You spent time getting your main logo right, then dropped it into a browser tab and it turned into an unreadable smudge. A full logo is built to be seen big; a favicon has to survive at 16 pixels. They are different jobs.
This prompt handles the part of coaching website branding most people skip: a clean submark for tight spaces (social avatars, email signatures, watermarks) and a favicon that’s still legible in a crowded row of tabs. You feed the AI your brand details and it returns two ready-to-generate image prompts that look like they belong together. By the end of this page you’ll also understand why the prompt works, so you can adapt it for any brand asset.
When to use this
- You have a primary logo but no smaller mark for social profile pictures or favicons.
- Your current favicon looks blurry or unreadable in a browser tab.
- You’re setting up a new coaching website and want the tab icon to match your brand.
- You want a consistent watermark for slides, PDFs, and lead magnets.
- You’re rebranding and need every small touchpoint to feel like one family.
The prompt
Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
You are an expert brand identity designer who specializes in submarks and favicons for solo coaches and small coaching businesses. Your job is to design a clean, professional submark and a matching favicon that work alongside an existing primary logo.
Before designing, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear or missing (for example, if I haven't given you my main logo style or whether I prefer a monogram or a symbol). Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My brand name: {{BRAND_NAME}}
- Initials or letter to use for the favicon: {{INITIALS}}
- My coaching niche: {{NICHE}}
- The feeling my brand should give: {{BRAND_FEELING}}
- My brand colors: {{COLORS}}
- An optional motif from my main logo: {{MOTIF}}
TASK
Produce TWO matching assets that clearly belong to the same brand family:
1. A SUBMARK: a compact, secondary version of my brand mark for tight spaces like social profile pictures, email signatures, and watermarks. It should read well inside a circle.
2. A FAVICON: an ultra-simple icon that is still legible at 16x16 pixels in a browser tab, using either my initials or a single distilled motif.
For each asset, give me a detailed, copy-paste-ready image generation prompt (the kind I can paste into an AI image tool) describing: the exact concept, the composition, the colors with hex codes, the style, the background, and the aspect ratio.
CONSTRAINTS
- Both assets must feel like the same family as a primary logo (same colors, same mood).
- The favicon must stay legible when tiny: no thin lines, no fine detail, high contrast, max two colors.
- The submark should be on a transparent or solid-color background, square aspect ratio.
- No gradients on the favicon. No text smaller than a single letter or two initials.
- Do not invent a tagline or add words I didn't provide.
After the two prompts, give me a 3-line checklist for testing whether my favicon is legible at small sizes.
How to customize it
Replace the six {{VARIABLES}} before you send it:
| Variable | What to put | Example |
|---|---|---|
{{BRAND_NAME}} |
Your brand or business name | Rooted Leadership Co. |
{{INITIALS}} |
The letter(s) for the favicon | R |
{{NICHE}} |
Your specific coaching niche | leadership coaching for new managers |
{{BRAND_FEELING}} |
The mood your brand should give | grounded, calm, and quietly confident |
{{COLORS}} |
Your brand colors, with hex if you have them | deep forest green #1F3B2C and warm sand #E8DCC4 |
{{MOTIF}} |
An optional shape from your main logo | a simple sprouting leaf |
No hex codes yet? Write the color in plain words (“warm terracotta”) and the model will suggest matching hex values you can lock in.
See it in action (full example)
Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a leadership coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:
You are an expert brand identity designer who specializes in submarks and favicons for solo coaches and small coaching businesses. Your job is to design a clean, professional submark and a matching favicon that work alongside an existing primary logo.
Before designing, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear or missing (for example, if I haven't given you my main logo style or whether I prefer a monogram or a symbol). Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My brand name: Rooted Leadership Co.
- Initials or letter to use for the favicon: R
- My coaching niche: leadership coaching for new managers
- The feeling my brand should give: grounded, calm, and quietly confident
- My brand colors: deep forest green #1F3B2C and warm sand #E8DCC4
- An optional motif from my main logo: a simple sprouting leaf
TASK
Produce TWO matching assets... [rest of the prompt unchanged]
And here is the complete output the model returns:
Two quick questions before I lock these in, but I’ll design with sensible defaults so you have something to use right now:
- Is your primary logo a wordmark (text-only) or does it already include the sprouting-leaf symbol?
