Table of Contents

●       The Importance of Logos in Design

●       How Did Famous Logos Become Famous?

●       7 Famous Brand Logos and Their Outstanding Logo Stories

●       Key Takeaways

●       Conclusion

●       FAQs

Graphic design, communication design, interaction design, industrial design, and several other variants and sub-niches of design often start with a common theme – designing a logo.

But, what is so special about logo design that it often acts as the focal point from where the discussions about building a successful business and creating a lasting brand image start? How do logo stories summarize how the entire brand came into being or convey the bedrock of the business? Let’s find out.

The Importance of Logos in Design

The best logos are like an exclamation mark – the right kind of emotion that you feel when you connect with something that you identify yourself, your traits, or your values with. Famous logos are often not just the embodiment of the brand or the business creating an instant impact on the audience, but similar to a dose of happy hormone secreted when we meet or greet an old friend or acquaintance.

Yes, the best logos are like the nameplate in front of the house. In this case, the house is the business, and the nameplate is the brand. With the help of text, images, graphics, or a mixture of multiple design elements, a logo takes form and breathes life into the brand.

The right logo helps establish a connection between a brand and its entire community. A community formed of customers, allies, critics, fans, champions, and others. They form a connection without saying a word. It’s the most powerful visual tool for an organization, a business, or simply an entity called the brand.

Hence, the best logo design conveys a series of virtues on behalf of the brand and connotes feelings of honor, pride, inspiration, excellence, diligence, and integrity. So, when the problems faced by the business en-route its journey to becoming a popular brand are solved by logos alone – they become famous.

How Did Famous Logos Become Famous?

Logo stories are often told while depicting famous brand logos that left their indelible mark on people and also solved the particular problem that they were designed to perform. There are businesses that we understand just by seeing their best logo design, even if the name of the business is not included within its logo.

So, what are the strengths that render these popular logos into timeless, visually interactive media? The following are the fundamental reasons that birth famous logos.

● Consumer attention spans are short in nature. So, the famous logos utilize that short attention span, grab the viewer’s attention, and display their appearance as a medium to convey the business values.

●  Since a logo lands the first impression on the consumer’s mind, it should instantly introduce the brand as a conspicuous entity in the professional space in which it operates. Famous logos help brands in dominating their niche through their products and services.

●  Logo stories are often the pathway to reach the customer and compel them to take relevant actions. Since branding is involved in narrating the company’s story and stimulating the customer’s emotional quotient, logos act as the spearheads of such brands. Famous brand logos use their own components – fonts, colors, tones, shapes, etc., to lay down a foundation for the brand identity. These famous logo stories also reinforce the narrative around which the nature of the brand’s reality exists.

●  Popular logos and brands have one thing in common – they are instantly recognizable. In fact, you could’ve forgotten the brand name, but can associate it with its logo almost subconsciously. That’s the power of brand logos. Their visual traits are so hard-hitting and fantastic that they will immediately and inadvertently help you associate a business, its products/solutions, your consumer relationship with this business, etc., at the mere sight of a logo.

●  The company logo is the first thing that potential clients, incoming prospects, and others notice about a business. Hence, a logo should be aesthetically appealing, while conveying its functionality too.

●   A company’s logo becomes a famous brand logo when it conveys to the customer the ease of doing business with or the several types of products that can be bought and are better than its competitors. The logo makes the brand stand out.

●   A company’s logo appears on all products and almost unintentionally coerces the consumer to take an action. If your customers crave your product, then they also crave the presence of your logo. This kind of consistency helps a logo become a timeless guide or a silent watcher.

●  The audience believes that the logo lays out the foundation of communication between the brand and them. Hence, they keep seeking more of these famous logos to solidify their presence in the industrial niche as well as in the hearts and minds of the consumers.

7 Famous Brand Logos and Their Outstanding Logo Stories

Let’s dive deep into some of the most famous logos worldwide and their stories that have become phenomenal and achieved legendary status, often eclipsing the brand itself!

1. Coca Cola

With the introduction of their first black and white soda water image, Coca-Cola hasn’t undergone many evolutions since its inception in 1892, apart from red and white becoming the dominating colors, while the iconic, nonchalant swish that connects the first and last letters of the brand got added.

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The iconic red and white colors of this famous logo works in favor of this classic American commercial cola brand by using its color scheme to identify the energy, rawness, and constant innovation, which are traits often associated with America itself.

