In order to create symbols designed for the soul, expressing profound inner strength and artistic appeal within a small space, giving people a sense of tranquility, gentleness, fullness, and harmony, achieving the effect of silent nourishment, we need to adhere to the following four major design principles in brand logo design.
1. Simplicity and Clarity
A logo is a visual language that requires an instant impact, so the design should be simple, clear, and striking. It must avoid complex patterns or excessive subtlety. This requires designers to demonstrate ingenuity in conception and refinement in technique while ensuring clarity and visibility suitable for various application scenarios. The logo should appear intricate up close and striking from afar, offering good recognizability from all angles and directions. Additionally, designers must consider how the logo will appear across different media to ensure convenient and consistent communication.
Coca-Cola serves as a prime example. Its unique printed script "Coca Cola" is both powerful and memorable, vividly direct and approachable. The dynamic form conveys warmth and charm. For over a century, with its distinctive Spencerian cursive trademark and extensive advertising campaigns, Coca-Cola has remained globally popular and enduring.
2. Novelty and Individuality
Brand logos are meant to express the unique characteristics of a brand and serve as its distinctive mark. To allow consumers to recognize the brand's unique qualities, style, and emotions, the logo design must be exceptional, novel, and original, showcasing the brand's distinct personality. Logos must avoid similarity with others and refrain from imitating other designs. Achieving this requires a thorough understanding of the brand's essence. Creativity is the fundamental principle of logo design, aiming to produce visually striking images through exaggeration, repetition, rhythm, symbolism, and figurative techniques to make the logo easily recognizable and memorable.
IBM’s logo, identifiable by its distinctive blue worldwide, communicates the company's desire to convey reliability and unwavering strength. Designed by Paul Rand in 1956 using a rarely used 1930s typewriter font called “City Medium,” the geometric, serifed typeface resembled earlier Futura logo designs. Updated in the 70s, it remains fresh and individualistic today.
3. Aesthetic Harmony and Spirit Integration
Logos are not only a form of visual art but must also align with aesthetic tastes and conform to aesthetic principles. They should integrate the essence and spirit of the brand, conveying its value proposition. When viewing a logo, people undergo an aesthetic process where they evaluate, analyze, and compare graphic forms against socially recognized objective standards, evoking aesthetic emotion. This emotional response is often expressed through the logo's design. Formal beauty is a significant artistic feature of logos, incorporating points, lines, surfaces, and volumes. Designers, based on their understanding of the brand's vision, mission, and core values, use these elements to create patterns independent of specific material structures, expressing the brand's intrinsic qualities and embodying its spirit.
For instance, Mercedes-Benz’s emblem, a three-pointed star encircled by a circle, can simply be seen as a car's steering wheel, symbolizing the driver's ambition to conquer land, sea, and air. This natural representation not only appeals aesthetically but also integrates the rich essence of the Mercedes-Benz brand, becoming a great symbol that effortlessly conveys excellent taste and remarkable status to car owners.
4. Timeliness and Historical Continuity
As times change or brands evolve, the content and style reflected in logos may no longer align with the rhythm of the times or brand changes. Therefore, logos should be reformed to keep pace with the times. Currently, many global brands abandon outdated visual symbols to clearly showcase their innovative and excellence-seeking spirit, adopting visually strong logos to enhance brand competitiveness. However, staying timely also involves preserving history and highlighting national styles. Only things capable of inheriting history and showcasing national characteristics can easily become spiritual totems, building strong emotional bonds and possessing eternal value. For example, the Mercedes-Benz logo exemplifies timeliness and historical continuity perfectly. Similarly, the iconic Apple computer logo is equally classic.
Additionally, logo design must employ universally understood visual languages, absorbing unique elements of national traditions while striving to create world-recognized symbols that reflect both international and local characteristics. This avoids blind internationalization or excessive pursuit of local features, preventing communication difficulties. Attention should also be paid to cultural taboos across countries and ethnic groups.
Note: This article is excerpted from my book "Brand Acceleration Master." I welcome you to participate in the "Brand Acceleration" research project.
I invite you to discuss your ideas and opinions with the author. Yang Songlin, an outstanding strategist, marketing and branding mentor, pioneer in integrating Western modern management with Eastern classical thought, founder of Positioning Studies and Unified Desireism, creator of Brand Original Energy, and founder and action mentor of the Brand Acceleration Theory. He is also the advocate of the concept "Customers are Lovers." His published works on marketing and branding include "Positioning," "Brand Original Energy," "Customers are Lovers," and "Brand Acceleration Master." He currently serves as a senior consultant for several industrial and consulting companies and is hailed as the most theoretically and practically grounded marketing master. For feedback, please email [email protected].
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