A logo (abbreviation of logotype;
) is a
graphic
Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...
mark,
emblem
An emblem is an abstract art, abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a monarch or saint.
Emblems vs. symbols
Although the words ''emblem'' and ''symbol'' ...
, or
symbol
A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...
used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in a
wordmark
A wordmark or word mark is a text-only statement of the name of a product, service, company, organization, or institution which is used for purposes of identification and branding. A wordmark can be an actual word (e.g., Apple), a made-up term ...
.
In the days of
hot metal typesetting
In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) is a technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mo ...
, a logotype was one word cast as a single piece of type (e.g. "The" in ATF
Garamond
Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular to this day and often used for book printing and bod ...
), as opposed to a
ligature, which is two or more letters joined, but not forming a word. By extension, the term was also used for a uniquely set and arranged
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
or
colophon. At the level of
mass communication
Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large population segments. It utilizes various forms of media as technology has made the dissemination of information more efficient. Primary examples o ...
and in common usage, a company's logo is today often synonymous with its
trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...
or
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
.
[Wheeler, Alina. ''Designing Brand Identity'' © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (page 4) ]
Etymology
Douglas Harper's ''Online Etymology Dictionary'' states that the first surviving written record of the term 'logo' dates back to 1937, and that the term was "probably a shortening of
logogram
In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
".
History
Numerous inventions and techniques have contributed to the contemporary logo, including
cylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
s (),
coin
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...
s (),
trans-cultural diffusion
In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as conceptualized by Leo Frobenius in his 1897/98 publication ''Der westafrikanische Kulturkreis'', is the spread of culture, cultural items—such as ideas, fashion, styles, rel ...
of
logograph
In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chines ...
ic languages,
coats of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic ac ...
,
watermark
A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations i ...
s,
silver hallmarks
A silver object that is to be sold commercially is, in most countries, stamped with one or more silver hallmarks indicating the purity of the silver, the mark of the manufacturer or silversmith, and other (optional) markings to indicate the dat ...
, and the development of
printing technology
Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...
.
As the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
converted western societies from
agrarian to industrial in the 18th and 19th centuries, photography and lithography contributed to the boom of an advertising industry that integrated
typography
Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
and imagery together on the page. Simultaneously, typography itself was undergoing a revolution of form and expression that expanded beyond the modest, serif typefaces used in books, to bold, ornamental typefaces used on broadsheet
poster
A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...
s.
The arts were expanding in purpose—from expression and decoration of an artistic, storytelling nature, to a differentiation of brands and products that the growing middle classes were consuming. Consultancies and trades-groups in the commercial arts were growing and organizing; by 1890, the US had 700 lithographic printing firms employing more than 8,000 people. Artistic credit tended to be assigned to the lithographic company, as opposed to the individual artists who usually performed less important jobs.

Innovators in the visual arts and lithographic process—such as French printing firm Rouchon in the 1840s, Joseph Morse of New York in the 1850s, Frederick Walker of England in the 1870s, and Jules Chéret of France in the 1870s—developed an illustrative style that went beyond tonal, representational art to figurative imagery with sections of bright, flat colors. Playful children's books, authoritative newspapers, and conversational periodicals developed their own visual and editorial styles for unique, expanding audiences. As printing costs decreased, literacy rates increased, and visual styles changed, the
Victorian decorative arts led to an expansion of typographic styles and methods of representing businesses.

The
Arts and Crafts Movement
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
Initiat ...
of late-19th century, partially in response to the excesses of Victorian typography, aimed to restore an honest sense of craftsmanship to the mass-produced goods of the era. A renewal of interest in craftsmanship and quality also provided the artists and companies with a greater interest in credit, leading to the creation of unique logos and marks.
By the 1950s,
Modernism
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
had shed its roots as an avant-garde artistic movement in Europe to become an international, commercialized movement with adherents in the United States and elsewhere. The visual simplicity and conceptual clarity that were the hallmarks of
Modernism
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
as an artistic movement formed a powerful toolset for a new generation of graphic designers whose logos embodied
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...
's dictum, "Less is more." Modernist-inspired logos proved successful in the era of mass visual communication ushered in by television, improvements in printing technology, and digital innovations.
Contemporary logos

The current era of logo design began in the 1870s with the first abstract logo, the Bass red triangle. , many corporations, products, brands, services, agencies, and other entities use an ideogram (sign, icon) or an emblem (symbol) or a combination of sign and emblem as a logo. As a result, only a few of the thousands of ideograms in circulation are recognizable without a name. An effective logo may consist of both an ideogram and the company name (logotype) to emphasize the name over the graphic, and employ a unique design via the use of letters, colors, and additional graphic elements.

