What is a Substack Wordmark?

And do you need one for your newsletter?

Hi there! I just passed $13K with my B2B Substack. On Medium, I share what I learned along the way, so you can build your own newsletter growth machine too.

In this post I’ll cover:

• What is a wordmark?
• Do you need a wordmark?
• How to get a wordmark
• What size is a Substack Wordmark?
• How to add a wordmark to Substack
• Best practices for Substack wordmarks
• Pitfalls to avoid

Let’s get to it!

What is a wordmark?

A wordmark is a heading or title that is presented as an image, rather than text. Also known as a logotype, you can think of it as a font-based logo.

On Substack, a publication’s wordmark appears at the top of the publication’s homepage and at the top of each online post and page.

Anne from Cafe Anne and Paul from Deplatformable Newsletter are two Substack publication owners who use wordmarks

Do you have to have a wordmark on Substack?

Many publications use wordmarks because they add personality to a publication’s pages and posts.

Wordmarks are optional. Many popular Substack publications do not have wordmarks.

Without a wordmark, the publication’s name is displayed in a simple font at the top of each post and page, as in the picture below.

Alex from Both Are True doesn’t use a wordmark in his publication, a top humour newsletter

How to get a wordmark for Substack

You can get a designer to create a wordmark for your Substack publication, or you can make your own.

Because a wordmark is an image file —accepted formats are png or jpeg — you need to use image-making software to create your own wordmark. The most popular software is Canva, but Photoshop, Paint.net and Microsoft Paint are all fine too.