Quick answer
For £129 we design an artist’s or maker’s logo in every layout, including a one-colour version that works as a rubber stamp, a maker’s mark pressed into clay and an Etsy shop icon. The principle behind it is simple: the logo frames your work and never competes with it.
This page is for solo makers and small studios selling their own work through Etsy, Instagram and craft fairs, from potters and printmakers to jewellers, candle makers and knitters. If you photograph for a living, our photographer logo guide fits better.
Your style is the brand, the logo is the signature
For a maker, people buy the work because of how it looks. Your glaze, your line, your colours are the real brand, and a busy logo competes with them. The best maker logos behave like a signature: quiet, consistent and instantly yours. That usually means one of three forms:
- A signature or hand-drawn wordmark built from your own handwriting or lettering, refined so it reproduces cleanly.
- A small monogram or symbol that can be stamped into clay, burnt into wood or printed on a tag.
- A plain, well-set name in a typeface that suits the work, letting the products carry all the colour.
Avoid illustrating your craft in the logo (a paintbrush, a pot, a ball of wool). Customers can already see what you make; the logo should tell them who made it.
Marks on the work itself
Many crafts have a tradition of marking the object: the potter’s stamp on the base, the printmaker’s chop, the woodworker’s brand, the leatherworker’s embossing. That mark is often the most valuable version of your logo, because it stays with the piece for years.
| Craft | How the mark is applied | What the design needs |
|---|---|---|
| Pottery and ceramics | A stamp pressed into leather-hard clay | A simple, deep shape with no fine detail, as glaze fills small gaps |
| Woodwork | A branding iron or laser engraving | Solid strokes that burn evenly into the grain |
| Leather goods | An embossing or debossing stamp | Clear outlines that survive pressure and wear |
| Printmaking and illustration | A chop, an embossed seal or a printed back label | A small monogram that sits in a margin |
| Textiles and knitwear | A woven or printed sew-in label | A compact mark that works at label size |
| Jewellery | A stamped tag, a card or a box | A tiny version for tags and a fuller one for packaging |
Jewellers working in gold, silver, platinum or palladium also have hallmarking to consider, and that is separate from any logo. GOV.UK explains how hallmarking law applies to businesses, including the notice dealers must display explaining approved hallmarks.
Packaging you wrap by hand
Makers rarely print custom boxes at first. The brand lives on kraft paper, tissue, a stamped bag, a sticker sealing the wrap and a swing tag or card. A rubber stamp of your logo is often the most useful thing you can buy, because it brands plain bags, boxes, tissue and thank-you cards for pennies.
- Stamp-friendly design means solid shapes and no hairlines, sized so it works at the width of a large coin.
- Sealing stickers on tissue and mailing bags are a cheap way to add colour; our guide to what custom stickers cost for small runs helps you order a first batch without overbuying.
- Swing tags carry the logo, a line about the piece and the price. Heavy card and a single colour look more considered than a crowded full-colour tag.
- Labels for candles, soaps and cosmetics carry more information than tags, so the logo has to leave space. Our product label guide explains the layout, and Packaging Design (£99) produces the artwork.
Etsy, Instagram and the square crop
Online, your logo is shown small and cropped. The Etsy shop icon, the Instagram profile picture and most marketplace avatars are squares or circles, and your shop banner is a wide strip that is cropped differently on phones and computers. Etsy’s help centre recommends 500 x 500 pixels for the shop logo and 1600 x 400 pixels for the big banner. Two rules cover most of it: keep an icon version that sits centred in a square with clear space round it, and never put essential text near the edges of a banner. If you are deciding where to sell, our comparison of Etsy versus your own website weighs fees against control.
Your product photos matter more than the logo online. Keep the logo out of the photos themselves; a watermark across a mug or a print looks defensive and spoils the image. The profile picture and the shop name do the identifying.
The craft-fair table
At a fair or market, customers decide in a few seconds whether to stop. The table needs one clear sign with your name, readable from the aisle, plus small price cards and a card stand by the till. A long banner pinned to the front of the table is often hidden by legs and bags; a sign raised on a stand behind the work, at eye height, does better, and our guide to roller banner design covers the layout that reads from a distance. Our Poster and Banner Design service (£89) builds the stall banner from your logo, and Business Card Design (£59) handles the cards customers take away.
