In everyday life when we see so many brand logos, we appreciate few and others vanish from our mind. Have you wondered what makes a logo creative that will stay in the minds of people and doesn’t vanish?
In this blog, LogoPeople will take you behind the scenes and discover what it takes to design a successful logo. Some eye-opening logo design case studies below will help you make an overview of successful logo designing.
Table of Contents
1. Google
Google logo represents all the positive, energetic, and young forces. It’s simple, brief, and powerful.
The very first impression of the Google logo is that it is simple and colourful!
Brands collect all information from data online, sorts and display them to the users of Google results. Irrespective of colour, race and area it treats users equally.
If we ignore all colours, only the simple word” G” is visible, which is its theme. In real life also we are bombarded with much information, but we urgently need a convenient service to sort data and provide what we need most. That’s what Google does! Google doesn’t use any art fonts that are hard to read. Instead, all Google logo fonts are straightforward.
2. Apple
It all started with a fruit Apple, the falling fruit that led Isaac Newton to discover the gravity concept. The main idea behind Apple is bringing simplicity to the public, with the most sophisticated way. It was simple but strong and with changing, the evolution of logo’s from 1976 till today thought it brought variations in its colours, but the shape of the logo remained untouched.
When Apple came up with its first-ever iMac, the Bond Blue, the logo was modified and its rainbow colours disregarded. They thought that the rainbow-coloured logo would have looked childish, silly, and out of place on the sky-blue compute.
The logo then took designed with a luxurious metallic look with embossing. The “Glass” themed logo design was the next evolution for the logo. Now the company uses a more modernized flat “Millennial” Apple logo.
The logo matches the personality of the brand when we think of Apple’s products; we think of words like accessible, sleek, and intelligent. The logo conveys just that.
3. Nike
The brand Nike “swoosh” has one of the most recognizable and iconic brand logos. The recent advertisements let go the Nike name and use only the logo, combined with their tagline “Just do it.” Graphic design student Carolyn Davidson created the logo. Despite being a famously simple logo, it has evolved and changed since it was initially conceived.
The line reflects the goddess Nike wing, who gave the brand a name. Nike means the victory in ancient Greece and patronized the athletes. The Swoosh is known to the whole world and transmits sound at high speed. It is a symbol of eternal and constant movement.
The wing shape was designed as a reflection to stimulate athletes to achievements and actions such as the tagline “Just do it” that appeared later.
4. FedEx
In 1971 a logo featured the full company name “Federal Express” inside a rectangle which was divided in two by a diagonal line. The corporate colour palette included three hues (blue, red, and white) that portrayed the ideas of power and professionalism.
Such as colour orange stands for FedEx Express, red is a direct indication at FedEx Freight and green is the corporate colour of FedEx Ground.
FedEx emblem is simple if you look between letters E and X, you will spot a white arrow which stands for accuracy speed, strive for perfection, and perseverance in achieving goals. It looks stylish and relevant even decades after its last re-designing.
The FedEx logo is a textbook example of how to use negative space; for the iconic hidden arrow, designer Lindon Leader paired the Universe 67 and Futura Bold fonts
5. BMW
It consists of a thick black ring encircled by a silver lining where the word ‘BMW’ is inscribed in a non-serif typeface in the top half of the black ring. The ring was partitioned into four equal alternative colours of blue and white quarters which are known as “roundel”, which was created and registered in the year 1917.
It is remarkably simple and projects an identity that is smart, clear, sporty and image-conscious.
The white and blue colour of logo has many variations such as:
Sky blue and white fields other are interpretation to a rotating propeller and BMW logo to Bavaria where the products are produced”.
On 3rd march new logo is revealed to match their new release i4 car concept. The circle shape is still the same along with the blue and white colour. The lighting and 3D effect replaced the thick black ring with a transparent one to develop a more straightforward and minimal logo.
6. Coca-Cola
Over the year 1886 there were many changes in the logo, but there was never a dramatic change, aside from the addition of the “white wave” that we commonly see underneath the text or classic, and script lettering that has largely remained the same.
The logo represents originality and classiness; the cursive and fashionable lettering is truly unique and personifies the stylish class of its brand. The brand has created red and white colour as the anthem of cold drink. It is the most desired logo all around the world due to its emotional connect and nostalgic feel.
Red displays energy, appetizing, passion and excitement. The logo is very simplistic, and hence it stayed in the minds of customers. In fact, people recognize the logo with just colour and font style also.
