A logo is one of the most important, interesting and vital things in graphic design and business industry that helps us to grow, get educated, be a part of a huge change and the most important it helps us to feel what our heart wants to say. But there is a misconception in the understanding of some people and designers that “it’s just a shape, it’s super easy, it should define something…”, but that’s not true at all. There are a bunch of factors that get combined and work together to create that strong feeling in the hearts of every person. Those factors are Design, Philosophy, Construction, and Principles.
DESIGN
Design in a logo means the combination of shapes, colors, relationship, balance, hierarchy, and harmony to create an infinite beauty. These things help to attract people in the right way and create a sustainable path to the logo to work well and identify easily, clearly and strongly.
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy in a logo means, how the shapes, colors, relationship, balance, hierarchy, and harmony work together to transmit a concrete and specific message and concept. But there is something; philosophy becomes meaningful when it has a relationship with the goal and vision of the client, designer, and the company. And oppositely, it loses the value and meaning when personal choices and preference comes in.
CONSTRUCTION
When it comes on the construction of the logo, it means logo’s engineering. No matter it’s organic or geometric. Overall construction in a logo is related directly to the shapes used in the logo.
PRINCIPLES
When it comes on principles, it refers to color combination, typography system+style, hierarchy, balance, harmony, grid, and relationship among shapes. It should be very precise and clear. As well as, sometimes these principles can’t help the logo to work well and restricts the way of transmitting messages, so in that case, it would be better to ignore them.
These factors are the main keys for designing a better, strong and sustainable logo ever. But from another perspective, a logo has some specifications that help these factors to do their job well.
SIMPLICITY
A logo can do its job the better way possible when it is simple. It should be simple cause it brings ease to the ways of transmitting the message of the logo, it facilitates the ways of remembering the logo, it helps the customers to be able to at least imagine the logo inside their minds. And that’s how it helps the logo to work for many many years.APPROPRIATENESS
Every company is being established with specific goals and visions. We have thousands of beautiful logos for each company, but the logo of one company won’t work for another one, cause it’s not appropriate for them. Every company has its own mission, vision, values, and targeted audience. And a logo is being designed to fulfill the needs of that company. So if you design a logo that can’t fulfill the needs or is not appropriate, it won’t work well.MEMORABILITY
Memorability is the key thing that helps your logo stands out and sustain for many many years. It’s directly connected to simplicity and idea behind it and helps the customer to remember and recognize your logo in any situation and any environment. It should be done in a very smart way and should be able to pop up in your customer’s mind.
As well as, there is also a misconception that it’s all about the region that defines how a logo should be. I totally accept that, but logo design has no borders. We can see logos from different countries that even has affected us here, and this is how it rejects this idea.
Now according to these specifications and information, it’s also better to know about the types of the logo that are being used universally by designers. There are 6 main categories and we’re going to get into each of them separately.
- WORD MARK
A Word Mark is the type of logo that is being designed using the name of the company. Typefaces play a major rule in designing this kind of logos and help the logo to talk directly to the targeted customers and show the personality of the company very clearly and precisely. Professional logo designers who design Word Mark logos for brands and companies, try their best to find the best and the right typeface. Some of them even create a typeface by their own to offer the best solution and fulfill the needs of that brand. We have hundreds of examples from wordmark logos like Google, Coca-Cola, ZARA, Uber, VISA, Mobil, FedEx, Disney and etc.
- LETTER MARK / MONOGRAM
We can find out the meaning from the name of this kind of logos. Any logo that the message, idea, and concept is being transmitted through a maximum of 3 letters, is a Letter Mark logo. They’re also called monograms and are being used by big companies such as LG, CNN, HP, IBM, BBC, abc and etc.
- SYMBOLIC / ICONIC
A logo that is able to identify a person, company, service or product using an icon or symbol. It’s very powerful and can do its job everywhere without the help of any other element. Some of the most famous brands are using an iconic logo as a medium for their identification. Brands like Apple, Nike, Target, Mcdonalds, Mercedes Benz, Chase Bank, Starbucks, and many other brands are using this style of logo.
- COMBINATION MARK
Is a type of logo that the identification is being done using a combination of the logotype and the icon. They’re related to each other, works together and individually can’t do anything. There are great examples of this kind of logos: Microsoft, Adidas, Dove, Adobe, Amazon, Lacoste and etc.
- EMBLEM
It’s also a combination mark, but the difference between combination mark and emblem is that emblem logos are being designed inside shapes or better to say shapes connect logotype and the icon together. Emblem Marks are very restricted and in no situation, we can’t separate the icon from the logotype. For example Cornell University, Harvard University, Porsche and etc.
- MONOLINE MARKS
As simple as the name, a logo that lines are the elements of the construction and design of the logo.
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These 6 styles are being developed in years to fulfill the need of every industry and all are being used nowadays.
Logo design is still developing and becomes better every day. We as designers are playing the most vital rule in revolutionizing this industry. It’s all up to us to translate our imaginations into visual communication and produce something unique and amazing. In the end, I want to finish this article with a quote from Ivan Chermayeff who is a source of inspiration for designers and creative people.
"Design is directed toward human beings. To design is to solve human problems by identifying them and executing the best solution."