Apple, McDonalds, Google, IBM, Nike and many others wouldn’t have attained the staggering levels of success they are currently enjoying if they never invented their time and resources in having great logos. Therefore, note very strongly that it is possible for your logo to cause your business to fail and that can happen in one or a combination of the following ways.

Alienating new clients or prospects

One of the primary reasons of having a logo for you business is to stand out from the crowd and attract new prospect clients. With a poorly designed logo, you lose the competitive edge to be conspicuous amongst the competition and you will be effectively alienating the prospective clients whom would have been interested in doing business with you. Additionally, a poorly designed logo may attract the wrong crowd which is not suitable for your business and this will do nothing but stunt your growth potential. Therefore, be sure that you are not locking out potential customers by having an ill-designed logo.

Sending out the wrong message

When it comes to using business logos for branding, the logo must have the ability to send out the right message to your potential and current clients. The logo should essentially portray what the business firmly believes in and it should tell the potential clients the business has what it takes to meet their specific needs. People will be more confident in engaging your business if they feel they will get value out of doing so.

And since your logo is the first point of contact between you and your clients, if it delivers the wrong message, then this is likely to make your business fail. Therefore, if you don’t want your logo to fail your entire business, it is imperative to ensure to get the messaging right.

A poor logo may suggest poor quality standards

It goes without saying that success in any business is greatly pegged on the ability to deliver quality products or services. It is a must for the clients or customers to believe they are getting their money’s worth by working with you. A poorly designed logo may create an impression that the business does not take quality seriously. If they can’t design a high quality logo, why should a potential client think that they will get quality products or services from the business? This is another way through which a logo can make a business to fail.

Lack of a great first impression

A successful logo must have the ability to standout from the crowd and make a lasting impression when a potential client sees it for the very first time. This ability to be noticed from amongst the competition is what will be responsible for continuous flow of potential clients to the business. In this manner, it will not be possible for the business to win and to retain prospects if the logo can’t make a good and lasting first impression.

Not only this, but the lack of a good  first impression will have other implications on the business like making the prospects doubt your values and every other thing you claim to stand for. As a matter of fact, it will be an indication that you never took much time and effort to create the logo. Thus, it will not be possible for your business to realize its ultimate growth potential with such a logo.

Affecting talent acquisition

It is important to have in mind that business logos are not just for attracting new clients, but also attracting the right employees to the business. A bad logo may not only drive away talented and experienced employees, but also it can prevent the business from attracting talented professionals from applying for open positions.

A poorly designed logo will send a message to the potential employees that the business is not keen on connecting with their employees, leave alone the customers. A potential employee will thus be left wondering if the business will have any interests in investing in them. If your business is unable to attract the right talent in the industry, then moving forward will be very difficult and the business may as well fail.

These are some of the ways through which a logo can make a business fail. It is imperative to consider each keenly so that you avoid curtailing the growth of your business due to poor logo design.

Learn more about design education here!

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However, a total rebrand may be avoided if you want to update an existing logo with a few subtle changes. This implies that the main branding components of the logo will not be affected, but the changes should be conspicuous enough to let the audience get the intended message.

Before delving on how to make such subtle changes to an existing logo, it is imperative to first know when such changes are necessary. The following are some of the situations which might warrant the need for a logo change.

Change of name – if the business changes its name, it implies that the whole identity of the business will be changed as well. This will include the logo as well as other marketing and branding materials.

Changes in the organization – if there are policy changes or a change in the line of products and services offered by the business, a logo change would be necessary to reflect these changes to the present customers as well as the potential clients.

Poorly visualized logos – logos are strong visual branding elements. They should spread the brand message of the business. If initially a logo was designed in a poor manner because the business was pressed for finances during the startup stages, it will be important to update the existing logo and make it reflect the ideals and the ideas of the business in a more professional manner.

Logo revitalization – sometimes, updating an existing logo becomes imminent when the company decides to pump in more life to make the logo fresh and appealing. This is usually the case when a logo has been used for a long time without any major facelift.

