Small as it may seem, a logo plays a very important role for your brand, communicating its values and message to potential customers in just seconds. However, it's possible that as your brand grows and changes, it will shift its messaging and outgrow its initial logo. For example, Visa slightly altered its logo in January 2022, adding a new triad of colors to resemble an equal sign, representing access, equality and inclusion. Google followed suit in February, subtly eliminating shadows and opting for a flat design to achieve more accessible logo.
But while multinational corporations can more easily prioritize their budget to update their logo, it’s more likely that small business owners—even when shifting their brand messaging—will use that money for operational costs, forgoing hiring a design agency to redesign its initial logo.
Take Wix-users Carmelle and Kirk Sproule of Milestone, a Calgary-based construction and renovation company that works to build safety into all their projects after losing their home to a fire in 2017. While they started their company focusing on commercial projects like doctors' offices, schools and churches, they’re ready to upgrade their branding to reach new clients like restaurants within Calgary’s saturated market.
Current Milestone logo
“Our current logo was created without much direction or purpose,” Carmelle says. “Since we’re trying to target new clients, we want something that feels a little more updated, modern and eye-catching. It’s especially important since many of our projects come from current projects, where people can see our signage posted outside of the site, or on trucks.”
We at Wix think brand-worthy logo updates shouldn’t only be accessible to those with multinational corporation-sized budgets. That’s why we created the Wix Logo Maker—an online design tool powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) that empowers brands to create and customize a professional logo.
While Carmelle and Kirk are more than capable of using the logo maker on their own, we thought it would be fun to take one thing off their hands—and inspire a healthy dose of competition here at Wix. So we gave a design brief, a quick overview of the business and *total creative freedom* to 12 Wix marketers with the challenge of designing an updated logo for the construction company.
These marketers ranged from product marketing and research and development, to search engine optimization and even a professional inspirer. The idea was that folks at Milestone would pick their favorite option, and the lucky Wix employee would receive bragging rights.
While the Wix marketers aren’t professional logo designers, they do know a bit about branding, so we’ll also share key insights they used while creating their logos. Use them to go and make your best version of your own logo—whether it’s your first for a brand new venture, or a refresh of your own.
The Brief
An important aspect of logo design is to first outline your brand identity, which extends across all of your branding collateral. This includes understanding your target audience, your competitors, your brand messaging and the spaces (online and offline) where customers interact with your brand.
For the purposes of our competition, we intentionally gave our team unlimited artistic license. However, as you create your own, it’s essential to also consider the type of logo and the stylistic direction you’d like to take your design. For example, do you want a logo that is modern and fresh, or classic and retro? Questions like these should be answered upfront, and you can read our comprehensive guide on how to design a logo to help you get started. Here’s what we told the Wix marketing team during the brief stage:
Business: Milestone Construction and Renovations
Industry: Home and commercial construction and renovations
Current branding assets: Milestone works predominantly in commercial projects like doctors' offices, schools and churches but they want to expand into restaurants and other spaces. They use their logo on their website, social channels, branded merchandise, signage, letterhead, business cards and more.
Here’s what the Wix marketers came up with:
01. “Formal and approachable”
Inspiration behind the design:
“Since Milestone founders are looking to expand their business, I was looking to balance between a formal and approachable design. This way they can showcase that they’re an established firm, yet still show they are a small local business. I chose a simple logo color palette of red and black to pay tribute to the Calgary flag.”
–Shachaf Rodberg, Professional Inspirer
Feedback from Milestone: “Nice and clean, not sure it feels construction-y enough to me. Red is a nice nod to the city of Calgary.”
02. “Clean and modern”
Inspiration behind the design:
“Given the current client base of Milestone and the prospective clients they are looking to reach, I think a clean and modern aesthetic works best. For the logo icon, I chose this one because it shows a minimalist outline of a house with the bottom part that makes it look whole. Milestone is a family business, so this also embodies their brand values, giving potential clients a sense of their service from start to finish—like a full cycle.” – Galya Nash, SEO Manager
Feedback from Milestone: “This feels too residential for us, since we also cater to the commercial side. But I really like the layout of the design and the positioning on this one.”
