Ask for a logo and you get clip art. These prompts do the brand thinking first, in order, the way a designer would. Run them in one chat so the AI remembers everything.
"Make me a logo for my coaching business" skips everything a designer does before touching a pencil. Who you serve, how the brand should feel, what it should bring to mind. Skip the thinking and the AI fills the gap with the average of every logo it has seen. That average is the clip art look.
The fix is order. Strategy first, then direction, then the marks, then a critic pass. One chat, 5 prompts, and every step builds on the last because the AI keeps the whole conversation in view.
The AI interviews you before anything gets designed. Your answers become the brief every later prompt uses.
Why it works. A designer's first meeting is questions, never sketches. This prompt forces that meeting to happen.
You are my brand designer and I'm your client. My business: [one sentence on what you do and who you serve]. Before we design anything, interview me one question at a time: who my ideal client is, how I want them to feel when they see my brand, the 3 words my brand should bring to mind, and the brands I admire. Then write my brand brief in under 150 words and wait for my approval.
Three different roads before any design: type-led, icon-led, badge. You pick one, and everything after stays consistent.
Why it works. Choosing between directions is easy. Judging one finished logo with no comparison is nearly impossible.
Using the approved brief, give me 3 visual directions for this brand: one led by typography, one led by a simple icon, and one badge or emblem style. For each, describe the feeling it creates, the kind of client it attracts, and one risk of choosing it. Then recommend one and say why.
Your business name, type only. For a solo business this alone can carry the whole brand.
Why it works. A strong wordmark works everywhere an icon does, and it says your name while doing it.
Generate a type-only wordmark image for "[your business name]" in the direction we chose. Give me 3 options that vary the typeface feeling (one modern, one classic, one warm), each on a plain background, wide format. Spell the name exactly as I wrote it.
One simple shape that still reads at the size of an app icon. If it needs explaining, it fails.
Why it works. Logos live small: profile photos, favicons, watermarks. Designing for 32 pixels first keeps the AI from decorating.
Now design an icon to pair with the wordmark: one simple shape, flat, no gradients, no fine detail, recognizable at 32 pixels. It should hint at the brand brief without being literal. Give me 3 options on plain backgrounds and explain each in one sentence.
The AI switches roles and grades its own work like a hired designer reviewing a junior's draft.
Why it works. Generating and judging are different jobs. Asked to judge, the AI gets surprisingly honest about what looks generic.
Switch roles. You are now a senior brand designer reviewing the logo we just made. Grade it against the brief: what looks generic, what breaks at small sizes, what a competitor could mistake for their own, and the one change that would improve it most. Be specific and blunt. Then make that one change.
These two prompts didn't fit on the post. They're how you find out if the winner survives real life before it's on your business cards.
Tiny, black and white, and far away. A logo that survives all three survives anything.
Show the final logo 3 ways in one image: tiny at roughly favicon size, in pure black and white with no color, and at a distance as if printed on a sign across the street. Tell me honestly what stops working in each version and whether we should simplify.
See it on the things your clients will see before you fall in love with it on a plain background.
Mock up the final logo on the 3 places my clients will meet it first: [for example: my website header, my Instagram profile photo, an email signature]. One image per mockup, realistic, no extra decoration. Flag anywhere the logo fights its background.
Pick the option you'd still like on a bad day. The clever one wears out. The clear one keeps working, at every size, next to every photo you'll ever post beside it.