Can Claude Opus 5.5 Draw an SVG Logo?

The request

We asked for a kettle whose steam curls up into an ear of wheat, in exactly two flat colours, on a 512 by 512 viewBox, with no text, and readable at 32 pixels wide. We asked for code only so the file could be saved and tested as it was.

Design a simple logo mark for Kettle & Crumb, a neighbourhood bakery. Draw it as one SVG file: a kettle whose steam curls up into an ear of wheat. Use exactly two flat colours, charcoal #2B2A28 and amber #C47A1C, on a transparent background. No gradients, no filters, no text. Use viewBox="0 0 512 512". It must still read clearly at 32 pixels wide. Reply with the SVG code only, in one code block.

The first answer

Opus answered with one code block: 1,294 bytes, 13 shapes — four paths, two rectangles and seven ellipses — in exactly the two colours requested. It was clean, hand-editable code of the kind a designer can adjust line by line.

Rendered, two faults showed. The spout floated apart from the kettle body, and at 32 pixels the seven overlapping grain ellipses merged into one orange blob. The kettle itself still read clearly.

One round of feedback

We described both faults in one sentence and asked for the same colours and viewBox. Opus reported that it was fine-tuning grain positions to avoid overlapping shapes, and answered in about 30 seconds.

The new file was smaller — 1,107 bytes and 11 shapes — with the spout joined to the body and five separated grains that still read as wheat at 32 pixels.

Two problems when I render it: the spout does not touch the kettle body, and at 32 pixels the wheat ear turns into one orange blob. Fix both, keep the same two colours and viewBox, and reply with the SVG code only.

The code, in claude.ai

The corrected file is short enough to read in one screen, and every coordinate is visible. That is the real advantage over a traced raster logo: you can move the spout ten units by editing one number.

Code-drawn versus traced

On September 21 we traced an image-model logo with an automatic vectoriser and got 3,908 paths; a careful cleanup got it to 8. Opus's code started at 13 shapes. Code-drawn marks are small and editable but simple; image models give richer drawings that need cleaning before they become a usable vector.

Remaining limits: the composition sits low and to the right, the kettle is generic, and the steam is a stroke that thins at small sizes. Treat it as a strong first sketch, and have a person refine the final mark.

• Why your AI SVG has too many paths
• Convert a PNG logo to SVG

It draws scenes too — as code

When we later asked Opus 5.5 for a 4:5 photo, it drew an SVG illustration instead. Useful as a layout mock-up, not as a product shot. For photos we used Ciyo's image models; Ciyo does not run Claude Opus 5.5 itself.