Logo Design Blog - Corporate Logo Design - Custom Logo Design

A human face can reveal several ideas. Human face logos are becoming more and more popular by the day. This is because a face is easily recognizable and it becomes convenient for the people to remember it. Many companies use human face logos but one must remember that the selection is not random. A lot of thought and innovation goes into the creation of these logos and each conveys a different meaning. In this article I have rounded up a number of logos that have used the human face in a creative way. One has to see them carefully to get the story behind each face.

KFC

KFC is also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken and is based in Louisville, Kentucky. It is a chain of fast food restaurants, famous for its fried chicken. The company was founded in 1952 by Colonel Harland Sanders and the abbreviated version of its name was adopted in 1991. The KFC logo has had the face of the Colonel since its birth and still continues with the same. The face has become the brand identity of the company. In its initial days, his face was a bit serious and he wore a white suit jacket. But now we find the Colonel smiling; he has also exchanged his suit for a cook’s apron. This gives a friendly appeal to the company―they seem to be happy to serve!

Hope For African Children Initiative

Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI) was established in the year 2000. It is a pan-African effort to serve millions of African children, who are either orphaned by AIDS or living with parents who are victims of AIDS related disease.  Apparently the HACI logo looks like the African map but if we look closely, we can see the face of two people facing each other. This stands as the symbol of hope and care that the organization promises to provide.

Goodwill

Goodwill Industries International is a non-profit organization. It provides job training, employment services and other community based programs for people who have any disability, lack of education or job experience. Goodwill is funded by a large network of retail charity stores. The letter ‘G’ in the logo is that of a smiling human face. It suggests that Goodwill spreads happiness by providing relief to all those who need it.

Freidman Psychology Group

Freidman Psychology Group offers psychotherapy to men and women suffering from eating disorder or food and body related problems. It also addresses symptoms related to depression, anxiety and other psychological problems. This logo was designed by Mugar Mihai and consists of two faces in the form of a butterfly.

Starbucks Coffee

Starbucks is the largest coffee retailer in the world with 17,133 stores in 49 countries. The Starbucks logo is as popular with the people as its coffee. The Starbucks Coffee logo has the image of a mermaid with twin-tails and flowing hair. The objective of this logo is to show the alluring effects of Starbucks coffee and attract customers.

Royal Guide Dog’s Association

Royal Guide Dog’s Association is a community service organization which provides Guide Dog Mobility Services to blind and visually impaired citizens of Tasmania. It was established in 1965. This logo has an amazing blend of the face of a man and a dog. It conveys the true objectives of the organization.

Hello-LED

Hello-LED Ltd. is a U.K. based company which supplies energy saving LED lighting bulbs. The company’s logo features a bulb with a human face. This is perfectly in tune with the company’s promise to supply LED bulbs at a consumer friendly rate. The Hello-LED bulbs cost less than similar bulbs manufactured by other companies.

Smart’s Publishing

Smart’s Publishing focuses on the information and marketing tools for the insurance, employee benefits, real estate and title insurance industries. It was established in 1992, when James Whitaker purchased Smart’s Insurance Bulletin, started by Art Smart to report on the California insurance industry. This logo rightly uses a human face with hair like the pages of a book. This idea combines business with human requirements.

Public Broadcasting Service

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was founded on October 5, 1970. It is an American non-profit public broadcasting television service. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia. It has 354 member TV stations in the U.S. which hold collective ownership. The PBS logo also uses the human face, since the company serves to entertain people.

La Cerveteca

In La Cerveteca, you can find information on beer culture and brewing. You can also buy craft beers from different backgrounds or industries that are well-known in the world of beer production. It is an attempt to defend the existence of various regional flavors that are disappearing as a result of standardization of culture. La Cerveteca uses the face of a woman for its logo.

