Logo clouds, and the one rule that makes them work#
A logo row is the cheapest credibility on a landing page and the easiest to get wrong. The rule is simple: every mark has to be recognised by the person reading, or the row is decoration.
The five logo cloud sections#
- Logo Cloud 1: a technology and framework compatibility row. Free, and the right shape when the story is what you work with rather than who uses you.
- Logo Cloud 2: logos paired with customer quotes and success metrics.
- Logo Cloud 3: a straightforward showcase of the industry names using the product.
- Logo Cloud 4: an enterprise-weighted layout for large-account proof.
- Logo Cloud 5: a partner and ecosystem row, for a marketplace or integration story.
How many logos, and which#
Five to eight, all recognisable to the audience you are addressing. A row of twenty unknown marks reads as filler and actively costs credibility. One genuinely famous name you have permission to use beats ten nobody can place.
Recognisable is audience-specific. A row of developer tools is proof to an engineering buyer and noise to a finance one, which is a reason to have different rows on different pages rather than one canonical set.
Permission to use a customer logo#
Usually you need it. Most commercial agreements say something about trademark use and a logo wall is exactly the case those clauses cover. Check before publishing, and where the answer is no, a list of industries and company sizes makes the same point without the risk.
Making a row of logos look even#
The trick is optical weight rather than pixel width. These layouts constrain height and let width float, then apply a single muted treatment so a heavy wordmark does not shout over a light one. Uploading raw brand assets at their native sizes is what makes most logo rows look broken, and no amount of grid tuning fixes it afterwards.
Compatibility rows versus customer rows#
Logo Cloud 1 exists for a different claim: these are the tools this works with. For a developer product that is often the more persuasive row, because it answers a real question rather than making a general assertion about popularity.
Where a logo cloud belongs#
Directly under the hero, where it backs the opening claim before somebody has decided whether to keep reading. Lower down it is largely wasted, since a visitor who scrolled that far was already persuaded. For proof with words instead of marks, testimonials do the same job, and stats sections do it with numbers.
