Top 10 Logo Trends of 2011

The most difficult part of branding a company is designing the logo that’s going to catapult you into the level of well known companies. Also, with every new year, comes a whole new set of trends that one must follow to keep up with the young and hip designer crowd that keeps coming up with ever new and exciting graphic design. While a competent designer should be able to keep up with the Joneses, it sometimes seems as if doing so is a job unto itself! This year though, it seems as if the trends are more of the same, with some new twists thrown in for the sake of calling it new. The logos are perhaps new, but the ideas and practices behind them are not.

1. Conceptual Logos.

FedEx had massive success with their hidden message within their logo, so many other designers jumped on the bandwagon and started doing the same thing. It makes for quite the interesting array of design!

This is one of my favorites. It’s PINK of course, but it’s also taking an exotic animal and using the profile of a horse, a common yet beautiful farm animal and turning it into a successful logo. It gets the point across.

This is pretty cool, but I think they could’ve done a better job. You see the phone in there? It’s fun how they manipulated the type to get that shape, though I absolutely hate the font.

This is pretty cool, though somewhat of a stretch. The feathering of the child’s hair doesn’t match the rest of the hand. But what evs!

2. Signature Logos

I’m pretty sure this isn’t new, since they’ve been around Childe Harold Wills designed the Ford Logo in 1909, but it seems to be skyrocketing as a common occurrence in the last year.

This is probably my favorite of the modernized Signature logos. It’s almost like ribbons dancing in the air, or a stylistic version of just his regular signature instead of being a typeface. This next logo is wonderful too. It just makes me happy to look at it.

The muted colors are also very nice to look at. Makes for a great business card!

3. 3D Logos.

Personally, I think 3D Logos are ugly, but if it works for the company, then it works. But on a whole…they’re usually not executed well. These are examples of some that are.

4. Minimalism.

This is a nobrainer – minimalism has been around since the 60s when the Bauhaus came around. Somehow I’m wondering why this was even noted in the trends for this year, but I suppose more people ARE moving away from busy, or even colored logos.

To be Continued!

 

Alternative Graphic Design

If you’re like me, then you like to surround yourself with design. On the walls of my bedroom, I have stylized posters of major cities with all their neighborhoods mapped out in words from Ork Posters. You can check them out here if this interests you at all. Anyhoo, after perusing the internet for a little bit, I came across these amazing design posters, that I think is a great addition to anyone’s collection.

This poster by this guy on Flickr is amazing.

Here’s an example of Ork’s Posters for your reference. This is actually the exact poster in my bedroom. Its screen printed on a heavy cardboard and framed in a dark wood frame. It’s very intricate and the typography is just amazing.

Ork LA Poster

Ork Chicago Poster

I also coincidentally have a t-shirt of the Chicago poster in black. They’re very well made. Ork makes a lot more than just posters though, so definitely check them out at their warehouse store. The store is hard to find the first time, but definitely worth the search.