Designing logos is one of the coolest and most challenging jobs. We are introduced to a product by its logo. So it is important that a logo makes a striking first impression, as the old saying rightly points out: “The first impression is the last impression”. In the endeavor to form the right impression, various companies have changed their logos over the years to suit the changing taste of the masses. In this article, we mention a few such companies and the journey of their logo designs … a journey from the old to the new.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is one of America’s biggest online retailers. It was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and launched online in 1995. It begun as an online bookstore but soon expanded into selling of various other products such as DVD, MP3s, computer games, electronic goods, furniture, food and many more. Bezos named his company “Amazon” after the world’s largest river. The original logo of Amazon.com in 1995, showed a river running through the letter ‘A’. The logo was blue in colour and its meaning was obvious. It represented that the company aspired to become the largest retailer and paralleled itself with the world’s largest river. Over the years it underwent minor variations but stuck to the flowing river and the letter ‘A’. In 2000, the company came up with an entirely new logo. The logo presented the name of the company, with an arrow leading from A to Z. This implied two things: firstly, the arrow is in the form of a smile, representing customer satisfaction and secondly, the arrow moves from A to Z, which declares that Amazon.com is an one-stop solution for all that the customer needs.                                                                 

Heineken Beer

Heineken International is a group which owns over 170 beer brands. Among them the two largest brands are Heineken and Amstel. Heineken was first launched in 1868 and today it is sold in 39 countries over the world. The Heineken logo as it appears on the beer bottles is the Star-Heineken logo. It contains the name of the company, with a red star which stands for the company’s brewing quality and authenticity. The logo is quite simplistic and clear in its message but there is a twist in the tale or lets say in the letter ’e’. If one carefully notices, the letter ‘e’ in the logo is slanted. This change was suggested by Alfred Henry Heineken, the grandson of the founder Gerard Heineken. He came up with this creative idea to make the logo more customer friendly and attractive. It worked very well….a friendly beer with a smiling, friendly ‘e’ in its name.

Starbucks

Starbucks is the largest coffee retailer in the world with 17,133 stores in 49 countries. The Starbucks logo is as popular with the people as its coffee. But this logo has a long but interesting history. The mystery that surrounds the logo is about the mermaid like figure that appears at the centre of the logo. The original logo was designed in 1971, was modeled after a 15^th century Norse woodcut and contained the image of a mythical two-tailed mermaid, with a coffee brown colour theme. The objective was to show the alluring effect of Starbucks coffee and flatter the desire of the public. But it raised some controversies because of the bare chest of the mermaid figure in the logo.  This logo continued to be in use, until the company was taken over by Howard Schultz in 1987. The previous logo was remodeled and the bare chest of the mermaid was now covered by her flowing hair, though her navel was still quite visible. The colour scheme was also changed from the coffee brown to a soothing green. A third version of the logo appeared in 1992. It brought the image of the mermaid into focus and her navel was no longer visible. Even the tails of the mermaid were made obscure and it was different from both the earlier logos. In 2008, with the introduction of the Pike Place Roast blend, the company has re-introduced the original logo. Though it is not a replacement of the new Starbucks logo, it appears on the Pike Place Roast cups and bags of coffee beans.                      

MTV

MTV is an American music channel that was launched on 1^st August, 1981. The original purpose of this channel was to play music videos and it also launched the concept of VJs. Today apart from music, the channel broadcasts a number of reality shows and other programs.   The first logo presented by MTV, is unique in its own way and is still remembered by many. The channel was launched with a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. What is interesting here to notice is that the flag on the moon was shown to have the MTV logo on it. True to Neil Armstrong’s immortal words … MTV was “one giant leap for mankind” from the days of radio or jukebox music. The moon man is still used frequently, especially at the MTV awards. Frank Olinsky, along with his Manhattan team created the MTV logo, which still exists and has stood the test of time. Although the logo has gone through subtle changes over the years, the original ‘M’ gives it the flexibility to alter without hampering its basic concept. The logo changes in colour or text within the block ‘M’. Therefore, it gives the logo the liberty to change according to the changing situations or events.

