Open, line-based marks (the kind where strokes and empty space make the shape together) share one weakness: they depend on the background.
On a flat color that’s fine, because the background never changes. On a photo, it does.
What it looks like
Wherever part of the mark is close in brightness to the patch of photo behind it, that part disappears.
What’s left still forms a plausible shape, so at first glance nothing looks broken. It just looks like the composition is a little off.
We bumped the version number three times over this, each time sure we’d fixed it. The first two fixes went into the mark itself: heavier strokes, new proportions, a different version. None of it helped, because the mark wasn’t the problem.
The fix
Put a backing between the mark and the photo: a shape that follows the mark, slightly larger, in the brand’s ground color.
It can be solid, or a blurred, semi-transparent patch. What matters is that every part of the mark sits on a background we control.
How to check
Don’t look at the whole image.
Zoom the composite down to the pixel level and compare the brightness on either side of the mark’s edge, point by point. Anywhere the difference falls below the threshold is a place where the mark will vanish.
⚠️ “It looks fine” is the least useful evidence here. All it proves is that this time you happened to look at the half that was still there.