Making updates to the logo

After you have enough justifications to update an existing logo without necessarily altering the entire look of the brand, here are a few tips on how you can do so without causing a major failure in the brand-:

Determine the logos best qualities

For you to successfully update an existing logo, you should not do away with the strong branding points of the logo. Essentially, the newly updated logo should maintain all the strengths of the previous and also have additional ones for extra performance. Therefore, it is imperative that you first identity the strong features of the current logo and isolate them before making any changes. These could include logo components such as the typography, the symbols used or the colors. After isolating the best qualities of the logo, you can then go ahead and decide if you will be changing them or making a few adjustments to them.

Consider the past brand for ideas

If this is not the first update for the logo, it would be a good idea to have a look at the past logos and see the sequence taken by updates in the past. The reason for doing so is to identify if there is a pattern that is consistent with all the updates. In this manner, the changes you are about to make should be in tandem with the overall feel of the logo.

Additionally, you can use the past logos to help you decide on the particular items to add or remove from the current logo. In some occasions, you might find that updating an existing logo to past version would have very great results.

Focus on the colors that matters

Colors are very important when you are updating an existing logo. They help to create the visual identity of the brand hence you need to very keen on them. Ideally, you need to focus on the colors that matter the most to the business. If the logo uses lots of colors, you can update it by trying to harmonize the colors so that you remain with a few, but the most important ones. You can also do away with the ones you feel are not very helpful to the business.

Think of new trends but hold on to classic traditions

It is also possible to update an existing logo to adapt to new trends in the market. This is important if your market is responsive to such trends. If this is the case, you can adjust the logo slightly to reflect on the trend but you must remember to hold the overall concept of the design to classic traditions. Trends will pass away but traditions will remain.

Enhance readability

Another way of updating an existing logo is to enhance the readability of the logo simply. This might mean playing around with the typography to make them more readable and recognizable to the target audience. In this case, you don’t have to touch any aspect of the logo expect the letters used.

Use the tips above to help you update an existing logo for new looks but without changing the look and feel of the entire brand.

Check out these legends of logo design!

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While many people speak out against crowd sourcing logos there are even some major corporations that are now turning to crowd sourcing for their logo needs. Logo crowd sourcing can certainly save money as well as give business experts access to a greater amount of logo designs for their advertising budget. With many new crowd sourcing websites cropping up every day for logo design and more, even popular logos today are becoming crowdsourced. Over the last five years crowd sourcing has entered into almost every industry from writing, fundraising, stock photography and now logo design.

As well as being used by some of the world’s biggest corporations, governments, celebrities, artists and more are using crowd sourcing to get the support and creativity that they need to grow. Even back as far as 2012, 100 brands reported using some form of crowd sourcing to improve their marketing effort.

Here are some of the top 6 logos that you simply won’t believe were crowd sourced.

Truly from Coca cola:

The truly campaign started in the year 2012 and Coca-Cola outsource their entire marketing campaign across a mix of different freelance crowd source sites. Coke decided to crowdsource branding ideas for the entire campaign and received 3600 different submissions through crowd sourcing websites. As well as receiving lots of different logo ideas, marketing campaigns and videos Coke had to choose from thousands of submissions for a logo before they ended up selecting this one. The truly logo reflects the past Coke branding with its own classic attitude. This is the type of logo that you might expect a Madison Avenue ad agency to produce but it was simply crowd sourced from an amateur designer website. It just goes to show that there are some talented designers and submissions available on crowd sourcing sites. It also opens up the opportunity for designers to work with major corporations to get their name out there as well.

Obama:

Working on a design for the American public that’s built by the American public seems like a pretty good political move doesn’t it? That’s exactly what Obama did for the 2012 campaign where he crowd sourced a poster design for his campaign. The idea was to create a branded image promoting jobs in America. The and poster design was magnificent but Obama made a fatal flaw when it came to the crowd sourcing contest. Instead of outlining a budget he suggested that the prize would be just having the poster used. This is a mistake that commonly backfires and the Obama campaign didn’t have quite as many submissions as some other major corporations have received from their crowd funding effort. It’s important to offer some type of incentive if you are planning on crowd sourcing a design. Designers need to be paid and rewarded for their work.