Domino’s Pizza

Domino’s Pizza, Inc. is the world’s second largest pizza delivery corporation. It was founded in 1960, in the United States by Tom Monaghan. Domino’s currently has 7,300 stores in 50 international markets. In 1975, Domino’s introduced its corporate logo, in which the company’s name appeared in red, against two blue rectangles. It is interesting to observe that the present Domino’s pizza logo was presented in 1997 on a very special occasion. The company opened its 1,500^th store outside the United States on the same year. 7 stores were opened in a single day on 5 continents consecutively. The company decided to change its logo as the company itself was undergoing a moderation and the shops were being brightened up. The new Domino’s Pizza logo bears the company’s name in white against a blue backdrop. It has two red rectangles, which carries three white dots. These white dots actually represented the three stores that Tom Monaghan had planned to open years ago.

Kodak

Eastman Kodak is an American multinational company which produces and supplies a huge range of photographic equipments and material. It was established by businessman Henry Strong and its inventor George Eastman. The Kodak logo has a long history of changes, since its first logo which appeared in 1898. Kodak was the first company to bring together its name and looks in the 1907 logo. In 1935, the company used its full name with the red and yellow colour format. It had a yellow background and contained the name of the company in red. In 1960, a curl was introduced at the corner of Kodak’s previous logo.

Is your organization an official non-profit?  Could your organization’s website and logo use a facelift?  Look no further! MyCorporateLogo.com announces its non-profit website and logo redesign contest.  We feel a sense of responsibility to help the community, and the winner of this contest will receive a new website and logo design. Prizes

• Grand Prize – Five Page Website Package and Silver Logo Design Package (Total value $1,648)
• 1st & 2nd Runners Up – Silver Logo Design Package (Total value $149)

Rules

• Must be an official non-profit organization
• To enter, add this sentence to your website or blog, “Give me a new website and logo design and link logo design to http://www.mycorporatelogo.com.”
• Leave a comment below with the following information about your organization:
  • Name
  • Cause
  • Website
  • Why you deserve to win
• May enter during the period of March 1, 2010 – March 31, 2010
• Top 10 organizations are put to a vote from the public. That means you should tell everyone you know when the time comes – Twitter, Facebook, email, word of mouth – you get the point!
• Voting will be open for 2 weeks

So give us the best reason why your site should be chosen, and help your organization’s website get a facelift!

It is sometimes tough to bring the concept of logo designing in the minds of clients. Many had trouble understanding the concept of a “logo”. Some people could at least understand the concept of a design or sketch fee, but did not comprehend the concept of separate logo fee.

Over time, I have gathered some information, which are useful in helping the logo designers get paid for the time necessary to create a logo.

1. Give Clients some Tangible

   You may have a tough time explaining image and identity to your client, but tell your clients that you will be providing them with a camera ready art and a floppy disk with their logo. All of a sudden they can see the light.

2. Give them many Examples

   Give them a list of other business logos along with theirs. When they see other companies that they know, it makes it much clearer in their minds what a logo really is.

3. Don’t give ideas away

   Avoid clients like “Can you show me what it looks like” unless they are willing to give you a deposit. Try to explain your clients that you have some level of education as a designer and that your education wasn’t cheaper. You need to be compensated for your experience and education unless otherwise you are selling yourself short.

4. Time Factor

   Designing is such a profession can be a hit or miss when it comes to how long it takes to be comfortable with a design. Sometimes you can visualize before you start designing, then you can bang it out in half an hour. Others you may struggle for hours before you are happy with it. Add to that the time it takes to meet and show sketches, and you have got a lot of hours invested.

   Make your clients realize what goes into a design and the obvious reasons for being compensated for it. Getting their business done isn’t a reason to design for free.

5. Explain the “recreating an existing logo” fee.

   It’s a little easier to sell a logo when you explain that if they want you to use their existing design exactly as is, you’ll have to charge them to scan it in and make it “plotter ready”. In some instances, it can take just as long to do this as it does to create a new logo.

Try to stress the sheer marketing value of a good logo design from a consumer standpoint; your clients can see the benefits more clearly. As soon as you advise them of a marketing strategy, you are not just giving them advice; you are actually providing them information on how their business can grow.

