100+ Creative Logo Designs That Will Inspire You

Logo design is a very important part of building your brand’s identity. “Branding” yourself, is the best way to represent who you are and what you are all about. If designed properly, logos can have an enormous impact on your company’s success. In this post, I have assembled an amazing collection of fresh new creative logos for you to be inspired by. I am confident that these new logo designs will get your creative juices flowing. So with no further ado here is your latest dosage of beautifully designed logos. Enjoy!

Why A Great Logo Design Is All In The Metaphor

Whether you are after a logo for your business, website, or perhaps just a personal blog, coming up with a great design is not as simple as most would think. The process of moving from concept to finished design is time consuming and requires the consideration of many different elements before the final result is ready to be unveiled.

A good logo design will rely on you being able to produce a logo that says everything you want it to about your business or website or blog. Whether it is for business or personal use, it should convey to those who see it what you do as well as a sense of trust and credibility. Trying to incorporate all of these things into one single image may sound complex, but it is really about creating a logo design that will get people’s attention and tell them what they want to know in an instant.

The use of metaphor is often prevalent when it comes to logos. Some of the cleverest designs use metaphors or symbols to represent their business, take Apple for instance. The choice of metaphor could be representative of a name or the products or services offered. The point is a clever use of metaphors will tell your audience instantly what you are about or who you are without the need for explanation.

Your choice of metaphor could be perfectly simple, a hairdresser could use a pair of scissors for instance, or it could be more complex, a company offering global communication systems could use an image of the world with images of communication devices connected around it. The idea is to find something representative of what you do or offer which will appeal to your target audience.

This last point is important because if you get your logo design wrong you could attract the wrong type of people and if people come to you looking for something completely different, then you will know you have got it wrong!

Once you feel you have found the perfect metaphor for your logo there are several other elements that will need to be considered in conjunction with it when it comes to creating a final (and effective) design:

Consider the overall design

With any logo design, the creative process does not end with just the selection of an appropriate symbol. The placement of images and text within the overall design will all have a bearing on how it is read and understood. Add to this a little color psychology and you will realize that successful logo designing relies on the coming together of many different elements.

Keep things legible

Do not try to be too ambitious with your choice of metaphor, if a logo cannot be understood at first glance then it will likely fail. Too many logos are overly complicated or use imagery that is so ambiguous it would take a genius to understand its meaning! Create some designs and then test them through a focus group to see which achieves the desired results. If your focus group members cannot understand a particular logo design then you know it is a lemon!

Test scalability

There is little point in having a logo if it is not used to full effect. To get anything back from your logo design you need to place it on everything your target audience will come into contact with. This includes stationery, websites, blogs, signage, advertising, and promotional items. However, all of these things will range in size from billboards through to pens; so your logo needs to be scalable in order for it to successfully transfer across different media. Be sure to look at how your designs work when reproduced in both large and small sizes and in particular how complex designs appear when reproduced in very small.

Creating a good logo design is not something you should aim to do overnight and by the same token avoid DIY logos, they are rarely successful. Working in conjunction with a professional design company will help you to create a logo that is the perfect metaphor for your business or website. Do not underestimate the power of a logo, it is essential for branding purposes and for creating awareness of what you have to offer. By incorporating a clear and legible logo into your offerings you will have something which is instantly recognizable and readily associated with you.

Want more articles on logo design? Check out some of my previous posts:

29 Fantastically Simple Fashion Logos

Logo Design: What We Can Learn From America’s 15 Largest Companies

Creating Social Media Logos: 20 Great Examples

10 Most Iconic Logos

Why A Great Logo Design Is All In The Metaphor

Building a Small Business Brand: Why Your Logo Matters?

What Makes An Effective Logo?

Launched Design

[adsense]

Laura Zacarias

Worlds of Work

Drupalr

Bullen Tea

Walkabout

Tunboy

cc

Camo King

[adsense]

Jigit

ThinkMaze

D’Alice Chocolates

Lion Rock

JM Logo

Tunboy

SQRL

Cupid IQ

GreenHouse

Imagine AdVenture

Tranton Sea Food

The Chaai

Wildlife Studios

High Peek Images

[adsense]

Nique (mark)

