An AI Logo is Not a Brand.

A logo is easy. A brand is harder. After completing the identity for New York Fashion Week Collections, I tested the same project using Looka and the results were better than most designers probably want to admit.

Within minutes, it generated dozens of logo options, complete with polished mockups and a surprisingly broad visual range. Total cost? $65.

And honestly, the results weren’t bad. The spacing was balanced, the fonts felt current, and the color combinations were smart enough to pass at a glance. But the more I looked at the work, the more obvious the limitation became. The marks lacked distinctiveness. They leaned heavily on familiar symbolism and visual patterns that felt assembled rather than authored with meaning.

AI is getting good at producing something polished. But polished and ownable are not the same thing.

What surprised me most was how much the technology improved in such a short time. I tested the same platform when it first launched and the results weren’t even worth discussing. Now, for companies where brand differentiation isn’t the priority, these tools absolutely serve a purpose.

For designers, though, this becomes a different kind of exercise. AI is no longer the thing to dismiss.

So compare the below AI output to what I actually created for the brand in my portfolio, link here, and decide for yourself.