03. “Modern with a twist”
Inspiration behind the design:
“I wanted to design a logo for Milestone that used elements from their current branding assets—but with an update. Looking at today’s logo trends, I decided to create a 3D inspired logo of an abstract shape. Since Milestone works in a range of projects, this shape is meant to indicate the process of construction and renovation, but in an intentionally ambiguous form.
The logo color combination includes soft gray and shale, both colors of rock and stone—which represents both the brand name, and the materials they work with. The muted teal color to brings a natural element into the mix.” – Kylie Goldstein, Branding Expert and Content Marketer
Feedback from Milestone: “I like the boldness. It feels relevant to construction. I would maybe use an ampersand (&) instead of the full word "and" in the middle, to focus on the bottom line. I like the colors.”
04. “Limitless possibilities”
Inspiration behind the design:
“To me, it seems that, as a business, Milestone embodies sturdiness—but also endless possibilities. A milestone is just one step in a long process, and I wanted the logo to convey that idea. Since the business is looking to expand into restaurants and other spaces, I picked this cardboard-box-type icon because it was abstract and portrayed the idea of being in-progress.
In terms of the color palette, I picked “Fall Garden” because the neutral beige grounded the image with a homey, calming feeling, but then the teal and navy pops of color added some liveliness. I also chose to italicize “Renovations and Construction” to create contrast against the name “Milestone,” which I think has a certain strength to it.” – Liz Steelman, Editor-in-Chief, Wix.com Blog
Feedback from Milestone: “I love the backstory and thought that went into it, but for me, it’s a bit confusing without the context. A little too abstract for us and our clients.”
05. “Retro chic”
Inspiration behind the design:
“Given Calgary’s proximity to the Rocky Mountains, I wanted to use specific logo shapes to create a mountain motif. The triangles also serve as the letter M, creating a unique icon that can be used on its own on social channels or branded merchandise. I also wanted to channel a retro logo design because old is new again—and I feel that, in a way, the construction and renovation projects Milestone has worked on are timeless. They scale things back to the original and then start fresh, so I wanted to echo a classic feel, but in a modern way.” – Amanda Weiner, Content Optimization Specialist
Feedback from Milestone: “I really like it. The M concept is cool, but we’d need to tweak it a little bit to be a clearer version of an M. It might work if we opened the bottom slightly and tightened it up.”
06. “Home is where the heart is”
Inspiration behind the design:
“When you design and renovate a space, it has to be connected to the heart, to the end customer and the lives who will use this space as their center. I designed this logo with the idea that Milestone can use the entire combination mark logo, as well as the house with a heart icon on its own for merchandise, social and branding assets.” - Einav Danon, Product Marketing Manager for The Wix Logo Maker
Feedback from Milestone: “This doesn't cater enough to our commercial clients. We also have large scale commercial projects, and I worry the heart (although I like it) might send the wrong message.”
07. “Strength and stability”
Inspiration behind the design:
“This logo is based on the hard, solid sans serif font to represent the stability of the company and the sort of work they do. The symbol is based on the big M from Milestone, and is a metaphor for roofs, buildings and growth. The logo color combination is based on the Wix logo maker suggestion, named Blue Steel to represent the company's stable base.” – Effy Fisher, Wix UX Designer
Feedback from Milestone: “I really like this one. It feels like a good fit for all of our projects. Again, not wild about red, but I like the concept. The size and composition is tight enough and the spacing works.”
08. “Sophisticated simplicity”
Inspiration behind the design:
“Since this is a construction and renovations company, I want the logo to arouse a feeling that the company is reliable, responsible, professional and has a sophisticated sense of design. In order to do so, I used a simple, formal and timeless design with clean lines and a color palette consisting of only three solid colors.” – Maayan Israelovitz, FED Developer for The Wix Logo Maker
Feedback from Milestone: “It’s nice, but too simple. Our logo needs to be able to draw people in.”
