Edip Kilinc is the founder of Webwavers. Together with his team, he develops websites, brands, and digital presences for ambitious companies – with over 250 completed projects and accolades including the German Design Award 2026.
Whether a logo needs to be redesigned is not a question of taste. Four tests answer this objectively.
The scaling test. Shrink the logo to 16 pixels wide – the size of a favicon in a browser tab. Anything that is no longer recognizable is too detailed. Fine lines, gradients, and lettering below the icon almost always fail here.
The single-color test. The logo in pure black on white. If the structure only works through color differences, a usable variant for stamps, engraving, embossing, and faxing is missing.
The background test. The logo on dark, on color, and on a photo. Is there a working variant for every case, or is it improvised every time?
The file test. Does a vector file exist? If the logo is only available as a PNG, it is useless for any enlargement. This is the most common and annoying finding.
If a logo passes three out of four tests, a cleanup makes sense. If it passes two or fewer, the bigger step is worth it.
Whether a logo needs to be redesigned is not a question of taste. Four tests answer this objectively.
The scaling test. Shrink the logo to 16 pixels wide – the size of a favicon in a browser tab. Anything that is no longer recognizable is too detailed. Fine lines, gradients, and lettering below the icon almost always fail here.
The single-color test. The logo in pure black on white. If the structure only works through color differences, a usable variant for stamps, engraving, embossing, and faxing is missing.
The background test. The logo on dark, on color, and on a photo. Is there a working variant for every case, or is it improvised every time?
The file test. Does a vector file exist? If the logo is only available as a PNG, it is useless for any enlargement. This is the most common and annoying finding.
If a logo passes three out of four tests, a cleanup makes sense. If it passes two or fewer, the bigger step is worth it.
Recognition is an asset that is built over years and can be destroyed in an afternoon.
Major brands demonstrate this: The evolution of their symbols over decades is a series of small steps, not a sequence of new beginnings. Each stage is unspectacular in itself. Taken together, the distance between the first and the last is significant – but no one ever had to relearn what the symbol stands for.
This is even more true for smaller companies because their brand awareness is lower and therefore more precious. Anyone who has been recognized by a symbol in a region for fifteen years gives up something with a new design that can only be painstakingly bought back with an advertising budget.
The practical consequence: The first task given to a designer should be to review and improve what exists – not to propose something new. A new design is the answer when the review reveals that there is nothing viable to build on.
A revision is manual craft and rarely spectacular.
The shapes are smoothed out and aligned to a grid. Details that disappear in small displays are removed. Gradients are replaced by solid colors. Line weights are standardized. The lettering is replaced by a font that is available in all weights – often the old one was a system font that no longer exists as such.
The colors are defined to specific values, separately for screen and print. In many legacy logos, there are three slightly different shades of blue, depending on which file you open.
Then the variants are created: horizontal, vertical, logomark alone, single-color light, single-color dark. Along with clear space and minimum size.
The result looks similar to the original. That is precisely the purpose. The difference is not revealed in comparing the two logos, but in the fact that no more improvisation is needed for the next five years.
A redesign without a proper handoff will be a problem again in two years. These files are part of it.
Vector as SVG for each variant – this is the format that works on the web and scales indefinitely.
Vector as EPS or PDF for print shops and signmakers.
PNG with transparent background in several sizes for everyday use in presentations and documents.
Favicon set in the common sizes for browsers and mobile home screens.
The source file from the design program. This is often forgotten and is the most important one – without it, no one else can continue working later.
In addition, a brief document with color values, clear space, minimum size, and the cases in which each variant applies. Two pages are enough. Nobody reads a forty-page manual.
It is also important to clarify the usage rights: unrestricted, unlimited in time and space, with the right to edit. This belongs in the contract, not in a later conversation.
The ranges are wide, but not arbitrary.
Refinement of an existing mark: 800 to 2,500 euros. This includes review, revision, variations, and files.
New design with variations and basic rules: 2,500 to 8,000 euros. The difference within this range is due less to the design itself and more to the number of design rounds and the scope of the research.
New design as part of a complete corporate identity: from 8,000 euros, including color system, typography, imagery, and applications.
Added to this is the implementation – website, printed matter, signage, vehicles. These costs regularly exceed the design costs many times over and are most frequently forgotten during planning.
A trademark search before the new design costs a few hundred euros and prevents the scenario where a finished mark cannot be used due to an existing right.
Three signals are reliable.
He asks about the business before talking about design. Anyone who shows drafts in the initial meeting has not understood what it is about.
He suggests the smaller solution on his own initiative if it is sufficient. Anyone who advises a new design for a functioning symbol is selling instead of advising.
He shows applications, not just symbols. A portfolio of floating logos on a gray background says nothing about whether the results work in everyday life.
A fourth, practical signal: He talks about the handover before being asked. Anyone who explains on their own initiative which files you will receive and what rights you have to them has done this many times before.
Caution is advised with very low flat-rate prices with many drafts. Ten proposals for three hundred euros mean that none of them are thought through – and choosing from ten arbitrary symbols is harder than deciding between two well-founded ones.