Plesso

Think Box

JV2

Kineda

Tierney

Logo Milk

First Presbyterian Church

La Bastilla

Billy Turf

Evoke

Try Stuff

Sweet Toof bakery

The Beauty Status

Flight Group

Personal logo

PinPoint

Plymouth Rockies

Calceom

VOID

Tincau Nicolae

Terravant

Webtangle

Globus

Skyppuccino

Huma Publication

Klavierwerkstatt 443

Sweet Toof bakery

Lovetoknow

Nomade

RABBX

Mermelada de Sesos

Paroo

Iron Guerrilla

Ninho

Woodztream

Valentsev

Moore Wrinn Financial

Paliciuc

Pacific Fish Grill

TM Lapsha

Buggieboy

International Commodities

20 Cool Illustration Logo Designs That Will Truly Inspire You

A logo design will set an impression for the company it represents. It’s the cover that will be judged if your business were a book, so to speak. I’m sure you’re aware of how important the look of a logo can be. Amidst the variety of design styles for logos, I would like to turn your attention to illustrative logo designs.

An illustration is simply a visual depiction created by an artist. When used in logo design they can be powerful representations of animals, people, or objects. As someone who loves logos, and is a bit of a vector art nerd, logos that have illustrations get me particularly excited. For one, they’re usually limited in the number of colors used. This is impressive because the artist breaks up an image into shadows, highlights, and detail, using only three to five colors. Gradients are sometimes to help give the illusion of depth.

Something else cool about illustrative logos is that they’re usually based on cartoons. If you’ve ever tried to draw a cartoon, at first it’s a bit challenging. Like most things, it takes practice and study. Using that skill in graphic design, you can trace a cartoon into a vector image, and boom – you’re getting an illustration that can be used as a logo. Of course, that’s the short of it.

Illustrations have an artistic liveliness to them. That’s why we see them mostly in athletic logos or ones geared towards children. Occasionally a business will use an illustration in their logo, the payoff being a bolder image in their market and instant mascot.

I’ve gathered together twenty of my favorite logo designs that include illustrations. Notice how shapes in the images create lights and shadows. Can you recognize a cartoon underneath the simplified shapes? I hope you find them as fascinating and inspiring as I do.

Gamma Ray Toys

PuckDaddy’s Killer Q

York University Lions

Iron Horse Marathon

The Milkman Brand

Windy City Brawlers

Barewa Rugby

Silverland

Genius Bar

Secret Path

Funky Monkeys

Titan

Bombolo

Altas Horas Bar

Blog4Dog

Indian River

Tosik

iceBear

Meu Doce

10 Most Iconic Logos

When a company establishes a great logo you can recognize them just from sight. These logos are among the most iconic and well-known logos throughout history.

Apple products

With the passing of Steve Jobs, many have read up on the innovative genius who changed modern-day electronics. The logo of an apple missing a bite was created in 1976 with the slogan “Byte into an Apple.” Since then the logo has changed in color—from rainbow to silver—and can be spotted in most households.

The Nike Swoosh

Think about the Nike Swoosh for a second and what comes to mind? Chances are it’s a champion athlete. Nike was named after the Greek goddess Nike, who was the goddess of victory. This logo appears on apparel, shoes, sporting goods and anything else dealing with great athletes.

Coca Cola

The Coca Cola script is unmistakable making it one of the most recognizable logos in the world. Walking down a grocery store isle one can easily identify a bottle of Coke from other brands by the color and font. This logo has changed little over the years and has been a trademark for Coke’s success.

Facebook

Look on any computer or phone and more often than not a Facebook icon will be present. With over 800,000 unique visitors a month Facebook took the 2^nd most popular website on the planet in 2011.

The New York Yankees

You may not know how many outs are in an inning, what ERA stands for, or who the “Sultan of Swat” is but you know about the Yankees. The Yankees are an organization synonymous with winning and have a famous baseball logo that inspires fans and fellow players.

Google

The most visited website in the world has a constantly evolving logo that is unlike any. The logo changes for certain holidays, birthdays, special events and then reverts back to its original some time later. Not many companies can get away with this, but Google can.

The Cross or Crucifix

For over 2,000 years this logo has been inspiring and motivating people all over the world. Not only is it recognized everywhere but its beauty lies in the simple nature of the symbol. Whether the cross is on a necklace or on top of a church this logo is perhaps one of the world’s most popular ones.

The Red Cross

Designed in 1863 Geneva, Switzerland this logo has been a symbol for healing hands. The 97 million volunteers have worn the red cross across the world advertising their noble efforts. This logo is welcomed by all because it brings help to those in need.

Bass Ale

Often called the world’s “most famous trademark” the Bass red triangle has been around for over 100 years. The logo became England’s first registered trademark in 1875 and has since remained unchanged. The simple geometric shape made this company world famous and showed others the genius of a logo. Bass Ale is considered by many as a pioneer in international brand marketing.

