Top branding agencies are always looking for new and refreshing approaches to logo designs that resonate with customers. Every designer’s dream is a new logo that is memorable and unique. But customers react to logos that interesting and different, but not too different. If a logo adheres to a style that is out-of-date or too far out of the mainstream, it may stick out from the crowd, but it won’t generate the positive feelings that it would if it were within the boundaries of the top logo trends that are hitting the market. With that in mind, here are six top logo trends that we are seeing both with our clients and across the industry:
- Flat Designs Retain Their Strength. When Microsoft released its latest new logo, the design was flat with no shading or 3-dimensional effects. The result is a logo that is straightforward, maintains its integrity and brand equity, and looks good across all channels and in all sizes. It’s also easy to print and reproduce. A flat design shows off the brand and colors well and shows off the brand in its simplest form.
- Negative Space is Your Friend. Pinterest, Instagram, Toyota and scores of other iconic brands all use negative space – sometimes with hidden shapes and symbols includes. As an article in Lifebuzz.com reveals, the three ellipses in the Toyota logo represent the heart of the automobile, the technology, and the customer. More importantly, negative space can draw attention to the brand in a way that is memorable and different.
- Stacking is Back. For many years, the logo with letters had to be simple initials in a simple design. But as a way to grab attention in a way that stands out and is easy to see and absorb, stacking can be a strong alternative – often with different fonts for each word. This offers a solid way to highlight different fonts to challenge viewers while giving them something they can quickly comprehend. Here’s an example of a recent refresh (minus the different fonts) from the American Library Association.
- Turning a Flat Logo Up a Notch. One recent trend is taking otherwise flat logos and adding a two-tone approach to add depth to the color but also to give it a hint of three-dimensionality. Dividing symmetrical images into two “zones” of shading gives depth and visual interest to a flat design. It can also add a symbolic touch to convey the brand’s core mission and direction. Check out how Pineapple Resorts turned its logo up a notch to make it more distinctive.
- Go Wide. Shapes that elongate from right to left are thought to be more recognizable for humans that narrow, tall images. With online platforms (such as websites and social media) favoring a wide design, strong brands are turning to this approach with their logos. When combined with contemporary fonts and colors, it can also convey a brand that is on the move and ready to dominate its market.
Want to explore how to apply top logo trends to your brand? Bluetext can help.
As every top branding agency knows, the brand style guide is a key component in a brand’s visual identity. It sets out how brand elements, including color palette, imagery, iconography, and layout should be incorporated into every piece of collateral or content that represents the brand. In essence, it’s the brand bible for every designer and marketer in the organization.
Yet, for a typical top branding agency, it’s often an afterthought. Only after the new brand elements are designed, options are provided to the client, the visual identity is applied to the website, collateral templates, and signage, and all is approved, does the team turn to the style guide. And even then, it is often lacking in the type of detail and content that will make it useful for more than a brief period. It needs to be thorough and future-proof.
Let’s face it: The brand style guide isn’t the sexy or fun part of the project. Oftentimes, it’s delivered as a thinly printed document and other times as a PDF with limited detail. We understand that digging through a lengthy document to find out precisely how to use the logo, fonts, and imagery can be frustrating. Here, then, is the Bluetext guide to a good – and useful – brand style guide.
- Make sure the style guide is comprehensive. The goal of the guide is consistency, in how the brand is represented regardless of platform, outlet or venue. It will be used by a wide variety of people, ranging from employees to partners to media. This doesn’t mean it has to cover every random or infrequent scenario, but more detail works in your company’s favor.
- Go deep in coverage. Even the term “brand guide” is sometimes misleading. While it is important to include details on the specific usage of a creative asset, such as how much white space needs to pad a logo or how a logo should play out depending on the background color, this should be only a part of the what the guide includes. Don’t neglect core brand-building guidelines, such as what the organization’s tone and voice need to be in different contexts, or how employees should use branded imagery on social media. Provide enough detail so that anyone reading the brand guide from cover to cover will feel like an expert on every aspect of the brand.
- Update the guide on a regular basis. With the prevalence of eBooks, articles, and infographics, brands are experiencing a faster rate of evolution than ever before. That means it is important to do a regular review of the guide to keep it up to date.
- Make it easy to find, share, and update. Many style guides look great in a printed, bound volume. But those are hard to find, hard to distribute, and really hard to keep updated. And if the brand guide requires time and money to update, executives will be reluctant to refresh the guide to match their evolving brand until they absolutely have to.
Our recommendations as a top branding agency: Make the style guide a dynamic window to your brand. Include intangible elements that come from the brand’s core message platform, like tone, voice and the types of language to use. Use a digital platform that is easy to share and easy to update. Make it comprehensive. And make sure you review it at least once a year.
Style Guide Examples:
Learn How Bluetext Can Help With All of Your Branding Needs!
In scanning the marketing headlines this past week, it is clear to me a theme is emerging about how CMOs are viewing their evolving role and the need to think business first, and marketing second.
So what does that mean exactly? For HP CMO Antonio Lucio, it means that, “if you want a seat at the top table you need to demonstrate that your efforts are not just about building your brand but about building your business, otherwise you don’t matter.” Lucio was answering a question about the changing role of the CMO at an event hosted by The Economist at the Cannes Lions Festival.
I love that quote; it is a nod to a more holistic view of how CMOs and marketers can strengthen and even expand its purview beyond marketing and advertising. In many ways the CMO must take a business-first rather than a brand-first approach to ensure a seat at the management table. For Lucio, his job as CMO has four separate roles: “chief brand officer, driving capability as chief personal officer of the marketing function, working with other departments “to get shit done” as chief alignment officer and chief storyteller “ensuring everything is aligned to the brand”. Lucio is making the point that the easy road for CMOs to take is the shortest one that builds the brand but fails to take into account how the broader business is impacted.
At the Cannes Lions Festival event, fellow speaker Syl Saller, CMO of Diageo, further supported this perspective by adding that CMOs are always tempted to pursue short term thinking at the expense of a longer-term perspective that includes a “strong vision of the future”.
In a separate article by CNBC.com writer Lucy Handley, Lucio’s comments at the event were once again highlighted: “”The CMO needs to be a business person and a marketer second. If you don’t have a seat at the business table, you really don’t matter. (You must) demonstrate that your efforts are not only building the brand but are building the business.”
CMOs have seen a number of factors disrupt their organizational roles and purviews in recent years, ranging from data analytics tools enabling more precise decision making to the increasingly digital customer journey. All of this does impact how CMOs communicate the brand to target audiences, but also offers an even greater opportunity to positively impact the long-term prospects of the business. In fact Forbes, which recently released its 2017 list of the world’s most influential chief marketing officers, noted that business impact was a key filter in ranking top CMOs this year.
As CMOs “increasingly assume responsibility for driving not just brand but business growth, they have an unprecedented opportunity to affect revenue and customer experience,” notes the Forbes summary. As a result, they’re not only gaining influence within their companies and with top management and boards; they’re “becoming more visible and accessible corporate leaders outside of their organizations,” in part through their “personal brands.”