon. Font Awesome's licence says brand logos should not be used "for any purpose except to represent the company, product, or service to which they refer."

Step 4: Build it in a free design tool#

Any vector editor works. These are the ones we would consider, with prices from their own pages:

We could not load Canva's or Looka's pricing pages on 11 Nov 2026, so their prices are left out. For more editors, see our Figma alternatives for indie makers. Note the Kittl row: a free plan without commercial rights is no use for a company logo, so check that line on every template tool.

A real example: Marc Lou's method#

Indie maker Marc Lou describes almost exactly this process in How to make a logo in minutes without design skills (14 Oct 2023). He tells readers to "Head over to any free SVG libraries", naming Lucide and Heroicons among them, then: "Search for your shape, download the SVG, and import it in Figma."

On colour: "Pick one primary color and stick to it," and "Just add the primary colour in the background, and fill the icon with white." He suggests a shape representing the outcome customers get, not the product, and says "The third one will only take 5 minutes."

Our 60-minute build#

1. Write down three words for what your customer gets (for example "faster", "calm", "money back").
2. Search Lucide or Heroicons for those words and shortlist five icons.
3. Put each one in white on a coloured rounded square in Figma or Penpot. Pick the one that reads best at 32 px.
4. Modify it a little: thicker strokes, a cut corner, or merge it with your first letter.
5. Set your name in two or three Google Fonts. Pick the one that stays legible in small sizes.
6. Choose one primary colour, plus black and white. Skip palettes for now.
7. Make a lockup: icon left, name right.
8. Outline the text in the master file.

Step 5: Use AI for ideas, not the final file#

AI image tools are great for exploring directions and risky as the source of your final mark.

Ownership terms vary by plan. Recraft's pricing FAQ says "Images generated on the Free plan are owned by Recraft" and that they are "not licensed for commercial use", while "Paid plans grant you full ownership and commercial rights for all images generated while subscribed" (Recraft pricing). Read the equivalent clause for any generator before you use its output.

Copyright may not protect a prompt-only logo. In its January 2025 report on copyrightability, the US Copyright Office concluded: "Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements," and "Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control." It also says human authors are entitled to copyright in "creative modifications of the outputs" (US Copyright Office, Part 2).

Our read, not legal advice: treat AI output as a sketch, then redraw the final mark in vector from a licensed icon or your own shapes, so the file you ship is clearly your work.

Step 6: Check contrast and small sizes#

WCAG exempts logos from contrast rules: "Text that is part of a logo or brand name has no contrast requirement" (WCAG 2.2, Contrast Minimum). Its non-text guidance also exempts logos, but says that if a logo is normally shown with enough contrast and you present it with insufficient contrast as an author choice, "the logo is not exempt" (WCAG 2.2, Non-text Contrast).

Our read: aim for the 3:1 ratio WCAG asks of graphical objects anyway, and test the icon at 16 px and 32 px, in one colour, on white and near-black backgrounds.

Step 7: Export every size you will need#

Make the SVG your master and generate everything else from it.

Do not pre-round your Apple icon: Apple says providing layers with pre-defined masking "makes edges look jagged." For Google Play, give the icon a solid background rather than transparency.

Our export checklist:

• logo.svg (lockup), wordmark.svg, icon.svg, each with text outlined
• One-colour black and white SVG versions
• icon-1024.png square, no rounded corners, for Apple
• icon-512.png, 32-bit PNG under 1024KB, for Google Play
• icon-192.png and icon-512.png for the manifest, plus a maskable version with the 80% safe zone
• A favicon from icon.svg, tested in a browser tab at real size
• Square social avatar and a wide banner using the lockup
• A one-page note with your hex colour, font name and licence links

What it costs: three routes#

This is our editorial comparison. Tool prices are from the vendor pages above; the time estimates are ours.

Our read: the $0 route is the right first logo for most bootstrapped products. You may change positioning in year one, and a free logo is easy to replace. Spend on design when it supports revenue.

Frequently asked questions#

Can I make a startup logo for free?#

Yes. Use a free icon from a permissively licensed set such as Lucide (ISC) or Heroicons (MIT), a font from Google Fonts (mostly SIL Open Font License 1.1), and a free editor such as Figma Starter or Penpot's $0 Professional plan. The only cost is your time, usually an afternoon for a simple wordmark or icon mark.

Is it safe to use an AI logo generator for my startup logo?#

Read the terms first. Recraft's pricing FAQ says images made on its free plan are owned by Recraft and are not licensed for commercial use, while paid plans grant ownership and commercial rights. Separately, the US Copyright Office's January 2025 report says prompts do not alone provide sufficient control for copyright, so a purely prompt-generated logo may be hard to protect. Use AI for ideas, then rebuild the final mark yourself.

What size should a startup logo be?#

Keep an SVG master, which scales to any size. Then export what each platform asks for: Apple's guidelines list a 1024x1024 px square layout for iOS, iPadOS and macOS icons, Google Play wants a 512x512 px 32-bit PNG under 1024KB, and web.dev says Chromium needs at least a 192x192 and a 512x512 icon in your web app manifest.

Do I need to trademark my logo?#

Not on day one, but you should search before you commit. Run the name through the USPTO Trademark Search system and the UK IPO search so you do not build a brand on a name someone already owns. Our view: for an early startup, protecting the name usually matters more than registering the logo.

When should I pay a designer for a logo?#

Our view: once you have paying customers, a clear position and a reason to look more established, such as raising prices or selling to larger companies. If you want a contest, 99designs lists logo packages from US$249 (Bronze) to US$1,050 (Platinum), excluding sales tax.

Put your new logo to work#

Once the logo, favicon and app icon are exported, work through our product launch checklist for bootstrapped makers, then submit your product to ZeroRaised for free. ZeroRaised is a launch directory for products built without institutional VC. For more practical guides like this one, join the ZeroRaised newsletter.

Sources#

All sources last checked 11 Nov 2026.

• Marc Lou, How to make a logo in minutes without design skills
• USPTO, Search our trademark database and Trademark Search system
• GOV.UK, Search for a trade mark
• Lucide licence
• Heroicons on GitHub
• Font Awesome Free licence (LICENSE.txt)
• Google Fonts repository README
• SIL Open Font License official text
• Figma pricing and Figma plans and features
• Penpot pricing
• Adobe Express pricing
• Kittl pricing
• Recraft pricing
• US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence and Part 2: Copyrightability report
• Apple Human Interface Guidelines, App icons
• Google Play icon design specifications
• web.dev, Add a web app manifest
• MDN, Define your app icons
• WCAG 2.2 Understanding Contrast (Minimum)
• WCAG 2.2 Understanding Non-text Contrast
• 99designs pricing