If image is everything then your company’s logo is its first impression.
Before any knowledge of the company has been acquired, perceptions have already been formulated based off of the logo.
Have a look at the logo below:
- What things come to mind?
- What adjectives did you think of: clean, conservative, tech-savvy, conventional, boring?
- What type of company do you think would use this logo?
- You likely wouldn’t assume this logo for a restaurant, but you might assume an automobile company.
What makes a good logo?
While it may be difficult to pin down what it is that makes a great logo there certainly are some common characteristics that all great logos share. Let’s look at some great logos:
What characteristics stand out?
Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics that are common throughout these logos:
Colors
The majority of logos consist of but a single color, typically a primary color. Some may have two colors, but rarely do you see more than two colors. This makes it easy to attach an emotion to a logo.
Together the eyes and brain produce a cognitive and emotional response to each color. Because of this, colors themselves take on meanings. The exact meaning is often a cultural understanding and can have mulitple meanings across cultures. In the UK, white is considered pure and positive where in China, white is used in mourning, symbolizing heaven. Red is often used to symbolize strength and life, but is taboo in financial communities.
Some color meanings in the North America, Canada, and Western Europe include: Blues are said to be calming, loyal and trustworthy, greens are healthy, wealthy and natural while reds express passion, excitement or danger.
Finally, it’s also advantageous to use a single color for your logo as it will save you money when it comes to placing it on different medium; this can be a real bonus for many small business owners.
Case Study: Virgin
The color red and the name Virgin are linked in the minds of consumers the world over. Virgin devotes a lot of time to ensure that exactly the right red appears on their publicity materials, trains, cola cans and company vans. By ensuring that the correct shade of red is used, it helps consumers instantly identify a Virgin company or a Virgin product. Virgin finds this important enough that the company produces an eighteen-page guide to ensure ‘Virgin Red’ links all the company’s activities.
Simplicity
“If you can’t explain the idea in one sentence over the telephone, it won’t work.” - Lou Danziger.
You will notice in the above logos there’s nothing overly fancy, no gradiants or drop-shadows, just clean and simple lines. This helps to make the logo easy to recall on demand and pick it out from the many other logos you are bombarded with on a daily basis.
Case Study: H&R Block
H&R Block approached Landor Associates to develop a new identity that would expand the perception of the H&R brand beyond its historical roots in tax preparation. Landor developed a new corporate identity system, anchored by the green block. The block, an obvious graphic representation of the company’s name, expresses the solid relationship between H&R Block and it’s customers.
Design for multiple media in mind
One thing remains constant - change. The constant evolution of media and information delivery systems of today’s times means that a logo will likely take on more than one form of medium in its lifespan. Because of the likeliness that the logo will be found on more than just print it’s best to use clean lines. You don’t see drop-shadows or beveling being used. This allows for the logo to be easily placed on billboards, on business cards, on black and white fax copies, mugs, t-shirts, mouse pads and all the rest.
It’s recommended that the logo be developed in a vector program to keep the logo scalable and easily transferable across different media.
Case Study: Federal Express
Lindon Leader, designer of the Federal Express logo, in an interview talks about creating a typeface that would allow for the ‘hidden’ arrow to be maintainted across mediums. “I was studying Univers 67 (Bold Condensed) and Futura Bold, both wonderful faces. But each had its potential limitations downstream in application to thousands of FedEx media, from waybills and embroidered courier caps to FedEx.com and massive signage for aircraft, buildings and vehicles. Moreover, neither was particularly suited to forcing an arrow into its assigned parking place without torturing the beautifully crafted letterforms of the respective faces.”
Logo Longevity
A logo should be able to convey its message over a prolonged period of time and it must be able to adapt to cultural changes. It might be exciting to design a logo that is influenced by a trendy typeface, but it will become outdated and need to be replaced in later years.
Logos designed with a focus on current style and trends are often outdated in a short amount of time and soon become “quaint.” I don’t know of any clients who would like to be perceived as either outdated or quaint.
