Show HN: I made a dead simple logo maker | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I made a dead simple logo maker

shipfa.st

74 pointsmarclou61 comments

The AI feature seems to just generate random icons unrelating to the input.

What was your input? will check

not parent, but I entered "police station" as a test and got a bunch of unrelated icons

Don’t do his qa for him: https://x.com/marc_louvion/status/1720059433580130372?s=20

  - I don't test my code
  - I don't use git branches
  - I don't change my tech stack

Weird brags...

Lmao

> I built 17 startups in 2 years.

That's phrased like a brag, but I'm not sure what's so cool about making 17 failed businesses in 2 years. Working through failure can lead to success, yes, but simply failing many times over does not mean you'll automatically succeed at one point.

And yet... not trying (and often failing) will pretty much guarantee no success at all. It's a tough nut to crack.

Not OP but I entered “real estate” and got an ear with hearing aid, a terminal, a bug with a play button, and a bowl of soup with steam.

I entered "bakery" and got dice, a bug, and something I can't recognize

Same. Entered "database transforms" and got calendar icons.

I tried "Dark logo for a dice game" and I got H4, clouds, and the icon for looping the same song over and over.

I entered “cursor” and it gave me a clipboard

Literally the placeholder text (the ice-cream shop) doesn't produce any sensible results. Shipped too fast I guess ._.

I did a quick test for a logo and the answer seemed more random than related:

https://imgur.com/a/a93s0t5

Same. I tried a ton of things such as "Robot", "Banana", "Cheese", "Flower", etc.. and got things that were completely random.

with a domain like shipfa.st, makes me think of the old saying "good, cheap, fast" pick two. since the thing is free and fast, good got left out. pretty appropriate for the results being demonstrated in the comments.

i'd be embarrassed if I made such a thing, and there's no way i'd show it off to someone else. this feels like someone took a "learn how to use AI in 10 days" and released the first project they worked on. i read "teach yourself PHP in 10 days" in 1999 over a weekend, and was banging out a website with a database in no time. i'd never ever ever show the code written then to anyone, but at least it did what was advertised on the box.

Look past the embarrassment - if this poster gets just a handful of people to register for "shipfast" service, it's well worth the time it took to build and promote this. Those people will likely buy other stuff from the OP as well.

Loads of people on HN could likely build something 'better' by some metric, but of those, how many would still have the nerve to post it in public? I'm not sure I would. Although I've got something I'm planning to post to show HN sometime soon, my default mode is telling me not to post - someone might post something negative, and I'll be embarrassed!

FWIW, the OP isn't sharing the code, and you wouldn't have needed to show your original 1999 PHP code; just share the built service with folks. That's all most folks care about - the utility/value.

That said, there's nothing (yet?) compelling about this service that I've not seen done before. But it might be new/novel to some.

> FWIW, the OP isn't sharing the code, and you wouldn't have needed to show your original 1999 PHP code; just share the built service with folks. That's all most folks care about - the utility/value.

right, but that's why i followed up with "at least it did what was advertised on the box". this product is so bad at making "logos" that it teeters on the verge of not doing what's advertised on the box

Wasn't sure if by 'on the box' you meant the PHP book cover (meaning, you learned PHP) or your site did whatever you set out to do. :)

>i'd be embarrassed if I made such a thing

Most developers, including myself, fall into this trap. The product doesn't have to be sophisticated, innovative or pretty... as long as it solves a problem.

Aren’t you the guy that did the Joe Rogan commercial for yourself, splicing video of you into an interview you never had with him, that people responded really poorly to?

Looks solid, super easy to ideate and generate variations. The only small gotcha is you need to include the copyright notice for the icons [0] if you want to actually use the logo anywhere.

[0] https://lucide.dev/license

I added a link to Lucide at the bottom right of the editor, did I miss something?

The end user also needs to be informed of their obligations, as they are also using the icons.

