You’ve come up with a brilliant business idea, thought of the company name and now all you need is the perfect logo to show it to the world. There is a plethora of logo designs out there and countless routes that you can take before finally arriving at the logo that will represent your brand.
To give you a great start into that process, I’ve compiled a list of the 5 most common logos to hopefully help you make that process painless and easier!
1. Wordmark
Also known as logotype, a workmark is the simplest form of a logo, designed by the brand’s name in text alone. They are usually set in a specific font (handwriting, custom fonts, etc) to bring more character and recognizability into the logo.
Examples include: Canon, Sony, Google, Facebook, Skype and Disney.
Workmarks can also be great for a startup as it contains the brand’s full name and that can help with establishing your brand and making it more recognizable.
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2. Lettermark
Also known as a monogram logo, which is self-explanatory. It is also made solely of text but instead of the full brand name, a monogram logo only consist of the initials of the brand.
Great examples include EA (Electronic Arts), HP (Hewlett-Packard), H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) and IBM (International Business Machines).
Lettermarks are great in situations where your brand name is too long or too difficult to pronounce. A shorter, more succinct lettermark logo will help your audience retain memory of your brand, especially in competitive industries.
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3. Brandmark
A brandmark is a logo that only contains a symbol with no text involved. It could be as straight-forward as WWF’s panda or as abstract as Nike’s swoosh. Both logos make use of an emotional image, shape, or graphic that sends an emotional cue to their audience.
More examples include the famous Apple’s apple, Target’s bullseye and Twitter’s bird.
Brandmarks are rather common among some of the world’s biggest brands. When companies get famous enough that a single symbol is all their customers need to recognize them, they often adjust their logo by removing the name and switching to a brandmark.
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4. Combination
A collaboration of a workmark and a brandmark will give you what’s called a combination mark.
Examples include Adidas, Amazon, Lacoste and Rolex.
The best of both worlds, a combination mark is great for start-ups or less well-known companies who are trying to establish themselves in their respective industries. The only downside to a combination mark would be the constraint of reducing the logo to smaller sizes while retaining its recognizability and legibility.
In the case of Adidas, they have overcome this constraint by using their logo elements separately.
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5. Emblem
An emblem is very similar to the combination mark, consisting both text and symbol element in the construct of the logo. However, for a emblem, the text portion is positioned within the symbol.
Great examples include Burger King, Baskin Robbins, UPS and NASA.
Emblems resemble an insignia or a seal, and are great logos for brands that are looking to exude a sense of authority such as educational institutes, sports teams or government agencies.
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