Founders often ask whether it’s time to redo their logo, or whether they’re just tired of looking at it. Those are different problems. Here are five signals worth paying attention to.
1. It doesn’t work small
If your mark turns into a smudge as a favicon or app icon, that’s not a taste issue — it’s a functional one. Modern brands live mostly at small sizes: tabs, avatars, notification icons.
2. It only works in one color
A logo that falls apart in black-and-white, on a dark background, or embroidered on a hat is going to limit where your brand can show up.
3. It doesn’t match what you sell now
Plenty of companies pivot without updating the mark that was built for their original idea. If customers regularly misjudge what you do from your logo alone, that’s worth fixing.
4. You can’t explain it in one sentence
You don’t need a complicated backstory, but you should be able to say what the mark is doing in a sentence. If you can’t, customers definitely can’t either.
5. It looks like everyone else’s
Rounded sans-serif wordmark, gradient blob, generic swoosh — these were fresh once. If your logo could be swapped with a competitor’s and nobody would notice, it’s not doing its job.
None of these mean you need an agency retainer. A focused session in an AI logo maker, working from a clear brief, can usually get you most of the way there.