Looka Logo Design Review – AI-Generated Branding

This Looka logo design review is the result of several weeks of thorough testing and research, all aimed at answering one key question: are AI tools powerful enough to assist with branding?

Branding is a crucial part of any startup. It helps you connect to your audience and it helps them understand you as a brand.

That’s why a lot of businesses invest heavily in crafting the perfect branding.

For small startups, this can easily be quite a significant investment.

Sometimes prohibitively so.

Fortunately, AI tools have been created that can help with this dilemma. Tools like Looka.

In this review, I discuss the software’s pros and cons as well as my thoughts on its effectiveness and utility.

Let’s jump in.

What is Looka?

 

Looka is a generative AI logo maker designed to generate a custom logo and branding kit for your brand.

The AI is trained to make a variety of assets such as social media banners, business cards, merch, and much more.

The designs are generated based on the information provided by you through a series of questions.

These questions include design preferences, business type, and other parameters.

How It Works

Creating your brand’s logo in Looka is the very first thing you do when signing up.

It can be quite daunting a task but, thankfully, their logo generator is pretty straightforward to use.

Here’s how you do it:

Logo Creation Process

Step 1: Choose a business name

Type out your chosen business name in the text box (as pictured below).

Press Get Started once you’re done.

Step 2: Pick your industry type.

Choose the type of industry from the extensive list that best fits your brand.

Don’t worry if none of the choices are spot on – just pick the closest and you should be golden.

Click Continue once you’re done picking.

Step 3: Choose a logo design inspiration

Next up, pick the logo look that best suits your brand.

This step helps the AI get the “look” of the logo you want.

Click Continue when you’re done.

You can also skip this step by pressing Skip if you want.

Step 4: Choose your brand’s colors

Pick the color or colors that you want your brand to have.

Each color comes with a description to help you understand what it will convey about your brand.

This will be used as the color palette for your other assets moving forward.

Hit Continue.

Step 5: Enter your company name and tagline

Type an optional tagline for your brand in the appropriate box.

This step automatically displays the company name you gave in Step 1.

Press Continue once done.

Step 6: Choose a symbol for your brand

Pick the symbols that best fit your brand.

The AI uses this to give you a list of possible symbols for your logo.

Press Continue to move on to the next step.

Step 7: Sign up for a Looka account

Lastly, you need to create a Looka account to generate your logo.

You can sign up through Facebook, Google, or any email address.

Alternatively, you can also continue as a guest and sign up later.

• Related: 5 Affordable Logo Design Tools

Step 8: Pick the logo that you like

The AI tool now shows you multiple design ideas to choose from.

Pick the design that you want as your final logo.

Don’t worry if none of the logos are exactly what you want. You can edit it later.

Tweaking your AI-generated logo

Editing the logo is a straightforward process.

As soon as you finish the logo generation, you head straight to the Logo Editor.

The Editor Dashboard

The Editor Dashboard is pretty straightforward. The different tools are under separate tabs.

Under the Suggested tab, you can change the overall look of the logo again if you want.

If you are satisfied with the general look of the logo, you can further tweak it to your liking.

The More Ideas tab lets you pick and choose different font styles, sizes, and color schemes.

If you want more control over the font styles of the company name and tagline, you can edit them separately under the Name and Slogan tabs respectively.

You can also change the text altogether if you wish.

There are other small edits and tweaks you can do like changing the containers, the symbol, and even the color palette.

The Brand Kit Subscription

To get full access to the different branding assets, you can upgrade your account to their Brand Kit Subscription package.

It gives complete access to all assets including the print shop, invoice generator, and social media templates, among others.

You can also try the Premium Logo Package if you need the full logo generator experience without the added features of the brand kit subscription.

• Related: 13 Incredible AI Websites to Make Your Life Easier

Features

• AI Custom Logo Designer

This is the first feature that Looka offers to the user.

The AI-powered logo maker uses information obtained from the user to generate suitable custom logos.

This is done through a series of questionnaires and a selection of logo samples for inspiration.

Looka’s artificial intelligence then combines this information and uses it to create logos that closely match the specifications.

• Comprehensive Brand Kit generator

As Looka generates the logo, it also prepares the brand kit in the background.

It instantly creates a ton of assets like business cards, letterheads, and other media.

It uses data such as colors, fonts, and other information from the logo designer to generate the brand kit.

• Print Shop

The print shop is a tool that works as part of the brand kit generator.

In the print shop, you get to see your logo on various merch like t-shirts, mugs, and stickers among other physical marketing materials.

Looka offers to print and ship these items in-house.

• Custom AI-Generated Website

Looka generates a few custom ready-to-go websites as soon as the tool generates the logo.

These are customizable website templates that are complete with industry-specific media and copy.

