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Brand & logoBy Prompt TemplateVerified on GPT Image 2 / Nano Banana

Three words and a white field, not a dragon on a wall

Logos fail when you describe a scene instead of a brand. Start with keywords, demand a simple mark on pure white, and show the mark at badge size.

2026/09/01

A logo is a reduction. GPT Image 2 will gladly illustrate your brief instead: a dragon, a city wall, lightning, seven gradients. That is a poster. You cannot put it on a favicon. The anti-pattern is famous for a reason — “do not ask for a dragon wrapping a pillar.” Ask for three brand words and a mark that still reads at 24px.

What actually breaks

We asked for “a logo for Prompt Template, creative, memorable.” Round one was an isometric editor full of nodes. Round two, “minimal.” A wordmark with a lens flare. Round three: keywords clear / modular / calm, geometric control-knob mark + wordmark, pure white background, flat vector, no gradients. That file we could actually key out.

Brand-in-use boards fail when every mock is a different style. Force the same mark onto a card, an app icon, and a browser tab in one frame and you will see if the counterforms collapse.

Skip audience and competitors and you get a pretty glyph that does not belong to anyone. One sentence of “who it is for” is enough for v1: for people who edit other people’s prompts.

The rule we use

  1. Keywords before geometry. Three adjectives. Then the mark.
  2. Pure white, flat, keyable. No mockup table, no glow, no photographic logo.
  3. Show it small. App icon or favicon crop in the same image, or you will ship a mark that dies at 16px.
  4. Write a don’t. No mascots, no dragons, no cityscapes, no 3D chrome.

Example we actually ran

Weak

Creative logo for an AI prompt template website, iconic, detailed.

Locked

Brand mark exploration on pure white, flat vector, no perspective, no glow.
Brand words: clear, modular, calm. Audience: people who edit other people's prompts.
Mark: a geometric control knob / token chip fused with a simple T counterform.
Wordmark: "Prompt Template", grotesque sans, not script. Correct spelling.
Also show a 1:1 app-icon crop of the mark alone, still readable.
Palette: #2563EB on white, one ink only. No dragons, no cities, no gradients.

GPT Image 2 still tried a fake-3D knob until flat vector, no perspective sat next to the mark sentence. Nano Banana added a second color until one ink only was explicit. Both spelled the wordmark correctly only when it was quoted.

When to open this guide from a control

brand holds the three words; logo holds the geometry and the white field. If you edit logo toward “more epic,” you are writing a poster. That belongs in the poster guide, not here.

Sources

Rewritten from public pitfall notes; the control-knob wordmark brief is ours.

Controls this guide covers

  • brand

    Start with three brand words, not a scene. A dragon on a wall is illustration, not a mark.

  • logo

    Demand a pure white background and a simple mark so it can be keyed later.

  • Give 4–6 named colors. Open palettes drift toward neon gradients.