Brand the minimap with your own logo and text

#Where branding actually works

The map has large areas that carry no navigational information: the ocean south and west of the island, the top-left corner above Paleto, and the empty desert east of Sandy Shores. Those are the places branding belongs.

#Size and legibility

The map is 6144 pixels wide. A logo at 500 pixels wide is about 8% of the map, which on the pause map reads clearly and never dominates. Twice that starts to feel like an advert.

Text has a harder floor: below roughly 90 pixels of cap height, letters start to break up when the game compresses the texture, and thin typefaces break up sooner than heavy ones.

• Server name: 300–600 px wide is the usable range.
• A tagline under it: about half the height of the name.
• A Discord invite: keep it short. A full URL at legible size is wider than most people expect.
• Heavy, condensed typefaces survive compression far better than light ones.

#Contrast without shouting

The most common mistake is pure white text on a dark map. It out-contrasts the roads, which means the eye goes to the logo instead of the map every time the player opens it.

Pick a tone from the palette itself — the coastline colour is usually right — and let the branding sit at the same brightness as the major roads rather than above them.

#Logos: what survives the compression

• Flat shapes with clear silhouettes survive. Gradients, thin strokes and small text inside a logo do not.
• Upload at least 1000 px on the long edge. The studio renders at 2× and downsamples, so a small source is visibly soft.
• PNG with real transparency, not a white box. A logo on a white rectangle over a dark map looks like a mistake.
• If your logo has a light and a dark version, use the one that contrasts least with the map, not most.

#Working in the studio

Pricing is per element: the map is $8.00 and every text or image you place is $1.00. A server name, a tagline and a logo is three elements — $11.00 in total.

1. 01 Pick the map first

   Base map style, then palette. Branding decisions depend on the palette, so do not do them in the other order.

2. 02 Place in the ocean

   Drag your text or logo into the empty water. The grid snaps to the centre lines and to other layers.

3. 03 Check at radar scale

   Zoom the preview all the way in. If the branding is unreadable there, that is fine — it is meant for the pause map. If it is in the way there, move it.

4. 04 Match the palette

   Use the coastline colour as your accent instead of white.

5. 05 Download

   The finished resource is built after payment and installs exactly like any other map.

#What not to do

• Do not put the branding over the city. It is the part of the map people read.
• Do not use a full URL in large text. A short name works; a URL is clutter.
• Do not add a semi-transparent tint over the whole map. It flattens the road hierarchy the render worked to separate.
• Do not repeat the logo. One mark, placed well, is more convincing than four.
• Do not use pure white or pure black. Both fight the palette.