Hello everyone. I was here a week ago posting about a logo generator that uses AI to make logos.

Here's the link in case you missed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34179452

I've been playing around with AI for a couple of months now and I've made some really cool logos (at least I think they are cool). I thought it would be a bummer to let them sit around in a folder on my laptop so I decided to create a marketplace.

The hardest part was trying to figure out how to add the watermarks with php (that's what I use, sorry). Another thing I had to take into consideration was how to store all the thumbnails, watermarked and regular logo images. I currently have them on my server's file system but might have to change that if I try and scale this at all.

I'd love some feedback on the marketplace.

congrats on shipping!

I know why you sorry'ed php but I and many here learned programming purely from 90's web tutorials. No sorry's!

Keep going, looks good

haha, thank you. php works and it makes sense to my brain, so I'm going to keep using it. :)

Thanks for not making these NFTs. This is pretty cool! Are they only in raster format? Hmm… I wonder if AI can generate vector graphics. That would be neat.

Do you ensure any sort of exclusivity, or can many people end up with the same logo?

Nit: “everyday” should probably be “every day.” Everyday means commonplace, generic, mundane.

> I wonder if AI can generate vector graphics

In this context at least, OP will need to disambiguate Adobe Illustrator/Artificial Intelligence where appropriate.

Thank you for the feedback. I haven't tried vector yet but that would be pretty cool.

Each logo is unique, they are like a snowflake or a fingerprint. No duplicates.

After the logo is purchased, it's removed from the marketplace so no one else can purchase it.

+1 on the idea of shipping these in vector format. Would be great for graphic designers and software like Adobe Illustrator.

You definitely need higher resolutions than 1024x1024.

Can you explain why?

I'd say you need to make the vector. They are simple enough that a tracing program could do it with high accuracy, but any graphic logo I buy definitely needs to be scalable and clean at any resolution.

Very nice though!

Are you feeding in particular words to the generator? Do they have meaning, where it might be valuable to include keyword searches? I'm interested in the area and how these were created, but guessing you don't want to share too much.

Well I can't really give away my secret sauce, but I do have about 10 prompts that I use.

People want to put their logos on anything - posters or envelopes. Vector based art would make a lot more sense.

Printing a logo on a t-shirt would require very high resolution or it will look pixelated or blurred. Storefront and billboard sizes are out of the question unless you have vectors.

First of all, these are surprisingly good. It strikes me that this is an area where Stable Diffusion-like art shines particularly well. (Other examples [1] [2].)

But second -- does anyone else get the feeling that logos matter much less than they used to? Obviously you still something for marketing, but it feels like more and more it's just the name of the company in a particular typeface and in a particular color, maybe a tiny flourish. Think Casper, Warby Parker, Uber.

And even when there's an "icon" logo to the left of the name... it's so generic/geometric/forgettable. Think Microsoft, Airbnb, Slack, Instacart.

There are still "real" logos out there meant to be establish a stronger visual identity with more personality or recognition, whether Lyft or Twitter or Netflix or Snap.

If there really is a "decline" of strong logos with personality, that doesn't even necessarily strike me as a bad thing. Do companies really need to bother? Thirty years ago, it felt like when you started a company, figuring out the logo was a huge deal, as if it would actually make a difference in your sales. Nowadays it feels like just a checkbox on a todo list, not particularly impactful.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/wg65n6/colorful_3d_...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/w8ei7g/3d_low_polyg...

Thank you for the compliment :) I'm glad someone else thinks they are cool.

You have some very good points. I've lost hours on previous projects trying to figure out what my logo should be, I was making it too much of a priority.

Maybe this marketplace can alleviate that for some people.

I really have to disagree. I get AI use cases for things like stock photography replacement. Or generating thousands of customised adverts. Essentially low value things that are somewhat throwaway.

But a logo IS your entire brand and company. Spend some money to get one that is good and you’ll want to stick with.

Disclaimer: I’ve worked in advertising for 15 years.

What recourse do you have against someone who takes one of these logos, redraws it or something to remove the watermark, and then uses it without paying you? Copyright won't help, since even if these aren't too simple to copyright (as most logos are), AI-generated works aren't copyrightable. And trademark won't help either, since it only covers what you use to identify your own business.

