A roofing logo has to read at two sizes: on a truck door from across the street, and as the square icon Google shows beside your website when someone searches on a phone. Have your designer make a wide version for the trucks and website and a square version for Google, both carrying the exact name on your Google Business Profile.
Covered trucks must show your name on both sides, legible from 50 feet
If the federal motor carrier safety rules cover your trucks, 49 CFR 390.21 requires each one to show your legal name or a single trade name on both sides. Each side also has to carry your FMCSA number, preceded by the letters “USDOT.” The lettering has to contrast sharply in color with the background and be readily legible in daylight from 50 feet while the truck is stationary. You can paint it on or use a removable sign such as a magnet, as long as either one meets the same contrast and legibility rules. Weight and interstate limits, set out in other sections of the same rules, decide which trucks are covered, so read those definitions before you treat a pickup as exempt.
The rule covers only that lettering, though I’d still put the logo through the same test: park the truck in daylight, step back that far and read the name inside the logo. Roofing Truck Wraps: Design Examples and What a Wrap Costs shows wrap designs and prices. Whatever design you choose, fix a name set in thin script, or small under a big roof icon, before anything goes to print.
California trucks must carry your name and contractor license number
California’s contractor board, the CSLB, requires roofing contractors to show the business name and contractor license number on each commercially registered vehicle used in the business. The letters must be at least 72-point, or three-quarters of an inch high and wide. If you work in California, build the license number into the door layout from the start. Other states can add their own rules to the federal one, so check yours before a wrap goes to print.
Google needs a square version of your logo
Google asks for your logo in these places:
- The icon beside your site in search results. Google calls it a favicon, and it must be square.
- The logo your website’s code points Google to. Google may show it in search results and in the panel of company details it sometimes shows for a business. It should look as intended on a purely white background.
- Your Google Business Profile. Google’s photo guidelines ask for a JPG or PNG.
Ask your designer for the square version as a 720 by 720 pixel PNG. That is the size Google recommends for profile photos, and it clears Google’s minimum size for the other two.
For the square itself, try the mark alone or your initials, and look at it on your phone at search-icon size before you approve it. If the wide logo uses white lettering for a dark truck, have a dark-on-white version made for the logo your website gives Google.
Google says it highlights the logo on profiles that have their basic information filled in, and Google Business Profile for Roofers: Setup and What Moves Maps Rankings covers that setup. If your logo doesn’t show, check that the profile has a name, a valid street address, categories, a phone number and opening hours.
One name belongs on your logo, trucks, job sites and Google profile
Google requires your Business Profile name to match the real-world name you use consistently on your storefront, website and stationery, the name customers know. Logos and truck doors aren’t on Google’s list, and I’d hold them to the same rule.
Google also says marketing taglines and service or product information may not be added to the profile name. Words that are part of your real business name, such as “Roofing,” are a separate case. A slogan locked into the logo can’t follow your name onto the profile, so set any tagline on its own line, where it’s easy to drop from the profile and the square version.
At the job site, one owner warned, sub crews who arrive in trucks marked with their own company name and hand out their own cards send would-be customers away from you. Put your own sign at every job, and agree with each crew up front that their cards stay in the truck.
A new name means new wraps and can mean a new Google profile
An owner in a Facebook contractor group asked who had rebranded after passing $1M in annual revenue. What a rebrand costs depends on whether the name changes.
Google allows a rebrand edit to an existing profile only for a minor name change, where the proper nouns and described services stay the same. For anything bigger, you mark the old profile closed and create a new one under the new name. Before you close anything, ask Google Business Profile support whether your reviews will move to the new profile. If you keep the name and change only the artwork, none of this applies, and you upload the new logo to the profile you have.
Either change means a new wrap design for every truck body you run. One owner on r/Roofing buys the same model for every used sales truck, since it’s “easier to get the exact model to avoid wrap design change fees.” Count your body styles before you price a rebrand.
Rename only when the name itself is the problem
A roofing owner a year in posted on r/smallbusiness that the company only gets called for roofing, even though it also does siding and gutters, and asked how to rename. A first-year owner who had named the company after his last name asked whether to switch to something people search for. Picking the new name is its own job, covered in How to Name a Roofing Company, and When to Rebrand.
Weigh those reasons against what the current name has built. One owner three years in says they knocked doors, put out cheap yard signs and wrapped every vehicle, and that marketing costs fell once the brand became familiar.
Wraps and branding alone didn’t bring another owner enough work. Just short of $1M gross in under a year, with 70-plus five-star reviews and wrapped trucks, that owner was still looking at every possible lead source.
Refresh the artwork whenever it fails the truck test or the phone test, and keep the name you have until the name itself is what holds the company back.
A federal trademark application costs $350 per class
Once the name and logo are settled, the USPTO charges a base fee of $350 per class to file a federal trademark application, for fees paid since January 18, 2025. A class is the category of goods or services the mark covers. The fee covers the federal filing only, so budget separately for an attorney and any state registration.
The USPTO adds $200 per class if you describe your services in its free-form text box instead of picking them from its ID Manual, so pick them from the list.
Run these checks before the logo goes on a truck
- The name in the wide version reads from a parked truck in daylight, at the distance the federal rule uses.
- Covered trucks show your name and USDOT number on both sides, and California trucks show your license number.
- The square version reads on your phone at search-icon size, and the square PNG and a dark-on-white version are ready for Google.
- The logo, trucks, website and Google profile all show one name, with the tagline kept out of the profile name.
- Before any rename, you’ve counted every wrap and sign it touches and asked Google what happens to your reviews.
Your square logo travels with your Google profile, and our free Google Maps heatmap shows where that profile ranks: pick your profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.