Clear space (exclusion zone)
The minimum empty margin that has to stay around the logo. No text, no page edges, no other logos allowed inside it.
See it
What it is
Clear space is the protected margin around the logo where nothing else is allowed: no headlines, no photo edges, no other logos, no page trim. It exists so the mark reads as its own object instead of merging into whatever is next to it.
Good guidelines define it in a unit taken from the mark itself, so it scales automatically: the height of the icon, the cap height of the wordmark, the width of the letter 'o'. Written as 'clear space equals 1x the icon height on all sides', it works at business card size and at billboard size without anyone doing math. The classic diagram shows that unit boxed out around all four edges.
Two things people mix up. Clear space is not the transparent padding baked into your PNG, and if you bake it in, layout tools will add their own margin on top and the logo ends up floating. And clear space is not minimum size, which is about legibility when small. Enforce it hardest where it gets violated most: slide corners, sponsor rows, and app headers where a nav item creeps right up to the mark.
Ask AI for it
Produce a clear space (exclusion zone) diagram for this logo: define the spacing unit as the height of the icon (label it 'X'), then draw a dashed boundary offset by exactly 1X from the top, bottom, left, and right of the logo's bounding box. Annotate each side with the X measurement, shade the protected area lightly, and add a second panel showing a correct placement next to an incorrect one where text intrudes into the zone.