On the NoRobots podcast, Jeremy Slagle of Slagle Design, a brand designer from Columbus, Ohio, explains why AI logo generators keep serving up the same coffee beans and molars, when a small business should actually pay for a logo, and why “made by a human” is already turning into a selling point.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube.
Can an AI logo replace a designer?
Vlad opened with the obvious question. A small business owner can now make 50 logos in a minute with ChatGPT or Claude, and it costs nothing. So why pay a designer at all?
Jeremy’s answer starts with what AI can’t do. In his view, creativity has always been a human gift. Music, cinema and every other art form keep changing because people push them somewhere new. AI can only look at what has already been made and build from the past.
He also points to a newer problem. AI now produces so much content that it’s starting to learn from its own output. Some people expect the results to get better. Others think it will get worse, because the models keep feeding on weaker and weaker material.
For Jeremy, it comes down to something simple: you get what you pay for. A strong brand identity is about how it makes people feel and whether a customer says yes or no when they’re deciding to buy. A computer, he says, can’t understand emotions or what a client’s audience is really looking for.
Before AI, the problem was cheap logos. Many of them were just clip art with a business name slapped on. But at least a person had made some kind of choice along the way.
Why AI logos all look the same
Jeremy doesn’t frame it as good logos versus bad ones. The real question is whether a logo communicates a business’s values and what makes it different.
Ask a generator for a coffee shop logo and you’ll get mugs and beans. Ask for a dentist’s office and you’ll get molars and toothbrushes. The tool throws in every familiar trope because that’s what most people already associate with the category.
None of that helps a brand explain how it does things differently. That’s where a designer comes in: building a brand identity with its own tone of voice, and positioning the business apart from everyone else using the same bean and the same molar.
When should a small business pay for a logo?
The $100 logo was always temporary
Long before ChatGPT, most of Jeremy’s future clients started on 99designs or similar sites, paying around a hundred dollars for a logo. Almost all of them knew it was temporary.
They had a new product and weren’t sure it would work yet. They didn’t have the budget for something truly their own. What they needed right then was a label for the farmer’s market, a business card or something at the top of their website.
The moment it stops working
Jeremy estimates that about 70% of his work comes from people who started exactly that way and then outgrew it. The business takes off. They’re ready to quit their full-time job, and sometimes a spouse quits too to join them. They need a commercial space.
That’s when the costs start adding up. Nobody wants to print 10,000 pieces of packaging, embroider employee uniforms or install a big backlit sign with a logo they paid $100 for.
Jeremy sees a real upside in that path. By the time these owners call him, they know far more about their business, their customers and what makes them unique than they did on day one.
He often works with people who start at farmer’s markets selling baked goods. It takes a couple of seasons to learn which ingredients and products people actually love. Recipes change based on feedback, weak sellers get dropped, and the product becomes something nobody else has. Owners also learn who’s buying. Maybe it’s mostly moms ordering for their kids’ birthday parties. All of that is gold when you build a brand identity, and none of it is known at the start.
Jeremy’s advice: start with a font
Jeremy regularly gets calls from people panicking before their first farmer’s market. They need a logo but can’t afford his services yet.
His advice surprises them. Don’t spend a single dollar on a logo, and don’t generate one either. Go to Google Fonts, find a typeface that feels like your voice, and type out your business name. That’s your logo for now.
Put it on your business cards, print it on a banner and maybe pick a color you like. At that stage, all you need is something that helps people remember your name and what you sell. Once you’ve learned enough about your business, come back and build the logo you actually want.
Vlad has seen the same pattern on the development side. A client of Vlad’s team at Digital Octane built his own shaving cream website with AI, and the team only helped him set it up. Once he hit 1,000 sales, he was ready for a real website with analytics and integrations. Testing an idea yourself first, Vlad says, is a perfectly good way to build an MVP.
The cheap shortcut that costs more
Jeremy has also seen the opposite. Several people got his quote, went to 99designs instead, and spent hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars trying option after option. Six months later they came back and paid his full rate.
He’s realistic about the market. He believes about 90% of people will never hire a designer for a logo, often because they don’t know where to begin. So he puts real effort into helping small business owners understand what he does and when it’s worth it, and into talking them out of buying something they don’t need yet.
Is the cheap logo market dead?
Not entirely, Jeremy says. One problem keeps landing in his inbox: people send him AI logos at screen resolution. They’re trying to print a T-shirt or a banner, the printer asks for vector artwork, and they don’t have it.
The $50 logo sites usually deliver a vector file. Compared with a low-res JPEG, that’s a real step up, so for now the cheap human-made route still has one clear advantage.
Logo vs brand: what to build first
Branding is a bigger job than a logo, so Vlad asked whether clients should build pieces of it themselves first. Jeremy’s answer: every client is different, and he tries never to sell anyone something they don’t need yet.
For some, a solid website matters most. For others, it’s a business card. Some of his clients are so busy that a simple landing page with contact details is all they need. Others need a full site with services explained and customer accounts, because that’s part of how they sell and onboard.
Food and beverage brands are a good example. For them, the logo, the packaging and the shelf presence come first, because that’s where people meet the product. Most of these clients don’t sell online. Customers usually look the brand up later, after they’ve tried it, and at that point a list of local stores and a short backstory are enough.
How Jeremy uses AI in his own work
Almost never, he says. The main exception is research. AI does a good job of pulling sources together and organizing them so he can make sense of a topic. He doesn’t use it to replace a good writer or strategist, because that’s where human creativity matters.
