The logo before website question splits opinion more than you’d expect. Some designers insist on a full brand identity before any website work starts. Others argue new businesses shouldn’t delay launching while they wait for the “perfect” logo. My own answer sits between the two: you need something, even if it’s genuinely simple, but that something doesn’t need to be a finished brand package.
Why the “logo before website” argument has a point
Designers who insist on logo before website work usually aren’t being precious, they’re describing a real cost. When a website gets built around a colour and font choice made on the fly, and a proper logo shows up months later, that logo often clashes with decisions already baked into the site. Buttons, headers, and imagery all quietly reference a visual direction that was never actually settled, and untangling that later takes longer than settling it upfront would have.
Why skipping logo before website also has a point
The counter-argument is just as real: a business that isn’t online yet is losing more than a business with an imperfect logo. Plenty of small businesses run for years on a clean, text-based name before ever commissioning a proper logo, and that’s a genuinely fine way to start, especially for service businesses where the work itself is doing most of the selling.
Where I land on logo before website, and why
I build mockups myself before development starts, and their job is supposed to be simple: get the layout and information right, where things sit, what order they’re in, how someone moves through the page. When a client hasn’t settled their brand identity, that mockup stops being just a layout exercise. It quietly becomes a branding exercise too, because I’m now picking colours, choosing fonts, deciding on a logo treatment, all inside a process that was only meant to be testing structure. Two jobs get squeezed into one, and neither gets done as well as it would separately.
If you don’t already have a brand identity sorted, check out my corporate identity service, I offer a bundle price for a website and brand identity together, and we can talk through whether you need something simple or the full package. Either way, the brand identity gets built first, then the website gets built around it, properly, instead of the two getting tangled together partway through.
What “enough” logo before website actually looks like
Business name settled. Core colours chosen, even a rough direction is fine. A simple wordmark, or a clear sense of the fonts and tone the site should carry. That’s genuinely enough for most small businesses starting out. It isn’t a request for an expensive branding project, it’s a request for the handful of decisions that stop a website build from turning into one.
The order that actually works
Name and positioning first, then core colours and fonts, then a simple logo alongside or just ahead of the website itself. This is really what “logo before website” should mean in practice, not a finished brand book, just enough settled that the website isn’t guessing. Skip that order entirely and you’re not saving time, you’re moving the same decisions later, usually at a point where more of the site has already been built around the gaps they were meant to fill.
If you’re not sure what counts as “enough” before we start your project, get in touch and I’ll tell you honestly what you need. And if you’re weighing this up alongside other decisions, this cost guide and this pages guide are good next reads.