Case Study: ABC
The ABC logo, developed by Paul Rand, has been in use since 1962 and remains unmodified to this day. Rand said that he designed it for durability, function, usefulness, rightness, and beauty.
The typeface used for the famous logo is a simple geometric design inspired by the Bauhaus school of the 1920s.
This article has looked at some of the characteristics that make up a good logo: color selection, simplicity of design, support for multiple media and design for the long term. Hopefully the next time you have to design a logo these characteristics will come to mind and aid you in development.
* Much of the info in this article comes from the ‘Logo Design Workbook - A Hands-On Guide To Creating Logos’
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March 29th, 2007 at 2:13 am
starbucks uses different logo types in reginal areas , for exp. in arabia starbucks logo is very different
March 29th, 2007 at 3:47 am
This is definitely a great read.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:21 am
@tech: Really? can you get us a picture? I would love to see the logo across different regional areas.
I know the Starbucks logo has changed over the years. In fact, I know the lady in the logo used to bare her breast.
@ses5909: Thanks, I actually wrote the article well over a year ago after visiting a logo competition on SitePoint. I was shocked to see that most of the logos in the competition were not vector based and consisted of gradients, drop-shadows, bevels and multiple colors. It was as if nobody in the competition had ever seen a logo before.
Does everybody see the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo?
March 29th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
When I squint I see the arrow.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
The arrow in the FedEx logo is in the negative space between the E and the X.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Nice write up. The Coca Cola logo also has regional character differences in Russia, Japan, Thailand, and other countries.
March 30th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Thanks Tomas, it’s strange but often times when I write something I have no idea if others will find it useful or not. I actually wrote that article over a year ago and just never published it until now… Is that strange or normal?
March 30th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Yeah, I too struggle with trying to determine what the audience will enjoy and make use of. In this case, it’s an informative post with lots of examples and case studies - so it’s hard to go wrong. And now you have something you can add to. Maybe you can talk to a few designers and come up with a tutorial on how to create a nice looking logo.
March 31st, 2007 at 9:25 am
@Golgotha: It took me a long time to find the arrow and I wouldn’t haven’t noticed it if you hadn’t pointed it out.
Thanks for an interesting read.
April 1st, 2007 at 3:58 am
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptRand said that he designed it for durability, function, usefulness, rightness, and beauty. The typeface used for the famous logo is a simple geometric design inspired by the Bauhaus school of the 1920s. … […]
April 1st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Nice article about Logos.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:43 am
[…] Leggo ora e lo segnalo questo approfondito articolo sull’anatomia di un logo: The Anatomy of a Logo […]
May 4th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
This website has some good stuff on logos.
http://www.dinesh.com/History_of_Logos/
May 17th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Great read….I like the arrow in the FedEx logo and the thought behind it.
May 17th, 2007 at 5:51 am
@ John Marion…the site you mentioned has a lot of info…thanks.
June 9th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
[…] http://theitarticles.com/the-anatomy-of-a-logo/217/ […]
June 28th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I am trying to create a logo for my new website but I suffer from ‘logo creators block’ as I can’t seem to start. This article and further links may give me the kick start I need. Thanks.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:32 am
[…] Ever considered the what makes a good logo? Mark Angeletti has the scoop. […]
July 15th, 2007 at 4:00 am
[…] The Anatomy of a Logo […]
July 18th, 2007 at 6:17 am
hey thanx…that was some pretty informative yet simple to understand stuff …its really helped me 2 clear d clutter.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:45 am
[…] The Anatomy of a Logo […]
September 21st, 2007 at 11:41 am
And now you have something you can add to. Maybe you can talk to a few designers and come up with a tutorial on how to create a nice looking logo.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:50 am
very nice article.It is true that if the logo is in single color it saves lots of money and efforts.One thing is more important to keep in mind is that make logo which should look simple.Simplicity is the key. If a logo is simple it looks professional and people can recall it very easily.Check the logo of yahoo for example.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Very well written and informative approach. Well done !
