ICON OOP carries brand logos from two sources, and the difference between them matters when you are choosing a file.
- Simple Icons, roughly 3,400 marks, monochrome, single-path, drawn on a 24 by 24 grid, released CC0. Each carries the brand's official hex colour as metadata, so you can apply the correct brand colour yourself.
- SVG Logos by Gil Barbara, roughly 1,400 marks, in full official colours including gradients and multi-colour lockups, also CC0.
Use the monochrome set when the logo has to sit inside your own design system, in a footer row, a social link, an integrations list. Use the full-colour set when the logo is the subject, on a partner page or a logo wall.
The distinction that matters
The SVG file is licensed CC0, so copying and redistributing the file is fine. The logo it depicts is a trademark owned by that company, and trademark law is not affected by the file licence. What determines whether your use is fine is not the licence, it is whether a reasonable person would think the company is involved with your product.
Two questions, not one
Almost every argument about logo use comes from collapsing two separate questions into one.
- May I copy this file? A copyright question. For CC0 sets, the answer is yes.
- May I display this mark in this context? A trademark question. The answer depends entirely on context, and the file licence has no bearing on it.
Trademark exists to stop consumers being confused about who is behind a product. It is not about ownership of an image. That framing tells you almost everything you need about which uses are safe.
What nominative fair use covers
Using someone's trademark to refer to that company or its product is generally permitted, in most jurisdictions, under what is broadly called nominative fair use. The usual conditions are that the product could not easily be identified without the mark, that you use no more of the mark than necessary, and that nothing about your use suggests sponsorship or endorsement.
In practice this means a Slack logo next to the words "Connects with Slack" on an integrations page is normal and defensible. The same logo blown up as your hero image with no explanatory text is not, because it implies a relationship rather than describing one.
This is general background, not legal advice. If a specific use is commercially significant to you, check the company's own brand guidelines first, most large companies publish them, and take advice if it still looks marginal.
Uses that are normally fine
- Social links. An Instagram mark linking to your Instagram profile.
- Integrations and compatibility. "Works with Stripe, Xero and HubSpot", with each mark next to its name.
- Payment methods. Card and wallet marks at checkout showing what you accept.
- Tech stack pages. Showing what you built with, common on developer sites and covered by the Devicon set.
- Editorial and comparison content. Reviews, comparison tables, news articles.
- Internal documents. Slide decks, architecture diagrams, internal wikis.
Uses that cause problems
- Implying endorsement. A wall of customer logos when they are not customers. This is the most common real-world complaint.
- Merchandise. Putting a brand mark on something you sell.
- Your own branding. Using another company's mark, or something close to it, as your logo, app icon or favicon.
- Altering the mark. Recolouring a full-colour logo, restretching it, or combining it with your own logo into a single lockup. Most brand guidelines forbid this explicitly.
- Adult, political or controversial contexts where association with the brand would be unwelcome.
The one-sentence test
If the logo is describing something true about your product, you are almost certainly fine. If the logo is doing work for your brand, borrowing credibility, decorating a hero, standing in for your own mark, you are on the wrong side of the line.
Monochrome or full colour
| Context | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Footer social row | Monochrome | Six brand colours in a footer is visual chaos |
| Integrations grid | Full colour | Recognition matters, users scan for a colour |
| Partner or customer wall | Monochrome, single tone | Standard practice, keeps the page calm |
| Checkout payment methods | Full colour | Card schemes usually require official colours |
| Tech stack list | Full colour | Developers recognise the colours instantly |
Note the asymmetry: desaturating a full-colour logo to a single flat tone is widely accepted, and most brand guidelines allow a one-colour version. Recolouring a logo to a different colour is not. A monochrome Spotify mark in your footer is normal. A pink Spotify mark is a brand guideline breach.
Practical rules for a logo row
- Match optical size, not bounding box. A wide wordmark and a square glyph set to the same width will look wildly mismatched. Size each one by eye until they carry equal presence.
- Keep clear space. Most brand guidelines specify minimum clear space around the mark. A safe default is padding equal to the mark's cap height on every side.
- Do not put logos on busy backgrounds. Flat, high-contrast, ideally white or a single dark tone.
- Label them. A logo row with no company names is worse for both users and search engines than one with names.
- Respect minimum sizes. Detailed logos become mud below about 24px. Use a simplified glyph version if one exists.
Accessibility and alt text for logos
Logos are one of the few icon cases where the icon genuinely carries information, so it needs a text equivalent.
- Logo as a link with no visible text: the accessible name should describe the destination, not the image. "Follow us on Instagram" beats "Instagram logo".
- Logo next to visible company name: hide the icon from assistive technology with
aria-hidden="true", otherwise the name is announced twice. - Logo in a decorative wall: if the company names appear as text, hide the marks. If they do not, each mark needs a label.
Full patterns are in the accessible icons guide.