Ideograms and symbols may be more effective than written names (logotypes), especially for logos translated into many
alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
s in increasingly globalized markets. For instance, a name written in
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...
might have little resonance in most European markets. By contrast, ideograms keep the general proprietary nature of a product in both markets. In non-profit areas, the
Red Cross
The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
(varied as the
Red Crescent in Muslim countries and as the
Red Star of David in Israel) exemplifies a well-known emblem that does not need an accompanying name. The red cross and red crescent are among the best-recognized symbols in the world. National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their Federation as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross include these symbols in their logos.
Brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
ing can aim to facilitate cross-language marketing. Consumers and potential consumers can identify the
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...
name written in different alphabets because of the standard color and "ribbon wave" design of its logo. The text was written in
Spencerian Script, which was a popular writing style when the
Coca-Cola Logo was being designed.
Logo design
Since a logo is the visual entity signifying an organization, logo design is an important area of
graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...
. A logo is the central element of a complex identification system that must be functionally extended to all communications of an organization. Therefore, the design of logos and their incorporation in a visual identity system is one of the most difficult and important areas of graphic design. Logos fall into three classifications (which can be combined). Ideographs, such as
Chase Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Trade name, doing business as Chase, is an American National bank (United States), national bank headquartered in New York City that constitutes the retail banking, consumer and commercial bank, commercial banking su ...
, are completely abstract forms; pictographs are iconic, representational designs; logotypes (or wordmarks) depict the name or company initials. These elements can be combined in a set position and relative size in a logo lock-up, so named because elements are "locked" together and should not be broken apart or resized individually. Because logos are meant to represent companies' brands or corporate identities and foster their immediate customer recognition, it is counterproductive to frequently redesign logos.
The logo design profession has substantially increased in numbers over the years since the rise of the
Modernist movement in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in the 1950s. Three designers are widely considered the pioneers of that movement and of logo and
corporate identity
A corporate identity or corporate image is the manner in which a corporation, firm or business enterprise presents itself to the public. The corporate identity is typically visualized by branding and with the use of trademarks, but it can also i ...
design: The first is
Chermayeff & Geismar, which is the firm responsible for many iconic logos, such as
Chase Bank (1964),
Mobil Oil (1965),
PBS (1984),
NBC (1986),
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
(2003), and others. Due to the simplicity and boldness of their designs, many of their earlier logos are still in use today. The firm recently designed logos for the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
and the fashion brand
Armani Exchange. Another pioneer of corporate identity design is
Paul Rand
Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer. He was best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, United Parcel Service, UPS, Enron, Morni ...
, who was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of
graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...
. He designed many posters and corporate identities, including the famous logos for
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
UPS, and
ABC. The third pioneer of corporate identity design is
Saul Bass
Saul Bass (; May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Academy Awards, Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and logo, corporate logos.
During his 4 ...
. Bass was responsible for several recognizable logos in North America, including both the Bell Telephone logo (1969) and successor
AT&T Corporation
AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...
globe (1983). Other well-known designs were
Continental Airlines
Continental Airlines (simply known as Continental) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1934 until it merged with United Airlines in 2012. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers.
Continen ...
(1968), Dixie (1969), and
United Way (1972). Later, he would produce logos for a number of Japanese companies as well.
An important development in the documentation of logo design is the study of French trademarks by historian Edith Amiot and philosopher Jean Louis Azizollah.
Logo color