November 12th, 2007 at 10:31 am
It’s interesting to me that some companies have seasonal logos as well. For example, Yahoo!, Google and YouTube change their logos for Halloween or for special occasions.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
hey.. i’d like to know which company does that blue logo belongs to.. the one on top of the page, below Toyota sign.. thanks for the answer.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Lony - that’s Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com/
November 20th, 2007 at 8:41 am
I think the winchester logo should be on there because the winchester brand bullets have ben around a lot longer than Coca Cola
December 20th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I aslo think that it is interesting that certain companies change the style of their logo to match the season. Although the winchester logo has been around longer than coca cola’s, coca cola is a classic and is known by everyone
January 12th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Yes logo design is very important to a company and leads to branding which in turn leads to brand loyality.
We all strive for the instant recognition that the brands mentioned above have.
Great article.
Thank you
Francisco Rodriguez
Proprietor RainUrbana and RainUrbana.com
January 30th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I am still looking for that arrow… Whoa! No wonder I read it like ten times.
The Ottawa Senators old third jersey (black) had a similar effect. The bottom and arm bands had arrows that would leave the opposition dizzy. It was theory from a shirtless man who called himself “N”, painted his name to his chest too.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Wow!
I just stumbled onto this. Its always a challenge to articulate what goes into designing a logo. I know some clients have a tendency go for the “kitchen sink” approach to creating a logo.
thanx
February 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I am still looking for that arrow… Whoa! No wonder I read it like ten times.
The Ottawa Senators old third jersey (black) had a similar effect. The bottom and arm bands had arrows that would leave the opposition dizzy. It was theory from a shirtless man who called himself “N”, painted his name to his chest too.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:35 am
that’s gr8 really,readable.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
…good thing Google didn’t read this.. depth, drop shadow, multiple colors
Sonja
February 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Thanks for this article. Its time for a redesign of my logo
Haroun
March 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I thought this article is very helpful even for the younger readers that are interested in creating logos. I am a high school student and that article helped me a lot for designing my logo. It summarized the key things a good logo should have. Thank you for writing this!
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Great staff.
I am designer.
Have learnt a lot from reading this.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Im very happy to find this site, ive learnt alot in a very short period of time reading abt logo creation. Im not a logo designer but i am creating one for my company….and this information has helped alot.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:54 am
This was very educational and was presented clearly and fluidly. being a fellow graphic designer i know the importance of the logos for it is which that the company sells itself. Something too confusing or doesn’t communicate correctly will in turn hurt the company. Companies know this and that’s why after several decades graphic design has become an important and definite property in our culture.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
why does FedEx have an arrow?
April 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
You don’t see it Dee? Look between the E and x!!!
April 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
you misread my question.
i asked WHY they had the arrow
not WHERE is the arrow
April 11th, 2008 at 4:51 am
hi
yes this was good
thanks
i used this for coursework and randomly found the website
April 13th, 2008 at 8:55 am
@The One - cool, what coursework?
April 14th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I agree why have the arrow especially if no one sees it at first glance. Shouldn’t that be an example of a failed logo (i.e. trying to get a point across unsuccessfully)?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
As manufacturers of metal badges, logos with every conceivable decoration are the bane of our lives. In badge making, gold or silver keylines must separate every colour.
In recent years we have found this more difficult as amateur designers use whizz-bang software to include gradients, drop-shadows, bevels and multiple colors etc. etc. They seem more intent on showing how clever they are than in producing memorable logos.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Logos, to me drive a product…brand! Its really essentiall as it speaks volume too at a glance. Lately, I realised how simple a meassage is passed with a simple logo. For the illiterate, its a ‘good read’associating with a catchy logo!
April 28th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The coca cola logos is a piece of shit if u r muslim u will definatley Kno! coz it reads somat very disgusting and racist!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Dude I’m like totally into the Virgin logo and defintely going for the Harley Davidson Motorcycle logo….they friggin’ rock hard core,man!!!!*lol*sort of reminds me of the old days with me and my lil’ sis*Lol*oh and if any are wondering about this….don’t ask!!!I ain’t tellin’ a single freakin’ soul….ask but don’t tell is my moto!!!