If you sell in the street rather than at an organised fair, check with the council: GOV.UK says you may need a street trading licence in England and Wales.
Where you sell changes what the logo must do
Many makers sell in several places at once, and each one shows the logo differently. Plan the versions around the channels you actually use.
| Channel | How the logo is shown | Version to use |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy or another marketplace | A small square shop icon and a cropped banner | Icon or monogram, centred |
| Instagram and TikTok | A profile circle and the odd story graphic | Icon, with the name in the bio |
| Your own website | A header logo above large product photos | Horizontal wordmark, kept slim |
| Craft fairs and markets | A sign seen from the aisle | Horizontal or stacked, large and simple |
| Galleries and stockists | Your tag and label on their shelf, beside other makers | Stacked version with a clear price area |
Selling through galleries and shops brings one more document: a simple wholesale price list or line sheet with your logo, photos and trade prices. Shop buyers judge whether you will deliver on time partly by how organised that sheet looks, so it is worth matching it to the rest of your brand.
Your own name or a studio name?
Many artists trade under their own name, and for painters and illustrators that is often right: collectors buy the artist. A studio name suits makers who plan to hire help, sell wholesale, or keep their personal name off packaging. A common middle route is a studio name with “made by” and your first name on the tag. Decide before the logo is drawn, because it decides whether we design a signature or a wordmark.
Copyright, trading and the £1,000 allowance
Two points worth knowing as sales grow. First, your artwork and designs are protected by copyright automatically; GOV.UK confirms you do not have to apply or pay a fee and there is no register of copyright works in the UK. The copyright in the logo we design passes to you on delivery too. In short: you own your designs without registering anything.
Second, tax. HMRC’s selling online information sheet says you are probably trading if you sell goods you have made, including items you make for a hobby. Whether an activity is a trade depends on the overall picture from HMRC’s badges of trade, such as a profit-seeking motive and the number of sales, not on any single figure. In short: regular sales of things you make usually count as trading.
The trading allowance is a separate thing: a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year of gross trading income. At or below that you usually do not need to tell HMRC, though there are exceptions; above it you do. In short: the allowance tells you whether to report, not whether your making has become a business, so if you sell regularly, check HMRC’s guidance as sales grow.
One mug, from the wheel to a buyer’s shelf
Take a potter selling a batch of speckled mugs, some at a Saturday fair and some on Etsy. The same logo turns up in five forms:
- On the base. The icon, cut as a clay stamp, is pressed in while the mug is leather-hard, so it survives glazing and firing.
- On the wrap. A rubber stamp of the stacked logo brands plain tissue and a kraft bag, and a small round sticker seals the parcel.
- On the tag. A one-colour swing tag carries the stacked logo, the glaze name and the price.
- At the fair. The horizontal version sits on a sign raised behind the table, readable from the aisle.
- Online. The icon fills the Etsy shop logo square and the Instagram circle, so a buyer who kept the tag can find the shop again.
Only the clay stamp needed special care in the drawing; the other four came straight from the standard layouts.
What £129 covers for a maker
Our logo design for makers is a single £129 fee covering all three layouts: horizontal for the shop banner, fair sign and website, stacked for tags, labels and packaging, and icon-only for the stamp, the maker’s mark and your shop icon. You also get unlimited concepts, unlimited revisions within your brief, a single-colour version for stamps, branding irons and engraving, a 3D mockup and every file format a stamp maker, label printer or engraver might ask for. See all our fees on the pricing page.
Before the next fair
Order the logo a month or so before your next big fair, so there is time to have a rubber stamp and a clay or leather maker’s stamp made, print tags and cards, and update your shop icon and banner. Stamps for clay and branding irons take longest, so order those first. First concepts reach you within 48 hours. Customers rate us 4.8/5 Excellent. When you are ready to sign your work properly, order your maker’s logo and send us a photo of three pieces you are proudest of.
