Your AI draft is good, but not usable?
The logo from ChatGPT looked finished on screen. Then the printer wanted a vector file & there was none. This is where I can help. And: AI designs mostly look alike.
What I make of your draft
Cleanly redrawn
Not traced automatically, but rebuilt: with as few points as necessary, with curves that are really round, and lines that stay equally thick everywhere. That way the mark scales from favicon to facade.
A typeface that exists
AI invents letters. They look right at first glance and are not. I replace them with a real typeface that matches the look, and set the spacing so the name stays legible even when small.
Colours you can print
The gradient from the image exists in no colour system. I define fixed values, for screen and print, and build a single-colour version for stamps, embroidery and engraving.
All files, done right once
SVG, EPS, PDF and PNG, each positive and negative, plus a page that says which file is for what. After that you never have to ask anyone again whether the file will do.
The missing distinguishing feature
AI mixes together what already exists. That is why generated marks often look like a hundred others from the same industry. I look in your draft for what is really yours and sharpen exactly that – so people recognise you and not the template.
The thing about the rights
Purely machine-generated images are, as things stand today, not protected by copyright. What that means for you and where a lawyer should take a look, I tell you openly instead of smiling it away.
Why redrawing and not tracing
There are programs that automatically turn a pixel image into vectors. I use them myself, as a first step, to get the basic shape. But the result is never finished. Every blur becomes a wave, every compression artefact a corner, and a shape that should actually be a circle ends up with four hundred anchor points and is not one.
That is why I draw over it. By hand, with the tools I have used for logos for fourteen years. That takes longer than a click and less time than a new logo. The mascot for Straub Verpackungen came about that way, from a supplied sketch. With AI drafts the path is the same, only the template comes from somewhere else.
And sometimes I do not redraw but say: let us take the idea and build the mark properly. That is not a step backwards. The machine helped you see what you want. That is more than many know at the start of a logo project.
How it works
You send me the draft
PNG or JPG is enough, even a screenshot. Plus two sentences: what the mark is meant for and where it will appear later.
I take a look and get back to you
Usually the same day, and this first look costs nothing. You get an assessment: salvageable, better new, or better left alone. With reasons and a price that then also holds.
I build the mark
Redraw, replace the typeface, define colours, create variants. In between you see a stage and can intervene.
You get the package
All files, cleanly named, with a page of instructions. And all usage rights to what I have done to it pass to you.
Also for illustrations and graphics
It is not only logos that come to me this way. A generated cover image that is to be printed and is too small for it. A character that is to go on a vehicle and has to be cut as foil for that. A pattern for packaging where the edges do not match up.
With illustrations it is less often about redrawing and more often about making them print-ready: resolution, colour space, cut-outs, bleed, trim edges. Where it does have to be a vector drawing, for signs, foils or embroidery for example, I rebuild it. I work with AI images myself, in the Artboard you will find some of them, and so I know fairly precisely where they stumble.
Frequently asked questions
Can't an AI logo simply be vectorised automatically?
It can, and that is usually exactly the problem. Automatic vectorisers trace every pixel edge, including the blur and the artefacts. Out comes a file with thousands of anchor points that neither scales cleanly nor can be edited sensibly. I redraw the mark, with as few points as necessary. You see the difference on the sign at the latest.
May I use an AI-generated logo as a trademark at all?
Purely machine-generated images enjoy no copyright protection as things stand today, which means: you are not the author, but neither is anyone else. Whether you can register the mark as a trademark and whether it is too similar to an existing one is for a lawyer to check, not me. What I do: I look beforehand whether the mark seems familiar to me, and tell you honestly if I have concerns.
What if the draft cannot be saved?
That happens, with perhaps every third one. Typical are marks with fine gradients, perspective or details that turn to mush at two centimetres wide. Then I tell you so after the first look. The idea is not lost because of that: it is often worth taking it as a template and building the mark from scratch.
Can you tell in the end that it was once AI?
When I am done, no. The typical traces are the letters no alphabet knows, uneven stroke widths and shapes that almost, but not quite, repeat. That is exactly what I clean up. What remains is the idea, and that may happily have been sparked by a machine.
Which files do I get?
The mark as SVG, EPS and PDF, plus PNG in several sizes, each positive and negative. Colours as RGB, CMYK and, where sensible, Pantone. Plus a page that says which file is for what. More on that in the logbook under logo file formats.
Does that also work with illustrations and graphics, not just logos?
Yes. With illustrations it is less often about redrawing and more often about making them print-ready: resolution, colour space, cut-outs, bleed. For signs, foils or embroidery it does have to be a vector drawing after all, and I rebuild that.
This often goes with it
Better a mark of your own right away
If the draft does not carry, this is the direct route: a logo that is designed from the start for print, screen and signage.
The rest of the identity
A usable mark is the beginning. Colours, typeface and business card often come about in the same pass.
Which files for what
SVG, EPS, PNG: I have written down which formats you really need after a logo project and which you can safely ignore.
Send me the draft.
One image and two sentences are enough. You get an honest assessment, usually the same day, and then decide at your leisure.