Olympic Rings

Since its inception in Ancient Greece the Olympics have been a symbol of competition among the greatest athletes. But it wasn’t until 1912 when the Olympic Rings were commissioned and a logo was born. The rings originally represented unity among the five inhabited continents of the world (North and South America counted as one).

How To Redesign A Logo

No matter how small a logo might seem, it plays a great part in making a brand; the influence a logo has online is huge. Redesigning a logo is even more complicated than creating it. Even if a good logo is a logo that never gets outdated, sometimes a change in it can be a good thing, an improvement. Redesigning a logo is a part of a company’s attempt to revitalize its activity from time to time.

Designing a completely different logo would be a change too radical, it would harm the brand. It takes a long time for people to get used to a logo and to make the connection between the logo, the company and the product; once this level is achieved, a radical change might confuse the clients. Redesigning a logo is the best way to go, the logo will maintain the basic characteristics and it will adapt to modern trends, or it shows a change of attitude. Any logo designer knows that redesigning a logo is sometimes just as hard, even harder than designing one. The process of redesigning is different for every designer, but there are certain things that need to be done to assure a quality final product. This article shows you a way to redesign, I can’t promise it is a recipe for success but the steps I will present are definitely useful to any logo designer. I value my reader’s input so if you feel the need, do not hesitate to use the comment form.

1. Understanding the customers’ demands

No matter how hard you work to obey the rules and follow the right steps when redesigning if the customer is not satisfied, your work is in vain. The thing you need, in order to have successfully redesigned, is your customer’s satisfaction. The thing you first do when you redesign is asked your customer about his business, understand him and his expectations and learn more about the way he wants to grow or change his business and what is the logo supposed to suggest. Although this may seem unimportant to some people, I can assure you that it is the key to a successful project. For every domain, there are certain ways of designing a logo, appropriate to that domain (for example if you are designing a logo for a medical center you should avoid the color black and other aggressive colors; it is better to go with colors that are soothing to the eye).

Every client has a different view on the changes he needs doing and you have to respect his ideas and wishes and insert them in the logo, but at the same time, you need to respect the laws of design.

2. Studying the client

Once you know what the client wants from you, you need to study his domain and find out what kind of logos his competitors. Although these steps are similar to those you take when designing a logo, this time you are just refreshing what you know about the client’s business. To be more precise, at this point the designer has to think about what needs to be changed, added, or removed from the logo, not how to create it. As I mentioned before, the need for a logo to be redesigned appears when something in the client’s business changes: these changes are supposed to influence the way the logo will look. Good examples I can give you are car logos; over the last decade, all car producers added metallic shades to their logos. This touch means modern technology, innovation, and elegance. The fine lines and the carefully polished edges of these logos send a message to the customers, that their cars will be just as refined.

3. Studying the competition

Any domain has certain common lines for its logos. It would be a mistake to ignore these lines. On the other hand, using only these common lines would also be a mistake. Once it is redesigned, a logo must be just as efficient as its predecessor, but with better graphics. A good logo must not only depend on the trends, but it mustn’t ignore them either.

In conclusion, it is not a waste of time to study the competition’s logos.

4. Clarifying changes and prototypes

Up to this point, the designer already has a sketch in mind for the logo. Just like when you are creating a logo, a pencil is a great tool. Sketching the project on a piece of paper can be very useful for every designer. This helps with coming up with the concept, not the graphic realization. Sometimes the graphic realization is the most important thing but sometimes the idea is the main thing, there are a number of great, uncomplicated logos.

The greatest challenge of redesigning is sticking to the main lines of the logo; this can be tricky but any logo designer knows that sometimes freedom is the greatest enemy of imagination; sometimes you just need a challenge.

In conclusion, any pencil sketch is of great use, you can focus on the concept and the fact that you can easily erase or change things when you draw on paper is another advantage. You can be more creative this way.

5. The final meeting with the client

Although time doesn’t always allow for it, I recommend taking a breather after finishing a logo; it helps with having an objective view of your work. Depending on the client, the designer presents the evolution of the logo and the result and they hope that the client will be satisfied with the final product. Sometimes in order to get there, you may have to repeat steps or even the entire process. But with practice, you will get better at getting it right the first time.

These steps are important and useful but without hard work and a lot of time spent on your computer, all of this is just talk. Creating a logo and redesigning it is a lot of work and effort but once you get some experience things to get easier. I would like and appreciate your input on this matter, any suggestions and ideas are more than welcome.

