With apologies to my graphic designer contacts: no one cares about your logo.
I’ve said it before, but it landed differently when I read it in black and white in James Sinclair’s book Getting Customers. There it was, stated plainly in a chapter on – appropriately enough – getting customers:
"You're the only person who cares about your logo, so don't let it take ownership of your headline message and call to action. It's folly to let it take more of your marketing space than anything else."
Your website header is valuable real estate. Don’t waste it with an oversized logo.
Simple enough. And yet, judging by the reaction the post received, this is still a battle being fought daily across design studios and boardrooms everywhere.
The Conversation It Started
The LinkedIn comments were, frankly, brilliant and they told a more nuanced story than the original provocation.
The graphic designers in the thread were largely unsurprised. Rachel Boyle summed it up with a resigned laugh: spending time creating a perfectly balanced design, only to be asked to make the logo bigger. Sylwia Czarnecka called it “the client request and designer’s worst headache.” Ron MacDonald put it most bluntly: “Us graphic designers know that. It’s the business owners who don’t.”
And then there was Gareth de Beer’s rather brilliant tactical admission: “We always make the logo smaller than it should be, so when we’re asked to make it bigger it becomes the proper size.” Smart.
But not everyone was nodding along. Several commenters pushed back with genuine intelligence, and they deserve to be heard.
Where the Book Is Right
The core argument holds up well when you apply it to websites specifically. Olly Mooney, a web designer, made the distinction clearly: the logo and branding may well be what brought someone to your website in the first place but once they’re there, the website’s job is to convert. And you don’t convert by having a big bloody logo in the header.
Shahadat Hossain put it bluntly: “Your customers aren’t visiting your site to admire your branding. They’re there to see if you can fix their mess. Clear headline beats oversized logo, every single time.”
Christopher Nowlan called above-the-fold space “valuable real estate that shouldn’t be wasted on an oversized logo,” and it’s hard to argue. Every pixel of prime screen space that shows a large logo is a pixel not showing your value proposition, your offer, or your call to action.
Najmul Hasan offered the sharpest metaphor of the thread: “The logo is a name tag. The headline is the handshake. Most websites lead with the name tag and bury the handshake.”
Where It's More Complicated
Here’s where the comment thread got interesting.
Nicola Tatum, a graphic designer, argued that the book’s framing misunderstands branding entirely: “A logo is one visual part of a brand. The author clearly has zero understanding of branding.” That’s a strong take, but there’s something to it. The book conflates “logo” with “brand identity,” and they are genuinely different things.
Samuel Brooke made the distinction well: “People don’t fall in love with logos in isolation, they fall in love with brands. But that doesn’t make the logo any less important. A logo is the anchor of your visual identity – the one element that shows up everywhere. Without it, your brand struggles to stay recognisable, consistent, and memorable.”
Chris Green asked the question that probably stopped a few people mid-scroll: “Then why do sports team fans go ballistic when their logos are changed?” It’s a fair point. The fury that greets a rebrand, think GAP, Jaguar, or Cracker Barrel, doesn’t suggest that nobody cares. It suggests the opposite. People care enormously, precisely because the logo has become inseparable from what the brand means to them.
Mark Coster captured this well: “Just look at the way people froth at the mouth on social media when a logo they’re familiar with changes. If no one cared, they wouldn’t get so worked up.”
Anton Pietersen put it beautifully: “A logo isn’t necessarily measured in physical size. It’s measured in weight.”
So Who's Right?
Both, really but about different things.
The book is right about hierarchy. On a website, in an ad, on a billboard, the logo is rarely the most important element. Your message, your offer, your proof – these are what move people to act. Letting a logo dominate that space is a mistake that costs conversions.
The critics are right about meaning. A logo, used well over time, becomes a vessel for everything your brand stands for. It’s not the sales pitch – it’s the signature. As Veronica Lyubchova put it: “A logo is a signature, not the sales pitch. A good logo works subconsciously.”
Stefan Bucher, who has designed a fair few logos in his time, made perhaps the most thoughtful observation: “They’re as important and successful as the company makes them. The way a logo is used is what fills it with meaning over time.”
In other words, the logo doesn’t create trust. But it carries it, once trust has been earned.
The Practical Takeaway
If you’re building or refreshing a website, here’s what the thread, and the book, actually points to:
Lead with your message, not your mark. Your headline should answer “what do you do and why should I care?” before anything else. The logo confirms who you are; the headline explains why it matters.
Size reflects confidence, not importance. The most established brands in the world, Apple, Nike, Google, run relatively small logos. They’ve earned the recognition. If your logo needs to be enormous to be noticed, that’s a sign the brand behind it needs more work.
A logo without a brand is just a drawing. Invest in the full identity: the values, the voice, the experience. The logo becomes meaningful when it’s attached to something worth remembering.
Don’t change it on a whim. As David W. Beck noted, older logo designs often suggest heritage and stability. Frequent redesigns can undermine exactly the recognition you’ve spent years building.
A Final Thought
The reason this post struck a chord, 33,000 impressions worth of chord, is that it touches on a tension that runs through every business: the gap between what we think matters and what our customers actually notice.
Tony Parsons perhaps said it best in the comments: “No one cares about a logo… until they can’t remember your business without one.”
That’s the paradox. You shouldn’t obsess over it. But you shouldn’t ignore it either. Get it right, put it in its proper place, and then get out of the way and let your message do the work.
The logo is there to remind people who they’re buying from. Everything else is there to give them a reason to buy.