All users of the generated "logos" also need to provide the Lucide copyright notice and license.

A cool experiment.

If you're a startup, do not use logo-generation services. You all look the same to me. Find a strong brand/graphic (not UX/UI) designer to partner with over the long term as your brand develops and invest in your brand equity. It will pay dividends.

Can you recommend how to meet them?

Ideally with a certain level of skill, and who doesn’t try to fleece you.

I've been exploring that and found https://dribbble.com/

No experience using them, but it's a starting point. Curious if there are alternatives out there and if people here recommend it or not

See my other post, but yeah Dribbble definitely has some good ones. Check https://dribbble.com/shots/popular/branding

https://www.commarts.com/magazines < their annuals list only the best design

https://www.printmag.com/ is a blog with good regular posts by top identity designers

https://medium.com/theymakedesign/branding-agency-new-york-3... < recent list

I don't know how up-to-date they are but GRAPHIS has always been a good resource: https://www.graphis.com/archives/books/logo-design/

Looks great. I was an early entrant into the "logo maker" space, which was very hot a few years ago when someone realized that it was a great way to get leads for small businesses who were just in the first days of their journey as a company.

Unfortunately since then, the market has become saturated with competitors and other business-services providers that have free logo makers, so it's hard to rank or really get much traction with a new logo maker. Abuse is another problem - people on Fiverr sell "professional logo design" and then just use your tool to make a logo (if you could consider that to be abuse).

If this is a nice little bonus feature for your existing users, however, it is very slick. Good work!

Guess "I made a way to get a backgound color under a font I didn't make" didn't sound as well for a title but still. How is this here? Is there a botting issue on hn?

Do you do Chrome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIOfEiy4lc

Flying Logos

First shown at the 1989 Siggraph Electronic Theater to a rave response, this 3 minute humourous film went on to win several top computer graphic awards that same year including Niccograph of Japan.

With a voiceover soundtrack written by Peter Conn and animations assembled from various productions done during the previous year, the film unfolds as a client calls into Flying Logos, Inc. to have his logo visualized. In the course of the conversation, we see and hear the juxtaposition of the technical versus the anticipated, the imagination versus the possibility.

But more important than amusing audiences and winning awards, this landmark film marked the debut of the PC as a fully capable production system to do broadcast quality work, which up to then was only done by large companies with very expensive graphic workstations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38689282

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38689488

The most common "simple" icon is a word mark and background. Would be nice if you could set a word and font (say, for instance, the letter X) in addition to the icon selection.

Was excited to try the AI icon generator, but it's flat out broken. Prompts for "golf ball" and "museum" and other things result in random unrelated icons.

I am a fan of Marc and an admirer but I could not grasp how this works. All I see an Apple Icon..I did not know what to do

Very random and unrelated - the certificate for projects.adnansiddiqi.me expired on the 4th of December, maybe you weren't aware of it yet :)

Yes, thanks. I do know about it and I am moving that part as a subfolder soon

The downloaded files on FF don't have any icon in them (tried both .png and .svg). Have you tested it on FF?

Hey at least it was shipped fast though, right?

Who cares about quality these days?

Yep I did and it worked well.. Which icon did you try? Might trying another one?

It doesn't seem to depend on the logo (i.e. the apple). But maybe it's some kind of strict security/privacy setting that I use in my browser.

Tada icon (party popper) does not fill right, you might want to give that algorithm a look

Not the sort of thing I expected to work so well on mobile. Well done.

Your pig icon has an odd fill artifact near it's tail.

Very many of them do. They weren't meant to be filled, lots of them are open paths that will just look awful filled.

Super neat!

make the logo bigger

EDIT: Referring to OP/Shipfast, not this submission directly.

I get some sort of weird feeling looking at the "17 products built in the last 2 years". Lots of SaaS which help other people build SaaS, coupled with an "everyone can be a coder/entrepreneur"-mantra.

