How I Design Logotypes for Brands With Difficult Names

The Name Is Not Negotiable

Clients don't change their brand names because the name is hard to design for. I've had to create wordmarks for names that are twelve characters long, names with three consecutive ascenders, names with awkward letter combinations that create unavoidable spacing problems, and names that are a single letter repeated three times.

The name is a fixed constraint. My job is to find the typographic approach that makes the name look like it was designed for, not despite, its specific character combination.

Long Names

Long names — anything over eight or nine characters — need typefaces with tight natural spacing and low stroke contrast to avoid looking stretched and labored. A condensed typeface is often the right answer, because the narrowed character widths allow a longer name to fit in a compact horizontal span without shrinking to an uncomfortable size.

The alternative to a condensed typeface is a stacked treatment — the name broken across two or three lines. This works when the line breaks create natural word or syllable groupings. A two-word brand name can often stack elegantly; a single compound word that breaks awkwardly cannot.

Names With Consecutive Ascenders or Descenders

A brand name like "Millfield" has consecutive ascenders — M, i, l, l, f — that create a jagged roofline above the x-height. This can look cluttered and unresolved.

My approach: choose a typeface with reduced ascender height, or work with the ascenders deliberately as a design feature. A typeface where all the ascenders are the same height creates a more even roofline. Alternatively, I've designed logotypes where the ascending strokes are treated as a repeated vertical rhythm — a feature rather than a problem.

Consecutive descenders (g, p, y, j) create similar challenges below the baseline. Same principle: either minimize them or make them a deliberate feature.

Single-Letter or Short Names

Single-letter names and very short names have a different problem: there isn't enough visual material to work with. A single letter is a letterform design challenge, not a typography challenge. I'm essentially designing a custom glyph.

For short names of two or three characters, letter-spacing decisions carry enormous weight because the relationships between a small number of letters define the entire wordmark's character. I spend much more time on spacing with short names than long ones.

Awkward Letter Pairs

Some letter combinations are notorious for spacing problems: AV, VA, WA, TA, FA, LT, LY. These pairs create large optical voids that look like gaps no matter how you adjust the kerning.

My solutions depend on the brand character. For brands that need to feel contemporary and confident, I sometimes close these pairs very tightly — almost touching — so the void becomes a design decision rather than an apparent oversight. For brands that need to feel spacious and premium, I accept the void and ensure the rest of the spacing is generous enough that it reads as intentional.

In some cases, I design a ligature — a custom connection or overlap between the awkward pair — that resolves the void with a visual bridge. This is the most labor-intensive solution but sometimes produces the most distinctive result.

When Letterform Modification Is Necessary

Sometimes no existing typeface handles the specific name well enough without modification. In these cases, I modify the letterforms directly in vector software.

This might mean adjusting the angle of a terminal, opening a counter, extending a crossbar, or redrawing a problematic letter from scratch. The test is whether the modification is visible as a modification. If the letterform looks like it belongs to its neighbors, the modification was successful. If it looks like a different typeface intruded, more work is needed.

The best wordmarks are the ones where the typographic challenges have been solved so thoroughly that the viewer has no idea there was ever a problem.