Great Examples of Redesigned logos

UPS Logo

Pfizer logo

at&t logo

bp logo

NBC logo

KFC logo

Google logo

Burger King logo

CISCO logo

CITROEN logo

Chiquita logo

Seattle’s Best Coffee

Cadillac logo

Audi logo

Discovery Channel logo

Kraft Logo

Jack In The Box logo

Toys”R”us logo

Great Examples of Logo Design

Zepelin Artes

Portofino Yachts

cheap flight travel agency

Vivid Ware

Leo Lima

Buteko 16

Fildzz

Lume construtora

Chalk & Talk Logo

Flo Entertainment Logo

Veritas Wave

Montanhes Imóveis

golden maids

JFX

ProsperousCopy

LIT

CWB

jeti snowboard club

napoleon sushi

twa

Art Corner

Burneat

Tickets Fan

Heidi Mottram

happy lama

Fusion Freeze Creamery

Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Icon Design

Designing an icon can be tricky as it is very important to balance good design and color with clarity. An icon no matter how artistically designed will lose its value if it does not communicate to the viewer.

Effective icon designs

1. Create a theme: Although it is important for icons to stand out from each other, it is important to include a common design element. These elements can be based on color, perspective, size or light and shade.

2. Keep it simple: The function of an icon is clearest when the least number of elements are used in the design. Adding too many elements or trying to make the icon look realistic might make it too complicated to understand thereby defeating the purpose.

3. Consistency in shadows, light and reflection: Ensure that all the icons in the group are consistent with each other. If the light is acting from a specific direction, use the same direction for all other icons and add shadows and reflections accordingly. Use a simple perspective and ensure that all icons are drawn from the same angle.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Ambiguous and disarrayed designs: The efforts to create a set of icons that follow a theme may go waste if the icons look too similar. This will confuse the viewer and won’t serve the purpose. Similarly, if icons are too different from each other, the output will not be aesthetically pleasing and can be off-putting.

2. Cluttered icons: Adding too many elements or unnecessary design in the icon can confuse and irritate the viewer. The icon should be equally clear when resized. As icons are usually very small in size, it is important to keep it clean and easily understandable.

3. Unclear metaphors: While taking the creative approach to icon designing could get you great results; they may not always be as effective. Ensure that the designs you choose for icons are universally recognizable.

Want to learn more on how to design Icons from scratch, check out these 100+ amazing tutorials!

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How to Create an Alarm Clock Icon

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How to Create A Swanky Coffee Table Icon in Photoshop

How to Design a Custom Newspaper Icon – Vector Plus Tutorial

New Quicktime Icon in Photoshop

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Draw a Speaker Icon in Photoshop Part 1

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Design a Stylish Mail Icon in Photoshop

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How to Create a Golden, Vector Compass in Illustrator

Create an Adobe Box Icon in Photoshop

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Create a Fun Icon of Frozen People on Ice – Part II

Icon Design Tutorial – Designing a New Icon In Illustrator

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Create a Dock Icon Folder in Photoshop

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Create a Stylized GPS Icon

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Design a Vector Audio Speaker Icon In Illustrator

Create an iMac – Design Your Desk – Part 2

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How to Create a Van Icon in Photoshop

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How to Create a Gearbox Settings Icon Using Simple Shapes

How to Create a Transparent Battery Icon

Craft a Delicious Chinese Food Icon

Draw a Classy 3D Poker Chip in Photoshop

In this tutorial we are going to illustrate a 3D Poker Chip in Adobe Photoshop starting from scratch. New Photoshop users should consider running through our Pen Tool guide first! – By Federico Sportelli

Create a Cute Panda Bear Face Icon

Lately, I have been working on some children illustrations, creating some über cute creatures. In the following easy tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a cute panda bear face icon all from ellipses (well, actually there is one rectangle for the background). – Via vectips.com

paint brush logo icon in Photoshop

Today I will show you how to create a Photoshop design paint brush logo icon in photoshop. – Via tutorialagent.com

panic button logo icon in photoshop

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Glossy Black Button Icons

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How to Create a Moka Express Icon

Cubite graphics icon

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Create a High-Gloss Graduation Hat Icon Design

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How to Create a Magic Wand Icon

MP3 player icon

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Creating A Vector Style MacBook From Scratch

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Sony playstation Icon

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Make a 3D Vector Film Roll, Drawn In Perspective

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Simple Coffee Cup Icon Photoshop Tutorial

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Halloween Pumpkin Icon

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Photoshop Video Game Mario Icon

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Sleek Icon Design

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Design a 3D Box Icon in Photoshop

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