He also does a lot of illustration. If he needs a reference, say a hand holding a candy cane with a flag on it, he first looks for stock photos. If nothing is close enough, he’ll generate an image and keep it beside him while drawing to see how the fingers wrap around the object. That’s it.
AI-generated photos are hurting brands
Vlad mentioned a new tennis club whose Instagram was filled with generated images. It made him not want to follow at all. People, he believes, are getting more and more tired of it.
Jeremy has helped open several pickleball clubs and has seen this first-hand. One club decided to save money and generate its photos. The images weren’t even of the actual location, and nothing in them made him want to join.
His advice is blunt: if you can’t afford a professional photographer, take pictures with your iPhone. At least they’re authentic. People see real players at a real club they might want to meet. Generated photos look glossy and strange, with no emotion in the faces. Players look ready to hit a shot while the ball is somewhere else and they’re looking the other way.
Another client used generated images for a tournament. The three women in the pictures all looked like the same woman. And the more you prompt to fix details like that, Jeremy says, the further things go off the rails.
What AI is doing to young designers
Jeremy’s two kids both work full-time as graphic designers in their early twenties, so he sees this up close. The kind of work companies used to hire young designers for is now often dismissed as “an AI thing” someone can just prompt.
He hopes the pendulum is swinging back. More people are openly calling out brands online for using generated photos on social media, and he’d like to see that continue.
“Made by a human” is already a selling point
Vlad asked whether “made by a human” or “handmade” could become a selling point. Jeremy’s answer: it already is.
He’s seeing more work that looks hand-scribbled, and incredible stop motion animation where artists cut out every piece with an X-Acto knife. The effort itself is part of the appeal.
He compares it to the Sistine Chapel. Part of the awe is knowing a person lay on their back on scaffolding and painted it. Tell someone it was prompted and the magic disappears, even if the image looked exactly the same. Music works the same way. Share an up-and-coming artist’s story, where they learned and how they wrote the lyrics, and people connect. Say a song was prompted, and nobody really wants to listen.
Vlad agreed that this makes storytelling more valuable than ever.
Advice for new designers: start with a sketchbook
What should someone starting out in design learn first? For Jeremy, the answer hasn’t changed: a sketchbook. His never leaves his side, whether he’s at church or waiting at the dentist. That’s where all his ideas come from.
The sketches don’t have to be beautiful. The point is to get ideas down and think through the process. Starting with something completely analog keeps you from falling into the trap of making work that isn’t unique or ownable.
He tells his own kids the same thing: grab a sheet of paper from the printer and sketch it out, because he wants to see the ideas before they touch a computer. Anyone creative can learn Adobe Illustrator, he says. The software should translate an idea you came up with on paper, not do the work for you.
Vlad sees the same thing in development. Before building an app, he lays out its logic and architecture on paper. Even if you then hand it to Claude, you write a much better prompt when you’ve worked out the structure yourself.
Pickleball, referrals and the Columbus Sliders logo
While preparing for the episode, Vlad scrolled through Jeremy’s portfolio and singled out the Columbus Sliders logo and its before-and-after. The “before” was two paddles and a ball, which Jeremy calls the pickleball version of the coffee bean and the molar. Search for pickleball design and that’s what you’ll see almost everywhere.
Pickleball has become a steady source of referrals. Jeremy recently created the brand identity for a new place opening in Dallas and had just flown back from Mississippi, where he was helping a couple build a new facility. Many of these clients arrive with AI-generated logos. They’ve hit the limit of what they can do with them and realize their brand looks like everyone else’s.
That’s the silver lining for Jeremy. He doesn’t have to convince anyone. They prove it to themselves.
The sport is personal for him too. He plays pickleball five times a week and enters tournaments with his kids. He grew up playing tennis, his mom was a tennis coach, and his kids played high school tennis before the whole family switched. What he loves most is that he can show up at any court, put his paddle in the rack, and make new friends with complete strangers.
About Jeremy Slagle and Slagle Design
On the creative side, Jeremy is a one-man band. He co-founded and ran an agency for 12 years, then went out on his own and has worked independently for the last 17 years. He works every day from a studio built onto the back of his house about 15 years ago.
Besides branding, he does illustration and photography. Almost all of it is for brands he’s already working with on identity, so most projects start with the core brand and grow from there.
FAQ
Who is Jeremy Slagle?
Jeremy Slagle is a brand designer and illustrator from Columbus, Ohio, and the founder of Slagle Design. He has worked independently for 17 years after co-founding and running an agency for 12.
Can AI replace a logo designer?
Jeremy doesn’t think so. AI can only remix what already exists, so it repeats category clichés. It can’t understand a business’s values or how its customers feel.
When should a small business pay for a logo?
When the business is growing past the test stage: hiring, moving into a commercial space, or ordering packaging, uniforms and signage. By then the owner knows what makes the business unique.
What should you use as a logo at the very start?
Jeremy recommends picking a typeface from Google Fonts that matches your voice, typing your business name and maybe adding a color. Don’t pay for a logo, and don’t generate one.
Does Jeremy Slagle use AI?
Rarely. He uses it for research and, occasionally, to generate a reference image for an illustration when stock photos don’t have what he needs.
What should new designers learn first?
Sketching. Jeremy advises drawing ideas on paper before opening any software, then using tools like Adobe Illustrator to bring those ideas into digital form.
Where to find Jeremy Slagle
See Jeremy’s work and get in touch at slagledesign.com, or follow him on Instagram at @slagledesign. You can also find Slagle Design on NoRobots.
Watch the full interview: Don’t Pay for a Logo Until This Happens
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