You can choose from a selection of automatically generated drafts that you can further customize.

• Marketing Materials

Looka also creates a wide array of marketing materials that any brand might need.

These include posters, presentations, invoices, and brochures among others.

This makes building a cohesive brand identity quick and easy even for non-designers.

• Social Media Templates and Branding Materials

The branding materials also include not just print but also online assets.

Looka generates things like social media templates, channel banners, newsletters, and templates for different types of social media posts.

All of these are done via a really intuitive editor with the help of AI.

Overall Performance

I must say I was completely pleased with the overall experience when I was testing Looka.

The tool was straightforward to use and was never confusing or overly complicated.

Everything is done via their web app making it very accessible.

Even non-design-oriented people would not be intimidated by the tool at all.

The onboarding experience was straightforward to grasp, although experienced users might find it too simplistic.

The first thing I noticed when testing was that although the AI is surprisingly capable, the designs are still heavily dependent on the user.

This means the designs are limited only by the user’s imagination without the direct help of an experienced human designer.

This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, though.

Overall, the service is effective, fuss-free, and quite intuitive even for complete beginners.

How I Tested Looka

I spent over two weeks poking around Looka’s dashboard trying out different features.

I used a fictional brand (the same one I used in my DesignPickle review) called Digital Brew, a cafe/coworking space built for digital nomads.

I used the platform to generate the logo and other branding materials.

The steps in making the different marketing assets are pretty much the same across the board.

This makes the editing workflow easy to grasp for the user.

The tools are pretty familiar too, so anyone with experience with other tools like Canva would immediately get the hang of it.

The service runs entirely on your browser making it quite handy.

As soon as I finished the initial logo generation, I was immediately able to view the different brand kits available.

They are easy to customize, too, using the built-in editor.

One thing to note though: AI is not as flexible as working with an actual branding specialist (at least not yet).

Having an experienced branding specialist can give you choices tailor-made to your specific needs.

Having said that, the AI tool is still quite powerful and delivers amazing results all on its own.

Alternatives to Looka

Canva

Canva is a versatile graphic design platform that includes a logo-maker tool.

Users can choose from its huge library of templates, fonts, and icons to create a custom logo.

Its drag-and-drop dashboard makes it user-friendly for both beginners and experienced designers.

Hatchful by Shopify

Hatchful is a free logo generator developed by Shopify.

It offers a simple and intuitive process where users answer a few questions about their business and preferences.

The tool is designed to cater to entrepreneurs and small businesses, focusing on ease of use and quick results.

Tailor Brands

Tailor Brands is an AI-powered branding platform that offers logo design as part of its suite of tools.

The logo maker uses AI to understand the user’s brand and style preferences, generating many logo options.

Tailor Brands, like Looka, also provides additional branding resources such as business cards, social media kits, and more.

This makes it a comprehensive solution for brand identity creation much like Looka.

Value for Money

Looka is a solid choice for those needing a logo fast without breaking the bank.

Its AI does most of the heavy lifting, generating dozens of designs based on your input.

For a reasonable price, you get a professional-looking logo, even if you’re a design newbie.

The pricing plans are also quite flexible depending on your needs.

You can either pick one-time purchase prices for as low as US$20 or an annual subscription fee for all the features at a little over US$190.

The customization options let you tweak the designs until they’re just right.

However, it’s not perfect; sometimes the AI can miss the mark on creativity.

Overall, Looka offers good value, especially for startups and small businesses needing a quick, cost-effective branding solution.

FAQs

Is Looka free to use?

Looka offers a free trial where you can create and preview logos.

However, to download and use your logo, you need to purchase a package.

The pricing is competitive, especially considering the quality and customization options available.

What file formats are available for download?

When you purchase a logo, Looka provides high-resolution files in multiple formats.

These include PNG, SVG, EPS, and PDF.

These formats work best for both digital and print use.

Can I make changes to my logo after purchase?

Yes, Looka allows you to make changes to your logo even after purchasing it.

This flexibility is handy if you need to tweak your design later on without additional costs.

What additional services does Looka offer?

Besides logo creation, Looka offers a Brand Kit that includes business card designs, social media templates, and other branding materials.

This comprehensive approach helps maintain a consistent brand identity across various platforms and media.

Looka Logo Review | Conclusion

Overall, Looka is a great tool for what it does. The AI-generated logo works well out of the box and customization is intuitive.

The myriad of branding materials available to you is also quite comprehensive making this quite the all-in-one service.

And with this price range, it’s quite hard to match.

If you’re a small startup looking for a fast and cost-effective branding (or rebranding) solution, this might be the one for you.

Disclaimer: All recommendations are impartial and based on user experience, with no bias to the products or the brand. The products in this post may contain affiliate links.