The short answer
Not strictly, but it's the cheaper order. The logo sets your colours and fonts, and the website, signature and ads all borrow from it.
You can build a website without a logo. People do it all the time, with the business name typed out in a nice font at the top. So nobody is going to stop you. The reason we usually suggest doing the logo first is money: it's the cheaper order, because everything else borrows from it.
A logo is more than the logo
When you get a logo designed properly, you don't only get the mark. You also end up with decisions about colour, type and tone that every other piece of your business will use:
- Your main colours, with exact codes so they match on screen and in print.
- One or two fonts that go with the logo.
- A small icon version for places like browser tabs, app icons and social profile pictures.
- A feel: playful or serious, crafted or modern, premium or friendly.
A website is built out of exactly those decisions. So is an email signature, a business card, an Instagram grid and an ad. If they're made first, every later piece starts from the same place and looks like it belongs to the same business.
What happens when you do it the other way round
Here's a pattern we see a lot. Someone gets a website first, and the designer picks some colours and a font that look nice. A year later, the business gets a proper logo. The logo is green and serif; the website is blue and rounded. Now the website looks like it belongs to a different company, and it either gets redesigned or lives on looking slightly off.
The same happens with signs, vans and printed menus, which are more expensive to change than a website. Paying for design twice is the real cost of skipping the logo.
When it's fine to skip the logo for now
There are good reasons to start without one.
- You're testing an idea and aren't sure the name will stick. Don't pay for a logo you might rename in three months.
- You need a landing page live for a launch next week. Get the page up with a clean type-only name, and plan the logo for after.
- Your business is you. Consultants, coaches and freelancers often do well with their own name, set in a good font, and a professional photo.
- Money is tight and the website brings in customers. The website earns its cost back sooner.
In those cases, ask whoever builds the website to keep the colours and fonts simple and easy to change. When the logo arrives, updating the site is a small job rather than a rebuild.
What a good small-business logo needs to do
You don't need a clever logo. You need one that works in all the places a small business actually uses it.
- It's readable when it's tiny, like a 16-pixel browser tab or a profile picture in a list of messages.
- It still works in one colour, for stamps, embroidery, receipts and cheap printing.
- It looks right on light and dark backgrounds.
- It suits a wide space (a website header) and a square space (an Instagram profile).
- It isn't so detailed that it turns to mush on a phone.
If your current logo fails several of those, have a look at five signs your logo is working against you before you build a website around it.
The order we'd suggest
- Name, checked. Make sure the domain and social handles are available and nobody nearby trades under the same name.
- Logo, with colours and fonts. About two weeks with us, including a round of ideas and polishing the one you choose.
- Website or shop, built from the logo's colours and fonts.
- Email signature, so every email you send matches the website. It's a small job, covered in why email signatures matter.
- Everything else as you need it: social templates, ads, printed pieces.
What to have ready before you start a logo
A logo goes faster, and turns out better, when the designer knows a few things up front. None of this needs to be polished. Notes on your phone are fine.
- Your business name exactly as it should appear, and whether any shorter version is used.
- Who your customers are, and who you'd like them to be in a couple of years.
- Three or four businesses you admire, in any industry, and what you like about how they look.
- Anything you definitely don't want: a colour you dislike, a style that feels wrong, a symbol a competitor already uses.
- Where the logo will live first: a shopfront, a van, Instagram, product labels, a website.
That last point matters more than people expect. A logo that will mostly live on tiny product labels and phone screens needs to be simpler than one that mostly lives on a large sign.
A one-page brand guide is enough
You don't need a thick brand book. A single page that shows the logo, the colours with their codes, the fonts, and a couple of do's and don'ts ("don't stretch it", "always on white or dark green") covers what a small business needs. Hand it to anyone who makes something for you, whether that's the website builder, the sign maker or a friend doing a flyer, and everything will match.
What if you already have a website?
Then the question is whether the website and the new logo can live together. Often they can: new logo, adjusted colours, a few updated images, and the site looks consistent again. Sometimes the old site was built so loosely around its old colours that it's easier to refresh the design at the same time. Either way, do the logo first and decide about the website once you can see them side by side.
The short version
Logo first, when you can. It sets the colours and fonts everything else will use, so you only pay for design decisions once. If you can't wait, launch with a simple type-only name and keep the website easy to update. Our logo design service takes about two weeks and gives you every file you'll need, and our graphic design page shows how the logo, signature and ads fit together.
