Creating logos for personal projects

As a developer, one of the first things that blocks me before starting any project is the logo. Coming up with a design that matches both the idea of the project and its name is often difficult.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably wasted a lot of time trying to create the “perfect” logo in Canva, Flaticon, or some random AI tool, only to end up with something that looks bad and doesn’t feel good enough to put on a website.

These days, my process is much simpler.

1. Head over to a free icon library such as lucide.dev or MDI Icons and find an icon that symbolizes your project idea. For example, if your app is a chat app, you could use a “send” icon or a “bird” icon (like the old days when birds carried messages).

2. Next, download the SVG and import it into Figma. Figma is often better because it doesn’t impose many restrictions on free users.

3. Change the icon’s color to match your project’s theme. Even better, use one of your project’s accent colors so the logo feels consistent with the overall design.

4. If the icon feels too plain, place it inside a shape like a square or a circle. Adjust the border radius, add a solid background color, or even experiment with gradients to make it pop.

5. That’s it. Export the logo as an SVG or PNG in any resolution and use it in your project.