09. “Community roots”
Inspiration behind the design:
“I thought it was important to stay true to their construction roots with the wall logo. But the updated colors add a more modern twist to show the creativity of their renovations and future work. It's dynamic without being too bold. The design is vibrant and alive—which is something a creative company should embody in their logo—but not too dramatic, due to the nature of the majority of their clients. Still, it has a homely feel to it, reflecting the community buildings they renovate.” – Rebecca Tomasis, Organic Growth Expert
Feedback from Milestone: “Conceptually, she nailed it. But it feels more community oriented, and I'm not sure it’s modern enough for us. I prefer something a bit tighter, and feel like it takes up too much space.”
10. “A strong foundation”
Inspiration behind the design:
“My goal for this logo was to keep it simple. I first answered a few core questions: Is it playful? Modern? What message does it need to convey? I considered the brand values of Milestone, and wanted to suit the needs of the business, so I intentionally limited my options to reduce the noise and design with more intention.
Next, I played around with options that the AI in the construction logo maker provided me, and used different icons and fonts from other designs, choosing specific elements that I felt created a composed look altogether.
For this logo, I also took logo psychology into consideration, using an icon of a house, playing with negative space and utilizing the gestalt principles. For the text, I chose a logo font that is modern, but has substance and weight to it. I wanted to choose something that is strong, with a good structure and sturdy foundation to anchor the design and carry the brand messaging.” – Ofir Tamir, Senior Brand and Marketing Designer
Feedback from Milestone: “I like this one, especially the abstract nature of it. I'm not wild about the font. It has a pop of color that would work well on a variety of merchandise.”
11. “Building blocks”
Inspiration behind the design:
“I used the gestalt principle of closure, with an intentionally unfinished shape so that the viewer's mind tries to finish it. It’s “building” the letter M.
For the color palette, I looked at Milestone’s Instagram feed and noticed a theme of blue throughout. They also tend to use many shades of light brown, so I used the blue to contrast this.
For the typography, I used a slab serif font in lowercase to balance the mark and to keep it from being too heavy. I then juxtaposed this with an all caps tagline which gives some weight at the bottom and serves as the foundation of the logo design, while mirroring the value of the brand and the very work that they do.” – Judit Ruiz Ricart, Head of Content Strategy and Growth, Wix Blog
Feedback from Milestone: "I like it. I would prefer everything to be all caps in order to love it."
12. “Indoor outdoor concept”
Inspiration behind the design:
“For this logo, I wanted to balance natural and raw elements, since Milestone works in construction and building. I used a bright pop of green to contrast the gray, to mimic the feel of an indoor and outdoor concept. Mostly, I kept it simple. I used a subtle brick motif to represent the building and growing aspects of the business. I want it to be easy to read and remember.” -Kyle Place, SEO Specialist
Feedback from Milestone: "Nice composition. Shows what industry we're in clearly. Nice and clean."
The takeaways:
Be specific. In the initial brief, Milestone said they wanted a modern logo design, but modern is open for interpretation—as seen by the range of logo designs included above. Whether you design your own logo or work with a designer, be as specific as possible with the aesthetic you’re after.
Know your audience. Be aware of your target audience and intent. In Milestone’s case, they were less interested in an abstract design, and were more interested in a literal visualization of their business/industry.
Make necessary adjustments. It’s important to note that all of Milestone’s constructive feedback is completely adjustable. For example, changing the color, tightening spacing or adjusting fonts are all possible in the logo maker. You can use AI presets, or create from scratch. You can make any minor adjustments or tweaks as needed.
And the winner is….
Milestone felt that this logo was the most on brand for their current and prospective clients. Since they work on both commercial and residential projects, this logo feels the most appropriate. They said they’d still like to make small adjustments to the letter "M" icon, and possibly test out a few other colors. This was also the most versatile option to use across all their branding assets, which includes everything from car wraps to baseball caps.
Thank you to Milestone for sharing their feedback with us and letting us create some logo options for their business.
Want to try and create your own? Remember that even if you have limited design experience, the Logo Maker can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. You can check out some of our logo design tips and logo ideas to help you get started. You can also explore our round up of the best real estate logos or famous logos for even more inspiration. If you want more specific niches, try our tech logos or podcast logos.
Read more about brand redesign with Jackie Treitz, the mind behind Netflix’s Motel Makeover designer.