The brand: from three other people's logos to your own

The skill asks whether you have a brand. If you've got a logo, hand it over: with that it'll generate every version a website needs (light, dark, the small icon, the name in type). If you've got nothing, like me in the video, we do a brand survey. It's the same thing we did with design, but with logos.

Step 7: brand references

I went to Google and searched for shoe brands, because that's what I'm selling. You search for whatever yours is. There's no science to it: logos that look like they might be useful inspiration, nothing more. We'll change it later anyway. But going from nothing to starting this way is a good move.

I found an image with several store brands on it. I didn't hand over all of them: I took a screenshot with Cmd + Shift + 4 of the one in the middle, the one I liked, and told it where it came from. ChatGPT analyzes it (in my case: "the red brushstroke stands out") and saves a .md file with what it saw.

I added two more: Levi's, and one I found on Dribbble, which is also good for finding logos. Pinterest works too. Three was enough for me. Same as with design: three or four, not many more.

Don't worry about stealing: we're shaping ChatGPT's judgment, nothing else. We're showing it which direction we want to go, which can be very different from one project to the next.

"Done, let's move on."

Step 8: the name and the proposals

Now it asks what your brand is called. I made one up for the example: JUSZZZ. You put in yours.

With the name and the references, ChatGPT generates one proposal for each reference you gave it. Give it three, it shows you three; give it six, six. Each proposal comes with the logo and an example of how it would look in use. The one I liked most was the third, so I told it:

Let's go with the third one.

This is only a starting point, something to change. The mistake is wanting to begin with the finished design, to have it come out perfect first time. It doesn't work that way, with AI or without it. It's several steps. That's how professionals work, and that's how the skill is built.

Step 9: generating the brand files

When you choose, ChatGPT asks for permission to start generating the images. You say yes, and it starts producing everything a site needs:

• The logo in color, and a black-and-white version. The monochrome versions are needed for different parts of the site.
• The brand as a word (the name in type) and the brand as an image (the symbol on its own). The symbol on its own is what ends up as the site icon, the one in the browser tab and in people's bookmarks.
• How it looks in dark mode and in light mode.
• How it looks on a phone.

And it puts together a brand profile: a document with the logo, its versions, and the usage rules. If you later want to do a proper brand manual, this document is the base.

When it's done, it checks that everything looks right everywhere and asks whether it's perfect.

This is the moment to ask for changes

If you've got a note, say it now, before approving. For example:

I want the brushstroke to be blue instead of red.

ChatGPT redoes the brand with that change and shows it to you again. Repeat until you're happy. When you're happy, "let's continue."

It can feel like a lot of reviewing. When you see the final result you'll understand why: the skill checks that things look right everywhere, every time, because fixing now is cheap and fixing once the site is built is expensive.

With the brand done, the most exciting part is next.