Madrid 2020:

Following the London Olympics where the logo had an estimated value of around $600,000 to produce, Madrid decided that it might be a good time to start saving money on the cost of their logo design. Madrid set aside a budget that was just 1% of the 2012 budget for the London Olympics. Looking at the design they didn’t do too badly. The only controversy surrounding the winner is that the logo design kind of makes 2020 look closer to 20020. A lot of thought and process goes into designing any Olympic logo and this will actually be one of the very first crowd sourced designs to make its way onto an Olympic bid which is revolutionary for crowdsourcing as a whole.

Occupy 2012:

The occupy movement was all about putting power back into the hands of the 99% and that’s exactly why it was so poetic that they decided to crowd source their logo design. The occupy Wall Street movement website set a crowd sourcing campaign in the year 2012 and received almost 8000 designs eventually settling on a relatively simple design that was carried through for their entire website. The occupy movement logo still stands to this day and it was produced for an extremely modest fee as well. Crowdsourcing for social movements like this one just makes sense and will most likely be continued into the future.

Designer Awards:

The designer awards is a yearly awards presentation show that showcases graphic designers from around the world. Opening up their logo design process to professionals and amateurs was a controversial decision but it was a great idea because he didn’t showcase favoritism to any one of the particular award winners. There were thousands of entries for the designer awards logo and they eventually settled on a monochromatic, modern design.

Rolling beans:

Rolling beans is a national coffee shop chain that seeks competition with Starbucks and other major coffee shops across the US. When they chose to produce their logo via crowd sourced designs it was a controversial decision. The end product looks great and has made its way onto all of their branding and packaging.

While it can be hard to believe that these designs were crowd sourced rather than produced by professional design firms, this is a trend that will continue to grow for the future.

Check out the most unusual places to find inspiration here! 

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Logos don’t have to be designed in multiple colors in order to look great. The effectiveness of a logo is not dictated upon by the number of colors used but rather the logo’s ability to attract the attention of the potential clients and help the business or company in branding. A closer look into some of the most famous logos in the world will reveal that they have just but a few colors with the majority of them having one or two colors only.

However, this is not to deny the use of multiple colors in logo design. If they can be used effectively without distorting the logo, then there is no problem in using as many colors as you dim fit for one design. With that said, here are beautiful logos with just two colors to illustrate how a few colors in a logo design can be powerful:

The FedEx Logo

The first logo we look at with two colors is the FedEx logo. This is one of the renowned logistics companies offering the shipment of goods from one country to another. The two colors of the logo are purple and orange. These signify the dignity and the royalty with which the company conducts its services.

Other than having two logos, the FedEx logo has been cited in numerous places as being intelligently designed using negative space to introduce a hidden meaning to the logo. If you look keenly, you will notice an arrow between the “E” and “X”. According to the company, the hidden arrow in the logo suggests that the company is a forward moving one, and it has all its focus on the future.

The Shell Logo

Shell Corporation is one of the energy giants in the present times. The history of the logo dates back to over a century ago when the founders used to ship petroleum to India then come back with seashells to sell in Europe. This is where the inspiration for the logo came and it has never deviated too much from its original design, even though it has undergone a number of modifications. The only two colors of this logo are yellow and red and it is among the two color logos you will ever come across.

The CNN Logo

The CNN logo is another two color logo you will admire looking at each and every time. CNN is a leading cable network with presence all over the globe. The logo is designed in a manner that its shape reflects on the stability, power and reliability of the new network. The logo uses only two colors: white and red. The red color of the logo represents the valued image of the network as well as the omnipresence and the entrepreneurship of the company as well as its services.

The Amazon Logo

The Amazon logo is another two color logo that has been responsible for the branding and the immense success of the online retail giant. The logo is a simple typeface one with two predominant colors of yellow and black against a white background. Other than using only two colors, the logo has a certain hidden meaning that displays the design acuity that was expended in creating the logo.

It has an arrow starting at the first letter A and terminating at letter Z. This is an indication that the store has everything from A to Z which you mind. Additionally, the shape of the arrow represents a smile to indicate the good customers care service that has become synonymous to the online retail giant.

The Baskin Robins Logo

This is yet another two color logo with amazing hidden meaning. The logo is a simple B and R with the name of the company beneath it and all done in purple and blue colors against a white background. Baskin Robins is a leading ice cream franchise in the United States offering a total of 31 flavors and this forms the hidden meaning in the logo. Part of the B and part of the R has been used to indicate the number “31”, total flavors of ice cream offered by the franchise.

