Quick answer
Our £129 podcast logo includes horizontal, stacked and icon-only layouts, because a creator brand is mostly seen as a tiny circle or square. That means a tile in a phone’s podcast library, then a YouTube avatar or a TikTok profile picture as the show spreads. The icon fills that circle, the stacked version anchors your podcast cover and channel banner, and the horizontal one goes on your media kit and merch.
When a creator needs a proper logo
This page is for podcasters, YouTubers, streamers, TikTok and Instagram creators, and anyone turning a channel into a business. A creator brand is often a person’s name, lives almost entirely on platforms you do not control, and may sit beside a sponsor’s logo one week and on a hoodie the next. Plenty of channels start with a selfie as the avatar, and that is fine. A designed mark starts to pay for itself when:
- You are approaching sponsors. Brands send you their logo files and expect yours back for co-branded posts, so a clean set of files signals you are easy to work with.
- You sell merch. A face rarely reduces well to a one-colour print, while a strong icon does.
- The show is bigger than you. A podcast with guests or a co-host, or a channel you might one day sell or hand over, needs a brand that is not just one person’s photo.
- You run several channels. One recognisable mark across YouTube, a podcast and a newsletter ties the audience together.
Where a podcast or YouTube channel logo actually appears
| Surface | Size in real life | Best version |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube, TikTok and Instagram avatar | A small circle beside your name and in comments | Icon-only, filling the circle |
| Podcast show cover in an app library | A thumbnail on a phone, beside dozens of others | Stacked logo or the show name, large and simple |
| Channel banner and stream overlays | Wide, cropped differently on TV, desktop and phone | Horizontal, kept in the centre safe area |
| Video watermark and end screen | A corner of the frame, often over moving footage | Icon-only, white or black, semi-transparent |
| Thumbnails | Small, busy, mostly face and headline | Icon in a fixed corner, or nothing |
| Merch, stickers and mic flags | Chest prints, caps, a cube on a microphone | Icon or short wordmark in one or two colours |
| Media kit and sponsor decks | Full page, read by marketing managers | Horizontal, with clear space for a sponsor lockup |
Our logo size cheat sheet lists common sizes for screens and print, and our guide to logos for profile pictures shows how to test the circle.
The podcast cover: logo and artwork are not the same thing
Apple Podcasts lists artwork among the things your show needs, alongside the required tags and at least one episode, in its podcast requirements, and every other app shows a cover too. The cover is a piece of artwork that usually contains your logo or show title, a background and sometimes a photo of the host. In a phone library it shrinks to a thumbnail, so:
- the show name must be readable at that size, which usually means two or three words at most, set large;
- a stacked logo works better than a long horizontal one, because the cover is square;
- fine detail, small taglines and guest names disappear, so leave those for the episode description.
Design the logo first and the cover around it, and you can make episode art, clips and audiograms (short clips with a moving sound waveform) that all look related.
Audio first: the name has to survive being heard
Podcast listeners usually hear your show before they see it. They hear the name in an intro, a guest’s mention or a friend’s recommendation, then type it into a search box. That puts a duty on the logo: it should spell the name exactly as people will search for it. Clever misspellings, numbers in place of letters and stylised characters that read as something else make you harder to find. If the name has an unusual spelling, make the wordmark as plain and legible as possible so the spelling sticks, and keep the icon simple enough to describe aloud (“the orange circle with the S in it”).
Your name, a show name or both?
| Approach | Suits | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Your own name as the brand | Personality-led channels, coaches, commentators | Hard to sell or hand over; the logo is often a monogram or signature |
| A show or channel name | Topic-led podcasts, review channels, co-hosted shows | Needs more effort to build recognition, but can outgrow you |
| A network or studio name with shows underneath | Creators running several shows or channels | A parent mark plus show marks; keep the family simple |
Many creators use a hybrid: a show name with a small monogram of their initials as the icon, so the avatar still feels personal. If a personal brand is the centre of it, our guide to personal branding costs covers what else goes into it.
A worked example: a two-host football podcast adding video
These hosts are invented for illustration and are not clients. Two friends run an audio-only football podcast whose cover is a photo of them in a pub. Before: the photo turns to a brown smudge in the app library, and nothing on it works as a YouTube avatar or a mic flag. After: the show name set large in a bold condensed face, an icon of the initial inside a simple centre-circle outline that is easy to describe aloud, a stacked cover layout, and the icon alone for the avatar and the mic flag.
The hosts sign it off only once three things hold: the name is spelled exactly as listeners will search for it, the icon fills the avatar circle, and the mic flag reads from across the room in a wide shot.
Choose the name before the logo, and choose carefully
Creator names are surprisingly sticky. YouTube’s help page on managing your channel’s profile says you can change your channel name twice within a 14-day period, and that changing it removes your verification badge. Handles, podcast feeds and merch all follow the name, so check the name is free across the platforms you use before you commission a logo. Our guides to what to do if your name is taken on Instagram and to logo copyright and trade marks help you make those checks yourself.
Sponsors, disclosure and the co-branded post
When a sponsor appears, your logo will sit next to theirs on thumbnails, story frames and the media kit. A horizontal version with generous clear space makes a tidy side-by-side lockup, and a one-colour version lets you match a sponsor’s palette without clashing.
Branding must never hide the fact that a post is an ad. The ASA and CAP publish an influencers’ guide to making clear that ads are ads, covering when content needs disclosing and how to label advertising clearly. Keep your logo and watermark away from wherever your ad label goes, so the label is always the first thing a viewer can read.
Live streams: overlays and chat
Streamers see their brand in different places from podcasters: the starting-soon and be-right-back screens, a corner overlay during the stream, alert graphics and the small emote and badge images viewers use in chat. The icon-only version is the base for all of them, so it needs to survive being shrunk to emote size and placed over game footage or a webcam. Keep overlay placement consistent, and leave the lower third (the strip along the bottom of the screen) clear for captions and chat.
Podcast and YouTube logo on merch, stickers and the mic flag
Merch is where a creator brand becomes physical, and it is printed or stitched in ways that punish detail. Screen-printed hoodies and tees usually use one to three colours; embroidered caps need a solid icon; stickers die-cut around the shape need a clean outline. A mic flag, the branded cube on a microphone in video podcasts, is a tiny billboard in every clip, so the icon should read from across a room. Our guide to merch and workwear design explains what printers ask for.
What £129 covers for a creator
Our Logo Design is £129 with all layouts included, so the avatar icon, the stacked version for your cover and merch and the banner lockup arrive together, with transparent PNG and SVG files for editing tools and printers. The copyright transfers to you on delivery, which matters once you sell merch.
- Thumbnail and post templates are available through our Social Media Design (from £79).
- See how that compares in our UK logo cost guide.
- Every price is on our pricing page.
Switching over without confusing your audience
An audience recognises you by the avatar before the name, so change it with a little ceremony rather than silently. Post a short reveal, change the avatar and banner on every platform on the same day, then update the podcast cover, the watermark and the end screen, and release new merch once the mark has settled. Keep the old avatar’s main colour for a while if you can, so long-time viewers make the connection.
When you are ready, order your creator logo. Send your channel links with the brief, and every concept will be checked inside the avatar circle before you see it.
