Ask where a logo will be seen and most answers describe a signboard, a business card, a van. In practice the most frequent appearance is sixteen pixels wide, in a browser tab, next to eleven other tabs.
What breaks at small sizes
Three things, almost always: fine strokes disappear, tight counters (the enclosed spaces in letters like a and e) fill in and turn to mud, and gradients band into flat colour. A mark that depends on any of those is a mark that only exists at large sizes.
The test
Export the logo at 16, 32 and 48 pixels. Look at it on a light and a dark background. If you cannot tell what it is at 32 pixels, it is not finished, and no amount of care on the large version will rescue it.
What we deliver instead
A primary lockup for the cases with room, plus a reduced mark that survives being small: heavier strokes, opened counters, flat colour. Same identity, drawn twice, because one drawing cannot do both jobs.