Looked at the startups which were built with shipfast, and most of them felt like a case of "looks really nice, but doesn't actually do much/anything". Gamifiers, aggregators, list builders (just use $FAVORITE_NOTE_APP), social media account growers. I don't know...

The constant mention of how much money OP makes coupled with products which helps others make products gives me some ponzi-scheme vibes (just the principle of constantly bragging to give people FOMO).

No offense, I've got a slight hangover and the weather is sh*t, I'm probably a bit too cynical today.

That twitter feed is too much. It's so extra. It encapsulates everything I hate about LinkedIn. Which is why I'm here, not there. If I wanted influencer cringe, I know where to go.

> It encapsulates everything I hate about LinkedIn

That's the exact feeling I couldn't quite put into words! Very influenc-y, humblebraggy, like almost every post I see on LinkedIn (just have it as a digital, public, online CV and to connect with past co-workers, please don't roast me for having a profile there).

The most impressive part to me is the submissions reaching the HN frontpage multiple times. I remember the user which is pretty rare for me on HN.

While the tech side isn't super interesting to me, I can definitely appreciate the marketing. He's "hacked" HN as far as I can tell.

Edit: huh, I was wrong. Reached the front page twice, once with shipfast and once now.

Someone should build a SaaS-Startup which ensures that 'Show HN' posts about your new SaaS-Startup reach the front page, guaranteed! (Sometimes. Maybe. But at least the website will look nice).

Weather is sh*t here but too but here are my 2 cents:

I got depressed after trying go-big-or-go-home entrepreneurship for 4 years.

In 2021, when I discovered cool kids like Pieter Levels building apps out of curiosity and making $ with them, my life changed.

I took the plunge and built apps while sharing everything (learning, code, salary).

As my following grows, I receive tons of messages from people mentioning it's inspirational, so I keep sharing most transparently.

I'm not teaching people to get rich to buy a Lambo. I'm giving them the tools I use to build stuff that makes me happy. Most of these tools won't change the world.

Internet is cold. But if you were to meet me, you'd see an average Joe walking barefoot and who is obsessed with building apps.

(1L of water does wonder to hangover)

> trying go-big-or-go-home entrepreneurship for 4 years

I respect the grind, you know, I think we're just two dudes with very different aspirations. I have 0 entrepreneurial desire and am fine with working for someone else and in turn getting a paycheck monthly. If I do things next to my job they're either an experiment, something for my homelab or the typical "hi 4ggr0, someone i know needs a new website, you're an IT guy, right?". I also get an ick when people are over-enthusiastically entrepreneury, don't know why.

> Internet is cold

Yeah, I knew that my post would probably sound very condescending, but I don't think you're a bad guy based on the things you do :) I just got a "buy my courses, use my products, and get rich"-vibe. Probably also due to my own biases. Sorry if it hit too hard! I'll buy you a beverage of your choice if we ever meet.

> 1L of water does wonder to hangover

It does! for strong hangovers I recommend a coffe cup filled with broth :D

Why is this on here? There isn't anything novel about putting a background behind icons. Icons are not logos. If you're using Lucide which it seems like you are, users need to include Lucide's license in their product which doesn't make for a good logo.

[EDIT]: typo

this is awesome!!

Hey HN,

I'm Marc and I ship like a madman. 17 products in the last 2 years.

So I made LogoFast: A simple & free logo maker, with a touch of AI.

1. Pick an icon 2. Add a background color 3. Adjust padding, shadow, roundness. 4. Export, and voila!

If you need inspiration, the AI helps you pick the right icon & colors.

I share all my work on : https://twitter.com/marc_louvion

I also built ShipFast: The NextJS boilerplate to ship startups in days, not weeks: https://ShipFa.st

This app just crashed when I tried to change the Icon after some tapping around ...

... which does not give me huge confidence in anything shipped with the "ship as much in as little time as possible" mindset.

There must be a memory leak in the icon picker. It eats more than 1.5 GB.

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