What is a Logo?

Logo is the visual representation of your company or organization. It is the name, symbol, monogram, emblem, trademark or any other graphic representation designed for easy and definitive recognition by your company audience.

Short History

Logo design has its origin in Greece. Ancient Greeks used symbols, which consisted of one or more letters. These typically represented the initial letters of a person or place for use on stationery and signs. Early Greek coins used to bear the logos of rulers and towns. In the middle ages, similar logos were seen in abundance in commercial use.

Merchants in the thirteenth century used these simple letterforms as trademarks. These early examples of logo design include marks for masons, goldsmiths and nobility. By the 1700s, every trader and dealer had a trademark or stamp.

The industrial revolution caused a dramatic gain in the value and importance of trademarks. By the 1950s, with the emergence of national and multinational corporations, trademarks began to move beyond symbols, using larger design systems to unify all communications, to accomplish identifiable goals.

In today’s world, company logos have become the faces of business. The general audience has become very responsive to logos and their meanings. Because of the diversity of products and services available today, a well planned and thought-out-logo design is very important to a company’s success.

Importance of Logo

Logos trigger people’s memories of previous experiences with the company, leaving a greater impact than words alone can do. Logo itself is the simplest and direct way of promoting a business. It describes a company without lengthy explanation. A well-designed logo will help your business to increase visibility and in turn, sales.

What makes a Good Logo

Don’t be too flashy and try not to include too much information. These can have a negative impact. Complex designs representing all aspects of your business and long tag lines are fine in their place, but not as part your logo. The logo type and imagery should be instantly recognizable, up close and at a distance.

Logos with rich colors and rich illustrations may be difficult to use in certain applications. A good logo design should consider all potential implementations.

Your company logo design should be distinct to make your company stand out of the crowd. Using common or fashionable styles goes against the purpose of having a logo and can even have a negative backlash among your audience, who can view your company as unimaginative.

Logo design is no child’s play. No matter how much the availability of a plethora of graphics-related software that lets you create intriguing shapes and amazing calligraphy with a mere click of the mouse, or the abundance of cheap logo-designing services, thanks to rampant business process outsourcing to third world countries, would try to have us believe that logo design is not a very hard proposition these days, the fact is that such facilities hardly ever produce a logo design that you can really be proud of. A good logo design, nay a ‘great’ one, calls for a good deal of creativity, a lot of thinking, adequate understanding of the business and of course, sufficient skills. Let’s not try to forget that software don’t make a great logo design. It’s the mind of the artist that makes one.

When it comes to logo designs, they elicit mixed reactions from most of us. There are logos that you like, logos that you hate, and then, logos that you just don’t care about. What’s more, the same logo can cause different people to react differently to it. The logo you are going gaga over is one that others may yawn at. To make matters even more complicated, our reaction to a logo changes over time. The logo you thought looked so great when you first saw it years ago, doesn’t look so impressive anymore, right?

Perception of beauty, therefore, is a rather subjective affair that can change over time. However, some logos transcend these barriers and remain etched in our minds forever. Having attained the position of greatness, they remain striking and intriguing even with the passage of time. Generations pass by, but these logos refuse to age.

Let’s face it, not everyone can gift you a logo like that. You need some of the best minds in the industry to have an immortal logo design. A logo should always strive to be an extension of the psyche and ethos of the brand or company it is meant for. It can never be a dissociated piece of art. The right logo designing process will lead to the right logo. And when you get everything right, it is not hard to create a truly great logo!

Companies such as My Corporate Logo follows some of the best business processes to bring you logo designs that easily let you steal a march over your competitors. Working closely with the client, My Corporate Logo goes through multiple iterations before zeroing on that perfect logo design. At My Corporate Logo, the logo design experts will provide the client with at least 3-4 logo design concepts within 24 hours of placing an order. Generally, the final custom logo design is delivered 2-3 business days.