This significantly reflects the American culture when we merely look at the Coca-Cola logo. It has stimulated the appetite of the Americans and other audiences worldwide with its simplistic design, use of happy-go-lucky cursive fonts, and incredible ‘color psychology’.

2. Nike

Nike, meaning the Greek Goddess of victory, was imagined to have a pair of wings. This simple thought gave the simplistic design of the ‘swoosh’. Thus, making it one of the most iconic brand logo designs identified since its inception in 1971 when the Nike co-founder Phil Knight bought the IP from the design student Carolyn Davidson with a mere token amount of $35!

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Since then, the swoosh – often accompanied with the words ‘Just Do It’, has mobilized the thoughts of courage, stamina, strength, speed, and all the other virtues that are relevant to winning in competitions.

The power of the swoosh is universally acclaimed, and the most priceless thing that Nike conveys through its minimalistic logo story is one of speed, acceleration, power, and most importantly, motion. Every attribute pushes you to be a better athlete and dares you to win.

3. Mercedez-Benz

For the brand makers, the logo, which often represents the brand without the presence of an original typeface, is a symbol for sheer class, elegance, and sophistication.

And silver, which dominates the automobile industry as a primary color scheme invokes the principles of security, credibility, professionalism, conventionalism, and utmost competency.

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The three silver prongs, carved to precision, represent the three realms of air, land, and sea – where the automobile is equally competent! The thin and curved typeface renders elegance like none other, and overall, this is one of those logo stories of plush and class that create a niche of their own.

4. FedEx

Originally starting as a plain blue background against a patterned blue background in 1973, it took the brand more than a couple of decades to rebrand their logo in the form of the purple-orange color combination with a clever ‘forward arrow’ mark placed between the E and the X.

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While the forward arrow that remains strategically hidden conveys the factors of speed and precision – considered the best practices of a supply chain and logistics brand, the color transformation from the traditional purple to the new-age orange also signifies the diversification in terms of products that the brand ships.

With the color psychology that defines specific arms within the FedEx company, the ‘a-ha’ moment introduced in the form of the invisible forward arrow sends a specific message – the brand can be depended on for its credibility and industrial bifurcation while maintaining the creative edge from within.

5. Google

Although staying primarily unchanged since their introduction in 1998 till 2014, with a few basic changes in terms of altered color, spacing, shading, letterings, etc., the new, revamped logo was launched in 2015 that is synonymous with whatever we search on the net these days.

The custom typeface and the plethora of primary colors that define them could mean the accessibility of Google across the masses worldwide, but their use of ‘green’ strategically at the ‘l’ alphabet shows that the company is not afraid to reshape and continuously re-innovate itself.

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Since they broke the rules of their own game with a tweak in their color psychology, they stood out above the others. It has been more evident in the generous use of negative space against the bright, peppy colors, showing their dominance in their niche.

6. Apple

Starting in 1996 with Newton’s posture under an apple tree silhouetted against the structure of an Apple, the brand constantly evolved in logo design for the next two decades. The logo stories behind each of those transformations are quite intensive and often convey incidents within the legendary company and the ideas that its inherent design team came up with.

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But achieving the simplicity of the design of a ‘bitten-apple’ with the color scheme changing from an extensive pallet into a more flat, grandiose gray, depicts style, sophistication, and sleekness – the traits that the brand loves getting identified with. Moreover, the flat color is an ode to visually and technologically-challenged individuals.

However, there still exists considerable stories regarding the ‘bite’ of the apple. Its often debated that it represents a unit of memory of the ‘bite of knowledge’ that its consumers share upon purchasing the product from this brand.

7. IBM

Starting as the International Time Recording Company in 1888, IBM changed its names and logos several times before arriving at International Business Machines Corporation.

When business godfather Paul Rand designed the IBM logo in 1972, he expressed the horizontal stripes in the form of ‘speed and dynamism’ that the company would be associated with.

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Key Takeaways

1. Logos are important in connecting a brand to its target audience.
2. There is immense importance of logos in design, and in the industry, to make or break brands.
3. Logos serve a plethora of purposes for any organization.
4. There are several essential things like crafting engaging logo stories, using fluid design elements, typeface, color schemes, and others, that craft the perfectly appealing and engaging logo.
5. The seven brand logo stories we’ve talked about shed light on the fact that nailing an iconic logo can take a lot of time.

Conclusion

Logo stories are important in depicting the journey of the brand, as it does itself. So, famous logo designs and their origin stories serve as the future foundation and inspiration of developments to come in interactive design with applications in the industry-customer interface.

FAQs