A logo is an experience. It reminds you about something, some place, someone..The KFC logo tells you all about tasty meals and is enough to trigger hunger in some of us (myself included). The UEFA champions league logo awakens an energetic and somewhat aggressive spirit in a soccer fan(atic) (myself included again). Some of the world’s most prominent logos have an effect on us, because they have come to represent companies/institutions that have become a part of our daily experiences.

For many business/startup owners, a logo is a frequently trivialized but very important aspect of your visual identity. You cant afford to get it wrong. Its easier to get it right the first time than to have to change it when you notice that your first logo was ineffective.

There are five types of Logo designs

• Wordmarks/Logotypes/Text : 37% of logos belonging to the top 100 brands in the world consist of only text. Remember Google? Yahoo? Of course you do. They are excellent examples.
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Wordmarks work best when your company/startup has a catchy or interesting name. they are also good for companies that want their names to be seen very easily. A logo that is your company name works best in these two situations.

 

• Brandmarks/Symbols/Icons : 6% of the world’s top 100 brands have brandmarks as their logos. In this case, the logo has no text. It has just a symbol. The right symbols can express ideas remarkably well. Traffic lights do not need any text to pass their messages across; we all understand what the different colours mean.

Brandmarks are good for large corporations because while the name of the company may not be recognizable in other languages, the symbol will remain the same. Its not advisable for smaller companies to tow this path, especially since people may not associate your symbol with the name of your company.

 

• Combination mark/Iconic logotypes : Of the top 100 brands in the world, 56% incorporate both text and symbol. They make sense because they are the best of both worlds, spelling out the name of the company while putting forward an icon that can become very recognizable in the nearest future.

The combination mark also has versatility as one of its attributes, especially since the text and symbol can both become recognizable enough to stand on their own. On the downside, they are usually more complex to make than their counterparts.

 

• Lettermark/Initials : It’s so much easier to say ‘IBM’ than it is to say ‘Inrernational Business Machines’, isn’t it? Also, IBM has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Lettermarks are somewhat similar to Wordmarks, but with a major difference : They highlight the company’s initials and not their full name.

Apart from being easier and more fun to pronounce or spell, a lettermark logo design assigns equal visual weight to every word in the name of the company, which may make them easier to remember.

 

• Emblem : These are similar to Combination marks, but with a key difference : While combination marks position the text beside or below the symbol, emblems have their text IN the symbol. This means that the text and symbol will never be able to stand as separate entities, unlike in Combination marks.

Emblems are very compact and can easily fit both your symbol and company name into tighter spaces.

On the downside, since the text needs to be small enough to fit into the symbol in the first place, these types of logos may not always print legibly at smaller sizes.,

 

 

What logo style do you prefer above the rest? Leave a comment to let us know!