Logo Design Trends

Logo Lounge, a large searchable database of logo designs, just released its Logo Trends report. It's a fascinating take on key trends in brand and identity creation. We've summarized their analysis below.

Tumbled

Over-easing of the edges with kinder, softer corners.

Parallelogram

The nature of the oblique shape gives it a sharp, aggressive attitude.

Outline

Drawing attention with a highlight outline in most of these cases adds a nice touch or serves a functional purpose.

Modern religion

These logos tend to reinforce the design fraternity's infatuation with rich symbolism.

Neo vintage

Imagery that was plucked from the last century seems to be fair game here.

B/W hipster

These logos do a smart job of targeting this group by combing otherwise traditional components in a counter traditional way.

Phonetic

These graphics rely on some convenient abbreviating that leaves wordsmiths wriggling with pangs, like a set of scales requiring adroit attention to level them.

Blurple

Extreme eye-popping, chroma-screaming applications like Instagram continue, but the trend here is the adoption of subtlety.

Gold

Gold, used properly, still carries a 14K level of prestige, elegance, and sophistication like no other color.

Fatty fade

This is an analog gradient that's fresh and vibrant to a new generation of eyes with a hint of retro for a kicker.

Linear fade

Because of the channels, these marks appear much more grounded and don't exhibit the same flood of intense color found in Fatty Fades.

Field lines

Big, fat, burly Kevlar-plated line work is what happens when traditional monoline design starts bulking up for its next role in Logo the movie.

Cut

Embellish a letterform, and you're just improving; but remove a stroke here or there, and you'll be issued a cease and desist notice without apology.

Serif redux

The rebrand of Chobani at the leadership of Leland Maschmeyer, brought warmth, humanity and unapologetic charm to a product previously lingering behind a futuristic sans serif.

Punctuation

Planting a fleck or a speck at the end of a name is much more than a stylish affliction. These periods, commas, colons, and more are opening a previously unconsidered dialogue with consumers.