Logo design services at My Corporate Logo are surprisingly affordable. My Corporate Logo dot com is the best online address for professional business logo designs at cost effective prices. Being cheap doesn’t mean that the quality is compromised. It is very easy to come across an online logo design firm. But most of them are just a couple of designers operating without any professional set up or the necessary infrastructure. My Corporate Logo is a logo design firm, specializing in company logo design. Your satisfaction is always guaranteed!

For any business to succeed, branding is the key. The logo is the core aspect of branding that paves the way to a successful business. If you are looking to design a logo for your company, then choose your logo-designing firm carefully. There are thousands of logo designing firms and choosing the reliable and professional designing firm is not very easy. Yet you can always keep an eye on certain things to ensure that you get the most out of your logo-designing firm.

1. Business in the Logo

The logo symbolizes your business. A great business logo is one that can sum up your entire business objectives within itself. People should be able to remember your business when they look at your logo. Just a glance at your logo should bring your products to their minds. For example, the way we think of Nike when we look at the Nike’s “Swoosh”. It is simple, but effective. You can make a complex logo, but if it fails to impress your customers, it does not serve its purpose.

2. Company Symbol

The logo should portray your company. The aim of your company and the target audience should be kept in mind while designing the logo. Your logo represents your company. The faster you understand this fact, the easier it becomes for you to understand your logo. If you idolize class, then your logo should have simple and classy designs and colors. A flashy logo here will be a deterrent to your company.

3. Elegance

Designing a logo is a creative work and it takes the mind of a genius to design a logo that is different yet elegant. Herein lies the secret of your business success. Your logo should be quite different from your competitors yet easy to remember. But make sure that in quest for uniqueness, your logo designer does not end up creating complicated logos, which your customers fail to remember.

4. Indelible Impression

Your logo should possess the quality to remain etched in the minds of the people forever. If you use bright and flashy colors that are in today, they might be obsolete in the years to come. So make sure that your logo designers create a logo for all times and for all ages that will represent your company in the years to come.

Logo designing is a creative job. Make sure your logo designer incorporates the above-mentioned features to make your business logo design unique.

Corporate branding is the need of the hour. Every organization today, needs to promote its brand identity in order to make a lasting impression on the minds of the potential as well as the loyal consumers. As the world has advanced, time to impress clients or customers has become less. So branding has become essential as it helps to achieve the company’s long term goals, sustain customers and clients and create new client base. Successful branding is all about single thing – recognition from customers. It’s about making the customers aware of one company or its products and services in such a way that they would be able to separate the company from its competitors. Branding seeks to increase the product's perceived value to the customer and thus increase brand franchise and brand equity. Brand works as an implied promise of quality level. It may also help increase the price of a product.

Basic branding can be done in various ways, starting from designing an effective logo, web address, visiting cards, letterheads to advertisements in television, media, events, and becoming a sponsor. The most important amongst these is probably the corporate logo. A corporate logo portrays a company’s identity, aims and objectives. It acts as an important tool for the promotion of a company’s culture. Corporate logos provide visibility and prominence to organizations by becoming a signature of the company. It goes a long way to explain the kind of service or product, the quality of the service or product and the time delivery. An ideal corporate should be simple, yet convey all the necessary information of the company.

Furthermore, logos an important aspect of branding as they can be used everywhere, on the business cards, letterheads, envelopes, websites and even on the company building. As every individual needs an identity, so does an organization. And a corporate house without a logo would seem like an individual without a face. A professional custom logo design gives a face to any business and makes it more memorable to the customer. Moreover, a well designed unique logo helps a business to gain an extra edge over its competitors. When more than one company is selling same products or services at the same price, consumers often tend to judge the products or services by the infrastructure, the overall look and feel of the company. A neat logo, in this case, helps to convey this belief to the consumers.

