Wordmark Design Process 205

title: "My Process for Designing a Wordmark From Scratch" description: "From brief to refined letterforms — what actually happens in a wordmark project." date: "2022-08-17" tags: "wordmark", "logo design", "typography" draft: false

Wordmarks are deceptively hard

A wordmark — a logotype where the brand name itself, in customized letterforms, is the entire mark — looks simple. It's just letters. But that simplicity is exactly what makes wordmarks so difficult to get right. There's nowhere to hide. Every spacing decision, every letterform modification, every weight choice is visible and permanent.

I've designed wordmarks that I was proud of immediately and ones where I had to go back three rounds before something clicked. The process I'm going to describe isn't a formula — it's how I actually work.

Starting with the name

Before I touch software, I spend time with the name itself. I write it out by hand in multiple styles — all caps, mixed case, all lowercase. I look for the natural letterform combinations that create visual interest or tension. Where do ascenders and descenders interact? Are there repeating letters that could be unified? Does the name have a natural rhythm that the spacing should reinforce?

A name like "Kova" has beautiful open geometry — the K and V share angular structure that can be unified. A name like "Hilltop" has a natural vertical movement in the double-L that can anchor the whole wordmark. These formal qualities are already in the name. My job is to find them and amplify them.

Choosing a starting typeface

I almost always start with an existing typeface as a foundation, even when the final wordmark will be fully custom. Starting from scratch on letterforms is slower and more prone to inconsistency. Starting from a well-constructed typeface gives me properly proportioned forms that I can then modify.

I choose the starting face based on the brand personality established in the brief. A professional services firm gets a starting point in a refined serif or geometric sans. A youth-focused consumer brand gets a more expressive starting point — maybe a rounded sans or a humanist grotesque.

The modification phase

Once I have the name set in my starting typeface and spaced correctly, I begin modifying. This is the most iterative part of the process. I might spend two or three hours just adjusting the optical spacing between specific letter pairs, then step back and look at the name as a shape from a distance.

Modification decisions I make in almost every wordmark project: adjusting the first and last letterforms to create better visual anchoring at the edges; unifying specific stroke weights that diverge too much across the original typeface; creating custom ligatures or connections where letterforms naturally invite them; and opening or closing apertures to match the brand's personality.

Testing at real-world sizes

A wordmark that only looks good at 600px in Illustrator has not been designed yet. I test every wordmark at thumbnail size (40-60px equivalent), at business card size, at signage scale, and reversed out of dark backgrounds. Each context reveals different issues.

The most common problem I find at small sizes: spacing that looks correct at design scale becomes too tight when reduced. I almost always end up with slightly more tracking than I initially want, because it needs to hold up at practical reproduction sizes.

Knowing when it's done

Wordmarks are done when I can't find a single decision I want to change. Not when I'm tired of looking at them, not when the client seems happy enough — when I genuinely cannot improve it further. That's a high bar, but wordmarks are permanent. They live on buildings and business cards for years. They deserve the full effort.