Hope for African Children Initiative Logo

Hope for African Children Initiative has a mission to support African communities. Its logo displays a magnificent use of negative space with only two colors of orange and gold. The white space used in the logo is the map of Africa, and it used to form the image of a child looking up to a mother. It is a wonderful two color logo filled with a lot of emotions of love and peace.

The Chevron Logo

This is an American multinational energy corporation considered as one of the six major oil companies in the world. The present logo has only two colors of blue and red, and it’s without a doubt one of the two color logos you will ever see in the present times.

Check out these essentials for logo design!

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Most of the white collar jobs seem to offer very little regarding rewards other than the monetary aspect. If you are looking to pay your bills, then the daily grind might be sufficient, but if you want something more fulfilling and inspiring, then you will have to look for a career which will offer you with more than just what the daily grind has to offer. The graphic design industry offers you with an alternative route to getting more fulfilled in your career with exciting remunerations compared to what you may have gotten the blue chip companies.

The daily challenges and the constant demands to produce quality results are some of the attributes that make a career in graphic design more endearing and appealing to those who are keen on getting ahead with their professions in life. Here are some of the reasons why being a graphic designer might as well be the best thing that will ever happen in your life-:

Impressive Salaries

There is a wide salary range for graphic designers with those who are just starting out earning the least. As one advances in skills and experiences, the salary also keeps on increasing. But before you argue this happens in every other profession, the graphic design industry is unique in a number of ways and which will ultimately add to the final perk that a designer will carry home.

It is important to realize that billions of dollars are spent in marketing and advertising each and every year and there would be no marketing or even advertising if graphic design were not there. Hence, so long as businesses need to marketing, branding and advertising, the graphic designer will always have work, which will be well remunerated because the clients want quality work.

Potential Career Growth

A career in graphic design has enticing prospects for one to advance in their careers and build very impressive portfolios. Being a challenging profession, there is a lot to learn and experience once one is done with the basic education. You get a chance to meet and interact with different personalities, and you also get a chance to work on wide and diversified projects, all of which will help you become a better and more fulfilled graphic designer.

Wide Range of Industry Sectors

A career in graphic design will open a plethora of doors for you and enable you practice your trade in a wide range of industry sectors. You will be at liberty to choose whether you want to branch out to advertising and marketing, web design or you want to major in corporate brand identity. With such a wide range of choices to make, you will be at liberty to choose the one that appeal to you the most and which you believe will give you the greatest satisfaction. Besides, you are not limited in practice, and you also have the freedom to practice in more than one field, thus increasing your versatility and value as a graphic designer.

Challenging and interesting assignment

One beautiful thing you will love with a career in graphic design is that there are no two projects that will be the same. For every project, you will be working with a completely new set of demands and conditions and probably new clients as well. Every day will be a unique day where you will be required to make fresh decisions in coming up with the various designs. Due to this challenging while at the same time interesting nature of assignments, a career in graphic design will never leave you feeling bored at work since you will be working on something interesting each and every day.

Self-Fulfillment

Self-fulfillment is not just important for the sake of your satisfaction at work, but also, it affects other areas of your life. When you are self-fulfilled, you are happy to the fact that through your skills, you were able to make a difference to your clients and the world around you in general. A career in graphic design is one of the most self fulfilling careers you will ever come across. You deal with practical clients, and every project is a chance for you to make a difference and make the client meet their objectives. When your clients come to you and express gratitude for what you did for them, this makes you feel fulfilled and really happy that you did what you did.

Easily be your own boss

Most people dream of being self employed. They admire the freedom and the earning potentials that come with self-employment. However, this is not a familiarity you will find with most of the other careers. However, with a career in graphic designs, once you have gained the experience, skills and the connections to clients, you need nothing else to start your own company or start freelancing on the internet. Therefore, if you have ever dreamt of being your own boss, then you need to think deeply about choosing a career in graphic design.

Check out how to design app logos here!

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The art and science of logo design trends keep on changing with each and every year. This is necessitated by the need to provide more quality and robustness in the design so that they can be in tandem with the changing behaviors of the target audiences. Additionally, the technological advancements also make certain design practices to be obsolete with time since there are new media through which to view the logos and which must also be considered in the design.