Well it's in the terms that you may not do any of that, but of course there are always bad actors out there.

Wouldn't someone have that issue with a regular logo as well? Wouldn't the same recourse be followed?

With a regular logo, the designer has copyright law to back them up. Pure AI creations so not seem to get that protection

Isn't the fact that these are curated make them not "pure AI"? A human in the loop applied "their" design aesthetic to the selection process.

Didn't humans make AI?

This is a very new area where law has not caught up. Surely in any creative process (book author, painter) there is a process where the artist selects and omits elements before the final product.

Is not the selection and omission of poorly generated images the "human authorship" [1] necessary to qualify? Or can OP modify AI generated art meaningfully to qualify for copyright?

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic...

Additionally the choice of the model is an important choice too. Some AI art collections even make their own derivative models where a human picks extra images to train off of.

It reminds me of 3D art where there is a lot of up front work in making models, textures, armatures, and shaders. You send a ton of data to the GPU and it spits out a rendered image or more likely a tile of one.

> Wouldn't someone have that issue with a regular logo as well?

Isn't the usual workflow "pay me and I'll make a logo for you", not "here's a bunch of premade logos for sale"?

Where is the usual workflow documented? I missed that memo.

Tell me you don't know what market analysis is without mentioning market analysis...

This is a cool project on technical merits but by commercializing it, you're begging for a lawsuit. I nearly-recognize a couple of your logos, which could be a problem for you. As you've almost certainly used non-free sources in your training set, you'll be defenseless if somebody comes after you for trademark infringement.

And, as somebody who has made logos in the past? I'd feel pretty secure in the knowledge that your "AI-generated" works are not protected, and dissatisfied with rasterized versions with all their weird artifacts. It would take very little time for me to make a vectorized version of one of your logos that would look way better and you would have no legal recourse. My only real fear would be that I'd be ripping off somebody else's logo.

I'd be curious to know which ones you "recognize"...I'm familiar with how my logos are produced, you aren't. Again with the assumptions.

The pragmatic answer is something like: the marginal cost is ~$0 and the lost revenue is at most $5 so who cares? There's a disincentive to "steal" a logo too because they'll still be selling it: for $5, why not get the exclusive?

These are really sharp.

What's the download format (png, gif, etc.)?

Thank you :)

The download format is png with transparent background.

I love the idea, great work!

- Can you make logos that are not so "whimsical" in color?

- Any chance the logos can be png? (1024x1024 is not nearly big enough, IMO)

Yes, I can churn out some logos with darker color schemes.

They are png format. What size would be ideal for you?

fwiw I really like the color schemes on the marketplace. Kind of a modern dark neon vibe. But would be cool to select from a list of "moods" or "themes" for someone who doesn't have an exact color palette in mind, more of a vague idea.

Very cool!

I'm an indie developer, hacking on my Jukebox web and mobile app as we speak: https://www.getjukelab.com/

I'm a programmer so logos and other graphic design elements are not my forte. Currently I just Googled for "free jukebox icon" and landed on:

https://www.flaticon.com/free-icons/jukebox

I'm very tempted to try this out, the price is right for a solo dev, and your gallery of existing icons is compelling.

My only hesitation is there's no guarantee I'll like what you come up with.

With a graphic designer, I know I can give feedback until it's just right. And I can get additional assets like word marks, color pallets, to build out the brand. Of course I'd expect to pay way way more for a real designer and pay extra for every additional round of changes or new assets.

I do see in the FAQ you are willing to work with clients on this.

The "AI" angle is so interesting too. An interesting thought experiment is if I'd ever find and work with your services if you didn't play the AI angle.

Anyway, very cool, I've bookmarked it and will circle back later!

I assume you're referring to the package where you buy 10 logos for $14? I am absolutely willing to work with someone if they aren't happy with what they receive.

That's half the reason I built the marketplace. People can see what they are buying instead of blindly making a purchase.

I like the idea, but I noticed that some logos aren't centered properly within the frame. Makes them look awkward imo.

Yes, I need to improve upon some of the post processing. :(

2 questions: What are the source data you used to train the algorithm? And, in case the source data are copyrighted by a third party, do you have consent?