Three types of logos are generally used – text logos, symbol logos and combination logos having both texts and symbols. Whichever is used, a corporate logo should always be well researched and rightly selected. It should be simple enough for general customers to remember correctly and at the same time attractive enough to remain in their minds. It should ideally stand apart from the competitor logos and communicate the essential information of the business and its products and services to the consumers and thus create a belief in them. If all these aspects are taken into consideration while choosing a corporate logo design, it would surely go a long way to establish the company’s brand amongst the consumers.

Alison Hulett said, “The logo or trademark is without a doubt the ultimate ‘branding’ tool.” The logo is the entry point to the brand – this statement perfectly defines the position of your company logo and the part it plays in your visual portfolio.

The word “logo” means a name, symbol, or trademark designed for easy recognition. To better understand the place of the logo in organizational branding, it is helpful to look at a little history. The use of logos goes back to the early days of the Renaissance, around the 13th Century. Goldsmiths, masons, paper makers, and potters, were among the first trades people to use marks—pressings into gold, chiseled symbols, watermarks on paper, and simple thumbprints on pottery. Trademarks are still used for the same reason, they were established centuries ago: to provide an easy method for recognizing a particular product. These “marks” made it easier to differentiate a quality product from one that was not well made. The value of the craftsmanship represented in the gold, paper, stonework, pottery, etc., could be expressed through the special, distinctive mark on the product. It’s still helpful to think of a logo in those terms: your logo is your symbol—your mark—of guaranteed authenticity. A simple swoosh on a pair of athletic shoes transforms those modest sneakers into desirable, quality footwear with an unspoken guarantee of “authentic athletic performance.”

Logos are still the front door to products and services today. Uniqueness is key to the success of the identity of a business. The uniqueness of a logotype is of utmost importance to avoid confusion in the market place. The spontaneous perception of the logo increases through the consistency of its presentation.

A good logo provides a recognizable image portraying the quality and professionalism of a business. A professionally designed corporate logo will allow you to create your brand and effectively market your product or service. Your logo should be simple and readable. The viewer should “get it” immediately and be able to get a “sneak peek” into your brand through the mark itself. The challenge then, is to create a logo that is simple and immediate without being boring or institutional. Your logo should convey a sense of emotion and personality. Think of it as the layers of an onion. As you peel each layer—the typography, the symbols, the shapes and textures, and color palette—you learn more and more about the brand, better to say more about the company behind the logo. Your logo should express the appropriate tone and voice articulated in your brand strategy. Since brand consistency ensures that consumers will easily recognize the products, branding is especially important to small and growing businesses.

Your logo should look different than other logos—especially those who share your same market space or prospect base. Having a “me too” logo designs, will weaken your organization’s uniqueness and the differentiation you tried so hard to establish in developing your brand essence. It is always advisable to approach professional branding or designing companies who have proper experience in conceptualizing your company logo and shaping them in reality.

Every logo has a story to tell about its company or organization and its products and services. So it is always advisable to choose your logo wisely because this logo symbolizes the name and brand of your organization. Some popular logos that are identified solely by their symbols are Yahoo’s “Y!” the Nike “Swoosh” and the Google. The attributes of the logo, i.e. its color, shape and design are very important aimed to communicate the image of the company to its customers.

Logo designing is considered to be an important aspect of graphic designing and is an art in itself. Logo-designing firms are specialized in this job and several meetings with these firms help the logo designers to develop an appropriate logo, which symbolizes the true spirit of the company. These logo-designing firms offer a variety of designing options such as vector designs or 3D designs that will help you to choose the best possible logo for your organization.

To ensure that your logo stands the test of time you need to look for the following in your logo:

- Your logo should be unique and different from any other logos of your industry or different industry.

- Your logo should be consistent in any media. The logo should hold its color, shape and design across a variety of media.

- Easily recognizable amongst thousands of other logos.

- Your logo should explicitly represent the vision of your organization.

Creation of a brand and corporate identity involves a lot of hard work. Thus a logo works in two ways: not only does it earn profit when you make a sale, but also assists in brand promotion when the customer uses it and tell others to buy it. This is the power of a strong logo. Thus, a well-designed logo is the most valuable thing for a company that can help them to reach new heights.