It is appalling to note that logo designs that might have looked gorgeous five years ago may not make the same impact in the present times. However, with the changing trends, it is imperative that designers stick to the core logo design principles because principles never change. A logo design based on a fad will appeal only for the present, but when your design is based on the fundamental principles, it will stand the test of time and still look awesome for decades to come.

Without much further ado, let us delve into some of the new logo design trends that are expected to dominate designs in the year 2016-:

Increased use of dynamic color palettes

In 2015, Google fired what many professionals have termed as a warning shot in the design industry when they rebranded using a functional and dynamic color palette. This is an indication that there is a major shift already going on in the design world, especially with the leading corporate organizations as they try to make their logos more appealing by using dynamic color palettes.

It is true that dynamic design is not a new concept, but when you see the giants starting to adopt it once again, it is just a matter of time before other designers pick up on these  logo design trends and we might see an influx of such logos in the year 2016.

Use of Negative Space in Logo design

There is increased adoption of the use of negative space in design, and this is expected to gain more momentum as the year wears on. The effectiveness of a log lies in its simplicity and the ability to communicate the central marketing message to the audiences. When you can achieve more than these, then you are bound to achieve more from the logo and make it very successful. Negative space gives the audience a chance to get more intelligent meanings from the logo hence it creates a huge impact on them. Additionally, negative space also has certain design advantages other than the simplicity. For instance, printing a large scale logo with negative space is less problematic as printing a similar logo without negative space. These are some of the reasons why we can expect to continue seeing more logos designed with negative space.

Handmade Logos

Handmade logos have been trending for several years now, and this is another logo design trend we can expect to continue in popularity in 2016. Handmade logos look very authentic, and they have a way of displaying a sense of intimacy or personal touch. Even within the handmade logos niche, there are some that have been designed in a manner that they look more of a “hybrid” whereas there are still others that don’t seem to be truly handmade but again they are not digital. However, within the variations, they still do a perfect job in displaying the kind of charm associated with handmade logos.

Mix and Match Logos

Mix and Match is not just a concept in the fashion design industry, but it is now one of the strong logo design trends we are looking at in 2016. It involves the mixing and matching of different typefaces as well as colors to come up truly unique and effective logo designs. It is also a new design style, but it is resurfacing at a stronger pace as designers are finding more creative and interesting ways to use the style. It has provided and alternative route to escape from the usual note connotations while at the same time introducing playfulness but in a professional manner in the design of logo.

Flat Designs

Flat design is a logo design trend that is not just about to go away but is expected to get more fans in 2016. Though considered an old style as far as logo design trends are concerned, flat designs have a unique way of providing forthright and clean designs that can easily render in most of the devices. As a logo design trend, flat designs have proven to load much faster, and they also offer a lot of flexibility to the designers through the ease of using various patterns, shadows, textures and gradients to allow for simple lines as well as great color schemes. Watch for this logo design trend as we see some of the corporate giants start to rebrand using flat designs.

See if your logo can have universal appeal here!

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In only a few years, Google has managed to achieve a lot in branding, something that would normally take other companies decades of work with millions of dollars worth of resources. Their colorful logo is now a staple of the online experience that’s enjoyed by millions across the globe. But behind the beautiful logo that’s now the trademark and benchmark for online search experience, there is a rich history. It has undergone lots of transformations though the concept has never moved away from the typeface logo we see today. Here is a brief explanation detailing how Google came to have their current logo.

The story begins in 1996 at Stanford University where one of the co-founders, Larry Page was fledgling a research project code-names “Back Rub”. The project was later renamed Google, following a misspelled version of the word Googol. The idea was to demonstrate that Google had far much processing powers than any other search engine during that time.

The first Google Logo was designed by Sergey Brin, a co-founder in 1998 using the Gimp Software. This marked the beginning of the several iterations that were to follow under the supervision of Ruth Kendar, a professional designer hired by Google to oversee the development of a logo that would connect with their audiences and also match their marketing needs.

By 1999, Google’s success was already dwarfing the competition, and the Google logo was becoming more and more popular. It was at this point that the company brought in Ruth Kendar, a professional designer to continue with evolving the brand. Back then, Kendar had no idea how big the company would be, but she was happy to take up on the task and continue with the evolution of the brand.

