diff --git a/config/templates.go b/config/templates.go
index 7005ae7ff08956977bea57d3bb109de8302ab951..e31558abd6370f032acbcf1f9033475905964a04 100644
--- a/config/templates.go
+++ b/config/templates.go
@@ -300,6 +300,9 @@ tendermint_host = "0.0.0.0:46657"
 
 `
 
+// TODO: [Silas]: before next logging release (finalising this stuff and adding
+// presets) add full documentation of transforms, outputs, and their available
+// configuration options.
 const sectionLoggingHeader = `
 ################################################################################
 ##
@@ -308,8 +311,27 @@ const sectionLoggingHeader = `
 ## Log messages are sent to one of two 'channels': info or trace
 ##
 ## They are delivered on two independent streams: 'info' or 'info and trace'.
-## Each of these streams has a root
+## Each of these streams has a root logging 'sink' (configured under the keys
+## logging.info_sink and logging.info_and_trace_sink respectively) where each
+## channels messages are delivered.
+##
+## A sink may optionally define any of a 'transform', an 'output', and a list of
+## downstream sinks. Log messages flow through a sink by first having that
+## sink's transform applied and then writing to its output and downstream sinks.
+## In this way the log messages can output can be finely controlled and sent to
+## a multiple different outputs having been filtered, modified, augmented, or
+## labelled. This can be used to give more relevant output or to drive external
+## systems.
+##
 ##
 ################################################################################
 
+## A minimal logging config for multi-line, colourised terminal output would be:
+#
+# [logging]
+#  [logging.info_sink]
+#  [logging.info_and_trace_sink]
+#    [logging.info_and_trace_sink.output]
+#      output_type = "stderr"
+#      format = "terminal"
 `
diff --git a/logging/loggers/tendermint_log15_loggers.go b/logging/loggers/tendermint_log15_loggers.go
index 982b232a3c45842b3da28d96654a4aba45dede54..14b2ea091927b3ad330622501268df6331cf5104 100644
--- a/logging/loggers/tendermint_log15_loggers.go
+++ b/logging/loggers/tendermint_log15_loggers.go
@@ -11,7 +11,10 @@ import (
 	"github.com/tendermint/log15"
 )
 
-const syslogPriority = syslog.LOG_LOCAL0
+const (
+	syslogPriority    = syslog.LOG_LOCAL0
+	defaultFormatName = "terminal"
+)
 
 func NewStreamLogger(writer io.Writer, formatName string) kitlog.Logger {
 	return log15a.Log15HandlerAsKitLogger(log15.StreamHandler(writer,
@@ -49,6 +52,6 @@ func format(name string) log15.Format {
 	case "terminal":
 		return log15.TerminalFormat()
 	default:
-		return log15.LogfmtFormat()
+		return format(defaultFormatName)
 	}
 }