Color is a key element in logo design and plays an important and potentially vital role in brand differentiation. Colors can have immense consequences on our moods. They are remarkably dominant to the point that they can psychologically manipulate perspectives, emotions, and reactions. The importance of color in this context is due to the mechanics of human visual perception wherein color and contrast play critical roles in visual detail detection. In addition, we tend to acquire various color connotations and color associations through social and cultural conditioning, and these play a role in how we decipher and evaluate logo color. While color is considered important to brand recognition and logo design, it should not conflict with logo functionality, and it needs to be remembered that color connotations and associations are not consistent across all social and cultural groups. For example, in the United States, red, white, and blue are often used in logos for companies that want to project patriotic feelings but other countries will have different sets of colors that evoke national pride.
Choosing an organisation's logo color is an important decision because of its long term implications and its role in creating differentiation among competitors' logos. A methodology for identifying potential logo colors within an industry sector is color mapping, whereby existing logo colors are systematically identified, mapped, and evaluated (O'Connor, 2011).
Logo design process
Designing a good logo often requires involvement from a marketing team teaming with the graphic design studio. Before a logo is designed, there must be a clear definition of the concept and values of the brand as well as understanding of the consumer or target group. Broad steps in the logo design process include research, conceptualization, investigation of alternative candidates, refinement of a chosen design, testing across products, and finally adoption and production of the chosen mark.
Dynamic logos
In 1898, the French tire manufacturer
Michelin
Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...
introduced the
Michelin Man
Bibendum (), commonly referred to in English as the Michelin Man or Michelin Tire Man, is the official mascot of the Michelin tire company. A humanoid figure consisting of stacked white tire, tires, it was introduced at the Lyon Exposition inter ...
, a cartoon figure presented in many different contexts, such as eating, drinking, and playing sports. By the early 21st century, large corporations such as
MTV
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
,
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...
,
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
,
Morton Salt
Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, Water purification, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It i ...
, and
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain founded in 1867 by Andrew Saks. The first store opened in the F Street and 7th Street shopping districts, F Street shopping distric ...
had adopted ''dynamic logos'' that change over time from setting to setting.
Internet-compatible logos
A company that uses logotypes (wordmarks) may desire a logo that matches the firm's Internet address. For short logotypes consisting of two or three characters, multiple companies are found to employ the same letters. A "CA" logo, for example, is used by the French bank
Credit Agricole, the Dutch clothing retailer
C&A, and the US software corporation
CA Technologies
CA Technologies, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc., and CA, Inc., was an American multinational corporation, multinational enterprise software developer and publisher that existed from 1976 to 2018. CA grew to rank as one o ...
, but only one can have the Internet domain name CA.com.
In today's digital interface adaptive world, a logo will be formatted and re-formatted from large monitors to small handheld devices. With the constant size change and re-formatting, logo designers are shifting to a more bold and simple approach, with heavy lines and shapes, and solid colors. This reduces the confusion when mingled with other logos in tight spaces and when scaled between media. Social networks like
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
,
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
,
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...
, and
Google+
Google+ (sometimes written as Google Plus, stylized as G+ or g+) was a Social networking service, social network owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challe ...
use such logos.
Design protection
Logos and their design may be protected by copyright, via various
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
organisations worldwide which make available application procedures to register a design to give it protection at law. For example, in the UK, the
Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom)
The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (often referred to as the UK IPO) is, since 2 April 2007, the operating name of The Patent Office. It is the official government body responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK ...
govern registered designs, patents, and trademarks. Ordinarily, the trademark registration will not 'make claim' to colors used, meaning it is the visual design that will be protected, even if it is reproduced in a variety of other colors or backgrounds.
In some countries, especially civil law countries, the
threshold of originality
The threshold of originality is a concept in copyright law that is used to assess whether a particular work can be copyrighted. It is used to distinguish works that are sufficiently originality, original to warrant copyright protection from tho ...
required for copyright protection can be quite high, so a logo that contains simple geometric shapes or text might not be eligible for copyright protection although it can be protected as a trademark.
Sports
For many teams, a logo or "
crest" is an important way to recognize a team's history and can intimidate opponents.
For certain teams, the logo and color scheme are synonymous with the team's players. For example,
Manchester United
Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...
, the
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. The Maple Leafs compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the A ...
, or
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...
all have a recognizable logo that can be identified by any fan of the respective sport.
See also
*
Graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...
*
Heraldry
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...
*
Icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
*
Logogram
In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
*
Monogram
A monogram is a motif (visual arts), motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbo ...
, a
motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other
grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...
s to form one symbol
*
Seal (emblem)
A seal is a device for making an impression in Sealing wax, wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an Paper embossing, embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or ...
*
Slogan
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan or a political, commercial, religious, or other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the public or a more defined target group ...
*
Sound trademark
*
Swiss Style (design)
*
Letter symbolism
References
Sources
*
External links
{{Authority control
Communication design