Kendar’s first attempt at redesigning the Google logo was done with the Adobe Garamond as the typeface. Kendar’s idea with this first attempt was not to meddle up with the text since it would have interfered with the eligibility of the logo. She simply added her whimsy using two-dimensional O’s and primary colors. She then used a small pattern to join the Os together as a symbol of infinite connection. This design was liked by Brin and Page.

The second attempt by Kendar on the Google Logo saw her focus her attention mainly on the Os in the middle of Google. She introduced a further hint on the infinite pattern as well as a target to symbolize the search engine’s accuracy in helping people find what they are looking for on the internet. Her reason for doing was that the founders wanted to pass a message to the competing search engines that Google was a reliable search provider, and most importantly, it had an algorithmic complexity but an easy to use application.

The next redesign of the Google logo saw a modification of the layout and the typeface. The designer decided to use overlapping circles and ITC Leawood and joined them with a cross hair to show that the business was intertwined and had a global presence. But Kendar thought that her new design was more like an Olympics logo and not that of a leading search engine. This made her thinking on how to change the logo to remain within the context of the business.

In the later version, Kendar came across Catull, the typeface that is now synonymous to the Google logo. This typeface gave the logo more corporate looks while at the same time appearing to be slightly playful in the sizing of the letters. Though this was a step towards the right the direction, the overall design appeared to be busy, and it was difficult to mark out the final meaning from the Google logo.

With the feedback from the previous design, which featured a magnifying glass and a crosshair Kendar simplified the redesign, eliminating the crosshair but keeping the magnifying glass and adding on it a smile – to reflect on the great user experience of the now world’s largest search engine.

Slowly, Kendar realized that she was on her way back to her very initial iteration, and once again reverted to the Leawood font. She introduced a touch of dimension as well as some shading to the top of the Google logo. The reason for this was to make the Google logo appear to be floating on top of the white layout. At this point, Kendar was advised to try more simplified approaches that will make the Google logo simpler while retaining its corporate look.

Finally, Kendar got the design right after playing around with the colors and never deviating from the typeface. She ended up using primary colors, but rather than having the colors go in order, she used a secondary color on L, to illustrate the idea that Google doesn’t have to follow the rules at all times. That is the current logo you see each time you use the giant search engine.

The Google logo has stood the test of time and is now an iconic mark that has helped the company realize the immense success they have had in the past few years.
Learn how to design a basic logo here!

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If you need to start a brand from the ground up there are some excellent ways that you can showcase your brand and what you can offer for your customers. Before you begin to work on your branding one of the first steps you need to consider is how you will shape your brand for the future. The state of your brand will unfold based on your initial planning. It can take time for the public to eventually perceive your brand in the way that you intended but by working on your brand you can eventually reach a point where the idea of your branding will not only be shown in all of your logo/marketing materials, but easily explained.

Here are some top tips that you need to keep in mind when you are to start a brand from the ground up.

Gaining an understanding of your business:

Before you can begin to define the personality that will start up your brand, you need to be able to consider what is important to a brand and what makes your business so special. Understand the nature of your business inside and out before you even consider to start your brand. This will take some brainstorming and you will need to define all of the unique characteristics that can make up your corporate culture. These can range from secret product launches, offering style with affordability, a dedication to delivering high quality or fair trade goods and more. Establish the main values of your business and begin to translate this into a powerful branding message for the future. This will be the future goals of your company as well as a clearly defined corporate culture.

Sculpt a true visual identity for your brand:

Building a brand requires promotions and logos to really take off. Without these appropriate marketing materials it can be very difficult to launch a brand successfully. Think about what your business stands for and when you are building a brand, sculpt a visual identity that reflects your culture. In many cases this will require the use of a professional graphic designer. Working with a professional can ensure that a true brand identity that is consistent will be carried through with your entire brand. Changing your visual identity or brand more frequently often leads to a convoluted marketing message. Color can also play a big factor in the way that you represent your business. Picking out the right color swatches that convey the right meaning to your audience is important. A green logo or color swatch for example can be a great idea for a green/ Eco company. A blue logo is ideal for a creative agency because it spawns inspiration. Keeping these color swatches in mind can guide you forward. The same needs to be said for sculpting the visual identity of your text. The fonts you select and the way you present different texts in your marketing materials and logo can reflect your corporate culture.   A true visual identity is iconic and images that can take your company forward into the future. Think about some of the longest running brands like Audi for example. These are brands that have had the same configuration since the 1930’s because the brand knew where it wanted to go, and the images to take it there.

