Some of the most enduring logos in the world are just a name, set well. Here is how to design a wordmark that looks intentional — and a free tool to do it in minutes.
A wordmark puts your name at the center of your identity, so people learn what you are called every single time they see your logo. It scales cleanly from a favicon to a storefront, it is cheap to produce and easy to protect, and it forces the one decision that matters most: choosing a typeface whose personality matches your brand.
Before browsing fonts, write down two or three words your brand should feel like: confident, playful, elegant, rugged. Then pick the category that carries that feeling. A geometric sans reads modern and clear. A high-contrast didone reads elegant and editorial. A slab serif feels sturdy and dependable, a rounded sans feels friendly, and a stencil feels industrial. The font is doing most of the emotional work in a wordmark, so audition a few categories before settling.
Wordmarks fail from decoration, not restraint. Set the name on one line, or stack it above a small tagline. If your name is long, a monogram made from your initials gives you a compact companion mark for avatars and app icons. Badges — the name inside a circle or rectangle — work well for products and packaging, but keep the frame simple and give the text generous breathing room.
Letter-spacing quietly changes the tone. Tight spacing feels contemporary and confident; generous spacing feels premium and calm, especially for an all-caps tagline beneath the name. Whatever you choose, apply it evenly and check the logo at small sizes — if letters visually collide at 32 pixels, open the spacing up.
A wordmark needs at most two colors: ink and background. Dark ink on a light ground is the dependable default; a single saturated accent — used for the whole name, not one letter — makes a mark feel designed. Always produce a one-color version too, because your logo will eventually live somewhere that allows nothing else.
You will want a high-resolution PNG with a background for immediate use, and an SVG for scalable, crisp rendering on the web. When the brand becomes real, license the typeface you used — a font license is what makes the logo legitimately yours to use commercially. Read more in how font licensing works.
We built a free logo maker around Glyphline's original display typefaces: type your name, pick a font, choose inline, stacked, monogram, or badge layouts, tune spacing and color, and download PNG or SVG — no signup. If you use Halo Rounded, the font itself is free for commercial use under the Open Font License.
Open the free Glyphline logo maker — type your name, pick a typeface, download PNG or SVG. No signup.
Open the logo maker →On Pinterest: our free geometric display font, Lumen Grotesk Light →