Logo design, start to finish

Member lesson

Thumbnails in volume

Lesson 4 of 12 in Logo design, start to finish.

Checked against the makers' documentation on 9 October 2026.

Lesson

A thumbnail is a logo idea drawn about the size of a postage stamp, in less than a minute. Both limits are deliberate. At that size there is no room for detail, so you can only draw the idea, and a mark that cannot be drawn small will not read small either. The speed keeps you from falling for any one drawing. A good session produces a hundred of them in an hour or two, most of them bad, and the bad ones are doing their job.

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Check what stuck

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  1. Question 1, locked

    Why does the lesson ask for a black felt-tip pen and not a pencil for thumbnails?

    • A pencil invites shading and an eraser invites polishing
    • Felt-tip scans better for the client
    • Pencil smudges when the sheets are pinned up
    • Felt-tip is the only tool that shows negative space
  2. Question 2, locked

    During the squint test, which thumbnails do you mark?

    • The ones with the most detail
    • The ones that still read as one clear shape
    • The ones the client is likely to prefer
    • The ones closest to the competitor wall
  3. Question 3, locked

    How does the lesson suggest using an image model at the thumbnail stage?

    • Before sketching, to get the ideas flowing
    • Instead of sketching, to save an afternoon
    • To redraw your best thumbnail as a finished mark
    • After your own session, as a list of what to avoid

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