Build your online personality:

Today, one of the biggest aspects of building a brand is building up a buzz online. In the past a logo or branding persona for a company would be a little more difficult to build and it would require more customer representatives as well as interaction. Through the use of social media as well as creating your own website you can create a fully functional hub for your brand. By including all of the information that is needed about your corporate culture as well as starting to connect with your target market online you can work at creating a professional brand very quickly. Generating a buzz about your brand and your products can be much easier with the help of social media. This means that as soon as you have a direction, a business plan and marketing materials it is a good idea to launch on the web. Many companies today create landing websites or at least social media pages up to a year before their first product is launched. Showcasing the early startup of your company as well as early pieces of your corporate culture can really help you to gain traction in your marketplace. Building a website early attracts investors and can also help people to quickly have access to the answers they need about your brand. An about me page, a press release or even a portfolio page as well as a social media prescience is an excellent start for online brand building solutions.

By combining all of these elements of building a brand, you can work at having a more successful brand identity and eventual launch.

Read about the basics of branding for designers here!

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There are a number of recognizable logos throughout the auto manufacturing world. Although there are definitely some logos that stand out amongst the crowd. Here are some of our top favorite iconic auto logos. Many of these logos have been around for many decades and you can find a good number of them in your local supermarket parking lot. Here are our top 8 iconic auto logos:

Mercedes Benz:

This is probably one of the simplest iconic auto logos. German carmakers have some of the longest running history in the automobile world and Mercedes Benz has one of the longest-running logos as well. Most German carmakers use simplicity for their logos and Mercedes has followed suit with a logo that hasn’t been changed across many decades. With no signs of changing any time soon, we should continue to see the Mercedes benz logo on sport/luxury cars.

Volvo:

The Volvo logo not only is built within an old chemical symbol for iron but it also has an change for many years. This Swedish carmaker has had the iconic blue and silver badge for decades and it is a simple yet historic construction. Not only does the logo and name mean “I roll” in latin but incorporates many classic design elements. Volvo has a dependable logo for one the most iconic auto logos.

Cadillac:

The Cadillac logo is somewhat similar to that of Porsche because it utilizes a family crest style logo as well as some similar coloring. Cadillac has an extensive history and the logo has changed just a little bit over time embracing a simpler style. While you can see smaller ducks in the old-style Cadillac crest, today the company has a much more modern look for their crest style logo. The caddy badge is extremely respected amongst auto logos. It has a classic luxury look and it is perhaps one of the most noble looking auto logos out of any of the competition. Although it may not be as simple as some of the other logos from auto makers, it is one of the most iconic auto logos.

Mini:

Although Mini is technically owned by BMW these days, they have kept a modern version of their Iconic auto logo. The Mini logo has simple block lettering as well as a set of wings that you might see on an air force badge. It is a simple yet instantly recognizable logo from an automaker. It actually has some deep meaning as well and the designers wanted to create a winged sun. This symbol is based off of an ancient religious symbol that was meant to showcase the transportation method of a perfect soul. The wings that carried souls to the sun can now be found on every mini.

Infiniti:

When Nissan went out to create a luxury version of their vehicles with Infiniti they certainly didn’t disappoint when it came to the logo. The Infiniti logo is far more than just a simple circle with a peak. It’s also certainly not an upside down silver pacman. Instead this symbol is joined in one line to symbolize the car traveling towards infinity on an open road. The peak in the center is the infamous Mount Fuji in japan which pays tribute to the history and development of the car. This history and thought makes Infiniti one of the coolest auto logos.

BMW:

No list of auto logos would be complete without BMW. This simple and easy to recognize logo was once found on airplanes and airplane engines. This is where the colors blue and white come from. Because BMW used to build these products and paint many of the manufacturer colors so that aircraft technicians could tell when the propellers were spinning, these colors just stuck. The logo that they eventually picked was supposed to resemble the propellers of an aircraft spinning against blue sky. With the chrome BMW placed above the target or propellers the logo was complete.

