50+ Kick Ass Logos for Inspiration

Nick Daniel

Not to long. Just play with photoshop and Illustrator.

brett lemay

I disagree. I HATE concrete logos. The abstract/symbolic is my type. To me a literal picture is not a logo…it is clip art.

the thing about the logo is it is only as good as the effective marketing plan that it goes with.
A company would only let their abstract logo stand alone once the company is at a point that the public knows what it is about and knows what the ‘meaning’ is already…then the logo stands there to REPRESENT/SYMBOLIZE the company. When someone sees it, they automatically know what it means…because they relate it to the product they already know about.

Some of the most famous, and oldest, logos in the world are the chevy symbol and the golden arches of mcdonalds. And these are LARGE, leading corporations.

What kind of meaning does the chevy symbol convey?! NOTHING! Its just a random abstract shape….but I bet that almost everyone in north america knows what it means when they see it… and boy is it effective. Same as Mcdonalds. When I see those golden arches, my mouth waters and I think to myself “bah bah bah bah bah…I’m lovin’ it!”
THATS a logo. and that’s where I hope my company to be one day.

Sure, if your plumbing company had a logo that was just a picture of a wrench, it would show what the company is about…but boy is that lame…cliche, non-original, and very literal which is boring. its just clip-art really.

people that always think everything has to have meaning, are concrete thinkers, harp about practicality all the time, etc etc, really make my inner artist annoyed. Yes, the logo must have a FEELING that is condusive to the goal of the company, but it does not have to INTELLECTUALLY convey a concrete message. Most of the logos on that page makes me FEEL a certain way when I look at it, and that feeling corresponds to the product associated with that company. now that is way better than just concretely demonstrating what the company does. and its harder to do. Think outside the box.

But, yes, there are many types of logos out there, so I guess your prefered style is more of a word mark or realistic mark/branding, where I prefer a symbolic/abstract mark or a nice emblem. Depends on the type of company/marketing plan/goal too I suppose. But generally I thinl these logos are pretty good. Not all, but many.

-B

Kristof

I agree, but only to a point.

A logo design should help communicate what a business does or the benefit their service provides, otherwise it’s just wallpaper. But logos are rarely displayed void of other business information — be it a website, marketing materials or even something as simple as a slogan. Heck, even design annuals include the client name and text description of what the business does — and that makes a huge difference.

So posts like this, sans any other information, are displaying the designs without context. That said, I don’t think the majority of these designs are exemplary.