7. Mc Donalds
McDonald’s iconic logo has gone through a lot of changes during its history. The logo was just a simple sketch of a chef in the 1940s. Now it has been transformed into one of the most recognized logos, eliminating its unnecessary elements over the years.
The McDonald’s brand logo looks similar to two of the restaurant’s golden brown French fries bent into the shape of an “M”.
It is a subtle message that advertises one of McDonald’s most popular menu items without the viewer, even realizing it. The brand chose to incorporate the slogan “I’m lovin’ it” into their logo. In this slogan, the company purposefully uses lower case letters and abbreviation to convey a calm and informal tone.
8. Pepsi
The packaging design of the Pepsi label has contributed in a massive way to the victory of the brand. The Design of Pepsi Logo is simple, attractive, instantly visible and helps in catching the attention of people towards the beverage.
Pepsi Globe shape logo that we see today has gone several changes over the years. The new Pepsi brand logo is now a simple circular design without the company name, which simplified version of the logo that act as excellent on all promotional campaigns. Started with almost same typography and colour as their competitor brand Coca-Cola, but now brand logo uses blue and red as these are contrasting colours.
The middle white strip increases the contrast more for producing tantalizing spectacle. The word Pepsi are typecast at the side of the globe this time in the lower case. The centre white space gives a smiling face to the logo. Current Pepsi logo has a patriotic palette of the year 40s, minimalistic design of the years 70s and script-like curves from the brand logos original look.
9. Shell
Shell from 1891 has gone many changes with its brand logo, but the picture of the shell has never disappeared.
The company wanted to align the colours of the Spanish flag, where many early California settlers were born to try and form an emotional bond with their customers. The shell represents a mollusk, which reflects the company’s trading roots, and part of the eco-cycle of oil exploration.
Bold and robust font lines indicate a bold company with a strong standing in the business world. Shell’s colours remind us of the company’s heritage.
10. Microsoft
Microsoft started with a soft coloured graphic which carried a suggestion to data structures. The ‘times’ family moved a crossed ‘W and this logo had a professional and sophisticated look.
Over the years it added more colours to its logo such as red, green, blue, yellow along with bolder sans type. The later logo acquired cleaner, 3D that presented as the plastic look and hence after two generations the logo came up as flatter ad cleaner design.
These few changes were aligned with the evolution of digital screens. As the resolutions get better, the type gets thinner.
Finally, the present logo, with the arrival of Windows 8 was a time when the whole design philosophy of Microsoft products was changing- when the entire design world was realizing the utility of flatter designs.
11. Walmart
The company played around with various designs, mostly flip-flopping on whether to hyphenate the company name in the logo to read “Wal-Mart” the company eventually settled on the latter in 2008.
“Walmart” which was spelt out in all lowercase letters accented on end by a yellow sunburst, the brand refers as “the spark”. The logo marks the 6th version of the brand logo design and said that the design was to make shopping more attractive to higher-income families.
The soft blue and yellow colour is an attempt to be more welcoming and inviting to their customers across the world. The spark is a symbol of inspiration and innovation, both things that have driven the company forward over the years.
The new logo didn’t have to be completely innovative and original; it just had to be different from their old one—something that would represent a fresh start and a new direction for the company.
Some other famous and successful brand logo:
Conclusion:
After going through the above beautiful and iconic brand logo case studies, there are also many other famous and successful brand logo such as Adidas, Honda, Starbucks, Rolex, Mercedes, Google, Chanel, Mickey mouse, Sony, Toyota, Dell, ford, ebay, Disney, Harley Davidson, Burger king, Dominos, Jeep, Amazon, Costa coffee, Android, CNN, Nestle and many more in list. We are sure you have enriched your knowledge. Case studies make us realize that these giant companies have also once faced issues. Their logo today, we see their famous and most recognized logo all around the world, but now we know they have even gone through a journey of modifications and alterations to get that one perfect logo. Though changing time and market makes us keep updated with logo design, it is essential to approach a professional logo design agency who understands your requirement and then work. The agency that thinks for your future expansion and aligns such relevant elements in your logo design is significant. You can connect us if you are confused or ready to change your old logo and take a new direction, we will make you achieve your vision.
Author
Being a strategist’s head and a long term visionary personality aims to achieve excellence in branding, packaging and digital marketing field. My 15 years of design experience and masters degree ais my strength which keeps me motivated and keep me going positively. I have participated in extensive branding design conquests in India, USA, Australia and New Zealand with winning zeal. My objective is to encourage start-ups and hence involves actively in the articles which will act as a productive intake of knowledge for them. Do connect me personally via my LinkedIn and I love to share my expertise with you.
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