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<\/div>Here are the top 5 lessons businesses can learn from famous logos:<\/h2>\n1. Simplicity is more important than intricacy<\/h3>\n
Top logo designers agree that the best logos are simple.<\/p>\n
Simplicity is vital. A complex logo will be difficult to print and reproduce and may not fully engage your audience.<\/p>\n
Take a moment and think about successful and famous brands. Most likely, you\u2019ve thought of companies like Apple, Volkswagen, Target, McDonald\u2019s, etc. What do they all have in common? They all have simple and easily recognized logos when printed by themselves and in solid black and white.<\/p>\n
This idea of simplicity is well-grounded in the KISS (keep it simple stupid) framework. Instead of spending hours adding details and nuances to a logo, the best designers find ways to take away from the logo and simplify the design. French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery does a great job summarizing<\/a> this in one sentence:<\/p>\n A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A brand that does simplicity extremely well is Target.<\/p>\n The beauty of the Target logo is that nothing is complicated. It\u2019s just two red circles, usually printed on a white background. The circles take the form of a bullseye, which connects the logo to the name \u201cTarget,\u201d but the circles don\u2019t illustrate a true bullseye with all the rings and numbers. Target took an existing object that connected to its name and simplified it.<\/p>\n Target\u2019s logo is so simple that it\u2019s easy for a child to draw and, importantly, to recognize.<\/p>\n But the creation of the Target logo took a lot of thought. Target\u2019s executives took the time to think about their brand messaging and what they wanted the logo to reinforce. In the end, simplicity won, according<\/a> to chief creative officer Todd Waterbury:<\/p>\n The enduring strength of Target’s logo lies in its utter clarity. It is a design that is viewed equally from every side: from the front, the back, from the left and the right. The bull’s-eye is a symbol that is immediately, simultaneously seen and understood, one in the same, as precisely what it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If your company uses a logo solely relying on color, it will lose its effect in black and white.<\/p>\n Similarly, if your company intends to only use your logo in a specific way (such as on a website or business cards), then size may not matter much. But like most companies, you’ll need a flexible logo that can be placed on multiple products, presentations, graphics, and websites.<\/p>\n Branding<\/a> versatility is important because it helps you reproduce your logo in various ways.<\/p>\n The most famous logos follow these guidelines, ensuring they don’t get lost when changing size or background. When designing a versatile logo, you’re designing a flexible one.<\/p>\n Under Armor is one of our favorite flexible, versatile logo examples.<\/p>\n While the logo is usually presented in variations of black and white, the logo also appears on apparel in shades of greens, blues, red, and more.<\/p>\n It appears on everything from socks to sweatshirts to giant billboards. Each time, you can still recognize that it’s the same logo.<\/p>\n The Under Armor logo’s meaning doesn’t come from its color or size but rather from its unique shape.<\/p>\n Under Armour’s ability to use its logo in so many different ways means that Under Armour can capitalize on its many different audiences and tastes. Under Armour is not stuck to making purple and green sweatshirts or ads because that’s what their logo colors are.<\/p>\n Instead, Under Armour can experiment with other aspects of its design and still have a recognizable, famous logo.<\/p>\n Smart design is nearly always more valuable than just pretty design.<\/p>\n This is because the smart design uses elements like shape, color combinations, and sometimes negative space to achieve a beautiful and interesting design.<\/p>\n Smart design is becoming increasingly important in a crowded marketplace. That’s because clever logos are easier to remember:<\/p>\n We’ve written about smart design in many famous logos, including the Goodwill logo<\/a>, the Tobblerone logo<\/a>, the Big Ten Conference logo<\/a>, the Fort Worth Zoo logo<\/a>, and the FedEx logo.<\/a><\/p>\n In some of the world\u2019s most famous<\/a> logos, negative space has helped reinforce company messaging and logo recall and made for some great PR.<\/p>\n FedEx’s logo<\/a> is a great example.<\/p>\n Another great example is the World Wildlife Fund logo, which uses negative space to create the panda\u2019s face and torso area. The NGO operates in over 90 countries\/territories worldwide, supporting thousands of environmental projects. Because most of their funding comes from donations, empathy was an important value to echo in their logo design.<\/p>\n The initial logo was based on a giant panda at the London Zoo. The logo later evolved into a simplified, smarter-designed panda, as shown below.<\/p>\n The original logo was good – it communicated an endangered animal well-liked by many and did its job of generating empathy. But it was a little too busy and just a panda drawing.<\/p>\n When the logo evolved to embrace negative space, it became a purposeful design and drew attention from design experts everywhere, which gave WWF even more exposure.<\/p>\n It’s not enough for logos to be versatile and smartly designed.<\/p>\n The best logos are timeless<\/a>.<\/p>\n With little to no tweaking, many famous logos have been able to or will be able to stand the test of time and last for decades.<\/p>\n Disney is a fantastic example of timelessness. The logo was designed many years ago, and while many companies designed around the same time have since redesigned their logo, Disney\u2019s has stayed put. This is good for several reasons: people didn\u2019t have to switch their logo-brand associations, Disney hasn\u2019t had to spend millions of dollars rebranding<\/a>, and their logo is still popular and easily recognizable.<\/p>\n The secret to the timelessness of Disney\u2019s logo is that they designed a logo that fits exactly what they do. It focuses on Disney\u2019s fantasy theme through the swirly font and stays simple in its coloring. Disney didn\u2019t use a trendy font or color of the time but created its own and combined it with a classic neutral (black).<\/p>\n Many famous logos are well-known because they created iconic color combinations or unique shapes.<\/p>\n For example, what\u2019s a famous restaurant logo that uses red and yellow?<\/p>\n You guessed it; it\u2019s McDonald\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since color plays a huge role in logo design, making a statement about your company\u2019s color choices through a logo is a powerful<\/a> design choice.\u00a0As we wrote previously<\/a>:<\/p>\n A brand\u2019s logo is its principal design element, acting as a visual representation of the company and its values. There are plenty of things that go into a well-designed logo, but one of the most important of these is color. It may seem like an artistic decision, but the primary color you choose for your design actually has a serious psychological impact on how people perceive it.<\/p>\n In a widely-cited study called \u201cThe Impact of Color on Marketing<\/a>,\u201d research found that people make a subconscious judgment about products within the first 90 seconds of seeing it. The majority of these people evaluate these products on color alone:\u00a0almost 85% of consumers cite color as the main reason they buy a certain product, and 80% of people believe color increases brand recognition.<\/strong><\/p>\n So while maybe your favorite color is grass green, it\u2019s good to know how it may affect your customers before you choose it as the main color of your logo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n McDonald\u2019s keeps this in mind with their logo’s red and yellow colors. As primary colors<\/a>, red and yellow stand out from other colors we see daily. They\u2019re strong, powerful, and bold – just like the brand. It doesn\u2019t hurt that red and yellow are common colors that cause people to become hungry<\/a>.<\/p>\n But unlike its fast-food competitors that may also use red and yellow, McDonald’s capitalizes on its use of color by dominating the color combination. It does this by making color the focus of the logo. Sure, the golden arches of the M are highly recognizable, but the color combination can stand alone and make people think of McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n With these 5 important lessons, you can be well on your way to collaborating on the next great logo.<\/p>\n You may not have the marketing budget of Nike, Apple, or McDonald’s. But you can start by ensuring that your logo design contains the elements that have made those brands famous.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.crowdspring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/27131756\/cla_target_640x455-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n2. Versatility is key<\/h3>\n
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<\/h2>\n3. Smart design is better than pretty design<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n4. Timelessness improves recognition<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n5. Color is a game-changer<\/h3>\n
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