Limn Web App - Automated Logo Grid Generation

Eliminating 30-60 minutes of manual work with pixel-perfect automation

Role: Founder, Product Designer, Brand Designer Timeline: 2 weeks (Concept to MVP Launch) Tools: Figma, Lovable (AI-assisted development), Adobe Illustrator Link: Limn Web App

Every brand designer knows the pain: you've finished a logo, and now you need to create professional grid documentation for the brand guidelines. What should take 5 minutes becomes 30-60 minutes of tedious manual work in Illustrator — drawing alignment grids, measuring anchor points, creating construction lines, and ensuring pixel-perfect accuracy. And if you need to revise the logo? Start over.

Limn automatically generates professional logo grids in 10 seconds.

The Problem: Grid Documentation Is Tedious

30-60 minutes of manual work per logo in Illustrator

Drawing horizontal and vertical alignment grids by hand

Measuring and marking every anchor point

Creating construction lines showing geometric relationships

Setting up professional clearspace zones

Ensuring everything is pixel-perfect (one wrong measurement ruins the whole grid)

And if the client requests revisions? Start the entire process over.

Existing solutions like Grid.it ($149 Illustrator plugin) help, but they're:

Desktop-only (no web access)

Still require significant manual setup

Single-workspace limitation (can't compare multiple logos)

Not instant

The industry needed a web-based solution that combines speed + accuracy + professional output.

The Solution: Automated Grid Generation

Upload any SVG logo, and Limn instantly analyzes the vector paths to produce:

Typography Mode Perfect for text-based logos. Automatically detects cap height, x-height, baseline, ascenders, and descenders.

Vector Mode Analyzes any logo shape. Extracts anchor points, bezier handles, generates alignment grids from unique X/Y coordinates, and shows construction lines revealing geometric relationships.

Construction Mode Overlays geometric construction grids for logos built on circles, squares, and golden ratio principles.

Clearspace Mode Professional brand guideline styling with dashed boundaries, corner circles, and semi-transparent overlays showing minimum safe distances.

Result: Professional logo grids in 10 seconds that would take 30-60 minutes manually.

The name "Limn" (pronounced /lim/) means "to draw or paint" — but it looks like "Lemon." 

So naturally, the logo became an 8-bit lemon. Created in under an hour when the idea struck, because sometimes the best logos come quickly.

Precision in simplicity — Just like Limn reduces complex grid work to simple automation, 8-bit art reduces images to their essential pixels.

Grid-native aesthetic — Pixel art is literally built on grids, perfectly reflecting what Limn does.

Playful yet professional — The retro style adds personality while maintaining technical credibility for a design tool.

The wordplay: "Limn" → "Lemon" 🍋 Technical tool → Playful visual Grid precision → Pixel art

The logo itself demonstrates what Limn does: taking something complex (a lemon) and reducing it to its perfect grid structure. 

Meta? Absolutely.

The Application: Multi-Workspace Power

Figma-Style Workspace Tabs Rather than forcing users to work on one logo at a time, Limn adopted Figma's workspace tab pattern. Horizontal tabs across the top, each workspace completely isolated, settings persist per workspace, instant switching with cached analysis results, keyboard shortcuts for power users (Cmd+T, Cmd+W, Cmd+Tab).

Compare multiple logo variations

Work on different client projects simultaneously

Before/after redesign comparisons

Maintain different grid configurations for the same logo

Horizontal gridlines (from unique Y coordinates)

Vertical gridlines (from unique X coordinates)

Construction lines (dashed, showing geometric relationships)

Bezier handles (green circles at control points)

Anchor points (white circles at path endpoints)

Bounding box (blue rectangle with measurements)

Customizable Line Styles Per Mode

Typography mode uses thinner lines (0.5px, subtle dashes). 

Clearspace mode uses thicker lines (1px, prominent dashes). 

Vector mode adjusts based on logo complexity. 

Separate controls let each mode shine without compromise.

Mode-Aware Export Export exactly what you see. Typography mode exports only typography layers. Vector mode exports only vector layers. Disabled layers never export. No bloat, just clean SVGs ready for brand guidelines.

Under The Hood: SVG Path Analysis

Traditional approach: Designer manually measures and draws gridlines at each alignment point (30-60 minutes).

Limn's approach (10 seconds):

Parse SVG paths to extract every anchor point from M, L, C, S, Q, A, Z commands

Collect unique X coordinates → vertical gridlines

Collect unique Y coordinates → horizontal gridlines

Deduplicate and round to 2 decimal places

Render with pixel-perfect accuracy

Typical logo (100-200 points): <10ms analysis 

• Complex logo (1000+ points): <50ms analysis 

• Zero re-analysis on layer toggles 

• Instant tab switching (cached results)

Every coordinate validated with isValidNum() utility (checks typeof number, !isNaN, isFinite) 

• All arrays filtered before rendering 

• Safe fallbacks prevent broken SVG output 

• Early returns skip rendering if critical data is invalid

Why Cache Analysis Results? Re-analyzing SVGs on every tab switch would create lag. By caching analysis in workspace state (stored in localStorage), switching between 10 workspaces is instant — crucial for comparing multiple logo variations in real client workflows.

Design & Development: Austyn McFadden Agency: Vaughn Email: austyndmcfadden@gmail.com

Available Now: Try Limn for Free