Volkswagen:

It seems that there is a trend in our list for German auto logos. VW originally designed its logo in the year 1938 giving it an extensive history. The design has been modified slightly in year 1996 as well as in the year 2000. The only difference between the modern version of the Volkswagen logo and the older version is a slightly different color blend as well as 3d elements. Ultimately the logo remains basically unchanged since the start of World War II.

Audi:

You can spot an Audi logo from a mile away and considering the type of speedy cars that this company makes it will come up on you fast as well. The Audi logo is designed to symbolize unity just the same as the Olympic logo. The logo was created in 1932 as a result of four independent auto companies joining together. It has remained unchanged since that original logo design and that makes it one of the most iconic on this list.

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The post Best Automotive Logos appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.

Changing the logo of a company or organization is tantamount to changing the brand of the company. A lot of discretion needs to be exercised because the new logo might spark off negative reactions from ardent brand followers. A recent case was witnessed when The Metropolitan Museum of Art decided to change their old logo and adopt a new scarlet palette. The choice seemed not to be a popular one because the new logo was resisted by so many people.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a new modern art annex on Madison Avenue, and they thought that they could take advantage of the new development to have a new logo. However, the redesign did not work well for the branding needs of the company. To many, the redesign got the label as a “disaster”, and other also termed it as a “graphics misfire”.

In an attempt to try and defend the redesign, the museum accepted the fact that the new logo could probably not be accepted by everyone but according to them, they needed something bold, simple, and indisputable and that was what the new logo represented. So why exactly did the new logo spark of such geysers of negative reviews? We take a look at the old logo as well as the new one and see why some people might have been disappointed in the new look of the company.

The old logo of the museum was nothing but an M while the new one has replaced the M with “The MET” written in capital letters and made to appear as if the two words are flowing into one another. Forming the Metropolitan new logo. The new design was the work of Wolff Olins from their New York Office.

According to the designers, they are actually pleased that people are talking about the new logo and they are not bothered by the negativities being expressed from some quarters. To them, their objective is to come up with designs that people talk about. They defended the new design by saying that other than being visually appealing, it captures the essence of the museum, and it is aimed at expanding the reach and the relevance of The Metropolitan Museum of Arts. This was seen as an improvement on the old logo.

The new logo is scheduled to start being used from March and it was not just a normal logo change but a drive in enhancing the branding of the museum. The campaign will include other elements such as signage and many more to revamp the decade-long look of the museum.

The initial logo of the museum relied only on the use of a symbol, but the new one has discarded this approach as it uses words that have been commonly used to refer to the museum, “The Met”. As a result, therefore, the new logo has an immediacy which speaks to all audiences once they see it. They no longer try to figure out what the M is all about since they will see a name that they are already used to. In as much as they try to defend the logo, the new design is still continuing to get loads of criticism from even some of the most respected quarters.

Justin Davidson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture and art critic issued a blistering assessment of the logo comparing it to a red double-decker bus which has stopped and shoving passengers on each other’s back. To him, the logo is nothing but two short words printed scarlet letters before being squashed and tucked together. He also thought that the logo gave much prominence to the word “THE” and this has no relevance to the museum.

Another respected Arts critic found issues with the logo and thought that the museum ought not to have adopted such a design for a new logo. According to Judith H. Dobryznksi, the museum has traded a classic image they had held for years for a more minimalist design. To her, this shouldn’t have been the case since the museum now risks losing an identity and an image it had for long and which most of the fans had loved so much.

Another independent illustrator and designer, Steve Cup, thinks that the concept of minimalism in logo design has come as a late adoption by the museum. From his perspective, this is a concept that has been around for some time. He regrets that the museum has just woken up to realize that they needed to have such a logo.

But all the raging criticism on the new logo are expected, especially when you dealing with a big brand with a huge following. Not everyone is bound to accept it, but as long as it serves the branding needs of the organization.

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The post What’s Wrong With the New Metropolitan Logo? appeared first on LogoMaven | Easy Logo Design Software & Logo Maker.