- Do you prefer the favicon to lead with the letter “R” or with the leaf?
I’ve assumed your main logo pairs the leaf with the wordmark, and I’ve built two versions of the favicon (one letter-led, one leaf-led) so you can pick.
ASSET 1 – SUBMARK (for social avatars, email signatures, watermarks)
Paste this into your AI image tool:
“A minimalist circular brand submark for a leadership coaching company. Inside a solid deep-forest-green circle (#1F3B2C), a single warm-sand (#E8DCC4) sprouting leaf rising from a short stem, centered, with a clean uppercase ‘R’ integrated subtly at the base of the stem. Flat vector style, no gradients, no outlines, generous breathing room inside the circle so it reads at small sizes. Background: transparent outside the circle. Square 1:1 aspect ratio, 1000x1000px.”
ASSET 2A – FAVICON, letter-led (recommended)
“A simple favicon icon. A bold rounded uppercase letter ‘R’ in warm sand (#E8DCC4) on a solid deep-forest-green (#1F3B2C) rounded square. Thick, even strokes, high contrast, no thin lines, no gradients, no extra detail. Flat vector style. Designed to stay legible at 16×16 pixels. Square 1:1 aspect ratio.”
ASSET 2B – FAVICON, leaf-led (alternative)
“A simple favicon icon. One bold, solid warm-sand (#E8DCC4) leaf shape centered on a solid deep-forest-green (#1F3B2C) rounded square. Single chunky silhouette, no stem detail, no veins, no gradients, high contrast. Flat vector style. Legible at 16×16 pixels. Square 1:1 aspect ratio.”
Legibility test for your favicon (3 lines): 1. Export at 16x16px and 32x32px and look at it without zooming, then squint, if the shape is still obvious, it passes. 2. Open it in a real browser tab next to 5 other tabs, can you find yours in under a second? 3. Drop it on both a white and a dark background, it should hold contrast on both.
That is two generation-ready prompts plus a self-test, from one paste.
Why this works
Four LLM principles are doing the heavy lifting. Learn them and every prompt you write gets sharper:
- Role priming. The opening line (“You are an expert brand identity designer who specializes in submarks and favicons”) tells the model which slice of its knowledge to use. “Make me a favicon” pulls the generic average; naming a specialist role pulls professional design conventions like contrast, simplification, and family consistency.
- Specificity in, specificity out. The model can only be as specific as your input. Vague colors (“green and beige”) give vague output; exact hex codes (
#1F3B2C,#E8DCC4) come straight back in the generation prompts, so your two assets actually match. The quality of the result is capped by the quality of your{{COLORS}}and{{MOTIF}}. - Constraints are quality control. The rules (“legible at 16×16”, “no thin lines”, “no gradients”, “max two colors”) each kill a known failure mode of tiny icons. Telling the model what NOT to do is as powerful as telling it what to do, it’s how you stop a favicon from becoming an unreadable smudge.
- Clarifying questions beat guessing. The “ask me up to 3 questions first” line lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of inventing. Notice in the example it asked about the main logo and still delivered usable defaults, that combination (ask, but don’t stall) is what separates a helpful assistant from a generic one.
Do this now
- Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
- Replace the six variables with your real brand name, initials, niche, feeling, colors, and motif.
- Send it and answer any clarifying questions honestly.
- Paste the two generated image prompts into your AI image tool, then run the 3-line legibility test before you upload the favicon.
Pro tips
- Give it your real hex codes. Eyedrop the colors from your existing logo first; matching colors are what make a submark and favicon feel like one brand.
- Always generate both favicon versions. A letter-led and a motif-led icon look different at 16px, pick the one that’s still obvious when tiny.
- Export the favicon as a
.pngand an.ico. Most website builders want one or both; the.icocovers older browsers. - Reuse the submark everywhere. Same mark on your social avatar, email signature, and slide footer trains people to recognize you faster.
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