What is Logo?


A logo is a graphical element (ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon, sign) that, together with its logotype (a uniquely set and arranged typeface) form a trademark or commercial brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition. The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities.

Today there are many corporations, products, services, agencies and other entities using an ideogram (sign, icon) or an emblem (symbol) or a combination of sign and emblem as a logo. As a result, only a few of the thousands of ideograms people see are recognized without a name. It is sensible to use an ideogram as a logo, even with the name, if people will not duly identify it. Currently, the usage of both images (ideograms) and the company name (logotype) to emphasize the name instead of the supporting graphic portion, making it unique by its letters, color, and additional graphic elements.

Ideograms (icons, signs, emblems) may be more effective than a written name (logotype), especially for logos being translated into many alphabets; for instance, a name in the Arabic language would be of little help in most European markets. An ideogram would keep the general proprietary nature of the product in both markets. In non-profit areas, the Red Cross (which goes by Red Crescent in Muslim countries) is an example of an extremely well known emblem which does not need an accompanying name. Branding aims to facilitate cross-language marketing. The Coca-Cola logo can be identified in any language because of the standards of color and the iconic ribbon wave.

Some countries have logos, e.g. Spain, Italy, Turkey and The Islands of The Bahamas, that identify them in marketing their country. Such logos often are used by countries whose tourism sector makes up a large portion of their economy.

Logo design is an important area of graphic design, and one of the most difficult to perfect. The logo (ideogram), is the image embodying an organization. Because logos are meant to represent companies' brands or corporate identities and foster their immediate customer recognition, it is counterproductive to frequently redesign logos.

Due to the design, the color, the shape, and eventually additional elements of the logotype, each one can easily be differentiated from other logotypes. For example, a box of Kellogg's cereals will be easily recognized in a supermarket's shelf from a certain distance, due to its unique typography and distinctive red coloring. The same will be true when one is at the airport looking for the booth of the Hertz Rent-A-Car company. The logotype will be recognized from afar because of its shape and its yellow color.

Some well-known logos include Apple Inc.'s apple with a bite missing, which started out as a rainbow of color, and has been reduced to a single color without any loss of recognition. Coca Cola's script is known worldwide, but is best associated with the color red; its main competitor, Pepsi has taken the color blue, although they have abandoned their script logo. IBM, also known as "Big Blue" has simplified their logo over the years, and their name. What started as International Business Machines is now just "IBM" and the color blue has been a signature in their unifying campaign as they have moved to become an IT services company.

There are some other logos that must be mentioned when evaluating what the mark means to the consumer. Automotive brands can be summed up simply with their corporate logo- from the Chevrolet "Bow Tie" mark to the circle marks of Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, to the interlocking "RR" of Rolls-Royce each has stood for a brand, and clearly differentiated the product line.

Other logos that are recognized globally: the Nike "Swoosh" and the Adidas "Three stripes" are two well-known brands that are defined by their corporate logo. When Phil Knight started Nike, he was hoping to find a mark as recognizable as the Adidas stripes, which also provided reinforcement to the shoe. He hired a young student (Carolyn Davidson) to design his logo, paying her $35 for what has become one of the best known marks in the world (she was later compensated again by the company).

Another logo of global renown is that of Playboy Enterprises. Playboy magazine claims it once received a letter at its Chicago, Illinois offices with its distinctive "bunny" logo as the only identifying mark, appearing where the mailing address normally appears.

Corporate identities are often developed by large firms who specialize in this type of work. However, Paul Rand is considered the father of corporate identity and his work has been seminal in launching this field. Some famous examples of his work were the UPS package with a string (replaced in March 2003) IBM, and NeXT Computer.

An interesting case is the refinement of the FedEx logo, where the brand consultants convinced the company to shorten their corporate name and logo from "Federal Express" to the popular abbreviation "Fed Ex". Besides creating a shorter brand name, they reduced the amount of color used on vehicles (planes, trucks) and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in paint costs. Also, the right-pointing arrow in the new logo is a subliminal hint of motion.

A well known Australian logo is the Woolworths apple that is the shape of and w and is green. It represents freshness


Ever wondered what company logos mean and what’s the significance behind them? Wonder no more!

Amazon

You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to  
the customer's face. Wow, that is quite deep.

Eighty20
Eighty-20 is a small consulting company which does sophisticated financial modeling, as well as some solid database work. All their work is highly quantitative and relies on some serious computational power, and the logo is meant to convey it.

People first guess that 20% of the squares are darkened, but that turns out to be false after counting them. The trick is to view the dark squares as 1's and the light squares as 0's. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary.

Kinda like the surreal green screen of The Matrix, they want us to read stuff in binary

 
IBM
Paul Rand (who designed the iconic IBM logo in 1972) designed this 'eye bee M' logo in 1981. I like that they are quite relaxed about the logo, unlike certain other companies who do not like the logo to be tampered with in any way even for internal promotions

SUN
The SUN Microsystems logo is a wonderful example of symmetry and order. It was a brilliant observation that the letters u and n while arranged adjacent to each other look a lot like the letter S in a perpendicular direction. Spectacular
 

Cluenatic
This was a logo created for a puzzle game called Cluenatic. This game involves unraveling four clues. The logo has the letters C, L, U and E arranged as a maze. and from a distance, the logo looks like a key

Eight

This logo is too good. For the name Eight, they have used a font in which each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.