I trust you check your logos against the body of existing logotypes.

Due diligence and non-encroaching on other designers' work is a sizeable part of regular logo design process. Lots of good ideas and concepts are routinely rejected because they happen to be taken. That's one of the reasons why logos don't normally go at $5 a pop and why they can in fact be used without a risk of being slapped with a C&D for copyright violation.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm not encroaching on anyone's work.

That's a very brazen or utterly naive attitude.

You can't possibly know that you don't encroach. Part of the package of being a professional logo designer is knowing the field. They literally know hundreds if not thousands of existing logos. There are books and references dedicated to finding dupes. This is a very important aspect of the logo design and ignoring it is an extremely unwise thing to do.

With your process you are guaranteed to generate a logo that will look like a blatant derivative or a verbatim copy of existing work. Consider what will happen next.

You sure are making a lot of assumptions about my process.

> Elevate your brand with a unique AI generated logo

Tell me this doesn't look like the Ubuntu logo: https://logocreatorai.com/logo/8cJQUXvCIH9lwrfUsr8ETKwo

This may feel like criticism, but we're trying to help you.

Yep, especially with all the orange in my logo you have linked.

It's not a serious B2B effort. It's just a way to collect some money from individuals who want to slap a graphic on their GitHub project or their lawnmowing service.

A killer app for AI will be in custom font creation.

Sick and tired of paying typographers exorbitant amounts of money to license their fonts. Let’s use AI to create custom fonts on demand, cheaply and at scale.

I like it!!!

What files are in the purchase package? Does it have a vector version of the logo? 1024 x 1024 resolution doesn't sound like a lot for a number of purposes, eg print.

here is your next tier idea to make an offering that is compelling to those with deeper pockets, and take their brand more seriously, and don't want to be associated with a "$5 logo" ...

offer a $$ service that does A/B testing based on a basket of logos and recommends which works best based on a suite of user interactions / actions when presented in context of that company's offerings

that way you can "infuse" the logo choice with a soul / spirit / essence of the brand that connects the customers and the company in a meaningful and measured way

you are welcome :)

I love it, thanks. :)

:)

I am letting my fantasy run wild here ...

instead of a logo that is fixed or static ... why not propose a logo that constantly evolves based on continuous A/B testing being fed-back into your AI logo generation model?

You host the generated logo as a live API endpoint that renders the "current" version of the logo on demand

This endpoint takes some input parameters 1. to control which version of the logo gets returned & rendered and 2. to provide context to were the logo is being presented, and tags a unique requestID. After the fact, when user interaction/session is complete -- the KPIs about the success of that particular user session is recorded and matched with the logo requestID

Now on the logo serving side, the algorithm continuously introduces small randomized tweaks to the logo -- subtle changes in geometry / relative sizes and shapes / subtle changes in colors and gradients etc. and keeps track of what was served for which request ID

Over time -- you nudge the logo generation towards what seems to drive better customer engagement and outcomes. Survival of the fittest - automated.

Now that we have this idea in the space of logos -- the same could also be used in the marketing copy used on product pages -- where the text is generated through a GPT-like model and continuously evolves to make the impact better?

Same with web-layouts and CSS styles generated through code-GPT models?

How far back can we integrate this into the product/service stack -- instead of just the presentation layer?

Distant future:

You host a fully-automated tech-news website and hook it up to this "evolution" model where there are constant nudges towards what seems to engage audience better and convert into sales. You take a one-week vacation and come back to find out your site is now a rabid polarizing political disinformation generator and a p0rn generator for metaverse.

Looks good, congrats! Are you already having paying customers? If yes, how did you reach them? (If not, how are you planning to?)

Thank you, not sure how I'm going to approach market yet.

> 1024 x 1024 high-resolution

That's... Not what a logo is.

Great idea. Don’t listen to the haters (they have some good points, use them if you like but don’t feel bad).

Thank you :)

Ask the AI what are the important elements of a logo and then create some lists. Here is an example https://github.com/dasdata/barlogocreator

Wow, really impressive. Not only are these super beautiful, they also all seem to immediately evoke something in me. They are expressive. Not just something pretty, but something meaningful, like a logo should be. Great work!