How to change Sharepoint 2013 top left SuitBar to a custom text or image using masterpage

The first thing any branding is looking at is this famous "SharePoint" word in the top left corner of OOB Sharepoint 2013. There are many methods to change it - by creating Visual Studio project or App, by twicking in powershell, etc. Here is very simple method using masterpages and javascript. In Sharepoint Designer 2013 locate a source masterpage, make a copy to your custom name. Then locate the place where you can modify an object called "ms-core-brandingText" - quote from source fully rendered client HTML

<div id="suiteBarLeft"> <div class="ms-table ms-fullWidth"> <div class="ms-tableRow"> <div class="ms-tableCell ms-verticalAlignMiddle"> <div class="ms-core-brandingText"> SharePoint</div>

In case of seatle masterpage locate <div id="suiteBarRight">
and just above it add

<script type="text/javascript"> document.getElementById("suiteBarLeft").getElementsByClassName("ms-core-brandingText")[0].innerHTML = "Hello world!"; </script>

This is an example, you can add a logo image or link instead. Check-in the new master page with major version and then set this master page for the site.

The result would be something like this:



Note that to modify My Sites master page you need to open My Sites in SharePoint Designer (in my case URL http://sp2013.contoso.com/my) and modify directly the masterpage called mysite15.master with the same method.