Logo Design Trends 2022
Logo design, article

Mod­ern trends and ap­proaches in logo design

Cur­rently, in the field of logo design, there are a lot of pos­sib­il­it­ies and vari­ous ap­proaches for the op­tim­al solu­tion of the prob­lem posed by the cli­ent. This is due not only to the con­stantly chan­ging re­quire­ments of cus­tom­ers, but also to the de­vel­op­ment of tech­no­lo­gies that al­low de­sign­ers to dis­cov­er new, pre­vi­ously un­known, dir­ec­tions in their pro­fes­sion. Of course, a mod­ern logo de­sign­er has the right to choose any of them, but here it should be borne in mind that each project today is unique in its own way. Of­ten this is a chal­lenge to the in­genu­ity, cre­ativ­ity and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of a de­sign­er, there­fore, in such a dif­fi­cult task as cre­at­ing a logo, there are no and can­not be uni­ver­sal re­cipes. With all the free­dom in choos­ing dir­ec­tions, with all the vari­ety of pos­sible solu­tions that are em­bod­ied in logo design today, you can still fol­low the gen­er­al tend­en­cies and the most pop­u­lar tech­niques that set pe­cu­li­ar trends both in graph­ic design in gen­er­al and in logo design in par­tic­u­lar. We will talk about them today.

Speak­ing of trends, it is worth not­ing im­me­di­ately that their rel­ev­ance has a dif­fer­ent length of time: there are short­er-term trends, and there are trends, the in­terest in which has not waned for many years. Both de­pend on the sym­bi­os­is of the de­sign­er's ideas, the per­cep­tion of the cli­ent (the con­sumer of the logo) and the en­vir­on­ment (for ex­ample, cir­cum­stances). While writ­ing this art­icle, we have tried to cov­er both short-term and long-term trends.

Bright and juicy col­ors

The choice of bright, pulsat­ing col­or for a mod­ern take is com­bined with a min­im­al­ist or tra­di­tion­al ap­proach to the graph­ics of the logo it­self. This trend is primar­ily due to the need for high com­pet­it­ive­ness. The bright col­or at­tracts at­ten­tion, catches, cre­ates a feel­ing of anxi­ety and does not leave you in­dif­fer­ent. The neon col­ors that are char­ac­ter­ist­ic in 2020, in the new trend, grav­it­ate more to­wards shades of juicy fruits, trop­ic­al plants, azure sky and wa­ter. The pos­it­ive out­look, which the ex­press­ive col­ors of the trop­ics carry, goes over to the im­age of the com­pany / product rep­res­en­ted by such a bright and mem­or­able logo.

Logo design

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing bright, vi­brant col­ors (from left to right): Gastro (by Sa­fari Stu­dio), Or­chi (by Al Gendi), In­ojo (by Hola Bosque)


Logo, packaging design

Ex­amples of logo and pack­aging designs us­ing bright, vi­brant col­ors: Or­chi project (by Al Gendi)

Aes­thet­ics of quick sketch­ing and free­hand draw­ing

Free­hand draw­ing, aes­thet­i­cisa­tion of rough­ness and in­ac­curacies in shapes, strokes and lines, moved from the gen­er­al trend of graph­ic design to the area of logo de­vel­op­ment. Styl­iz­a­tion for a sketch or draw­ing when de­vel­op­ing an iden­tity con­veys the per­son­al nature of the care and re­spons­ib­il­ity of the cre­at­ors of the brand, con­veys the value of a unique, genu­ine in­di­vidu­al ex­per­i­ence and out­look on the world. Al­though lo­gos in this style have an in­com­plete, as if un­fin­ished look, these spe­cial im­per­fec­tions make them more ac­cess­ible and closer in the mind of the con­sumer.

Logo design

Quick Sketch / Free­hand Logo Ex­amples (Left to Right): Leaf&Land (by Ryn Frank Design), Apple Vil­lage (by Jes­sica Levitz), Alice&Rosa (by Minna So)

Gradi­ent fills

Gradi­ent fills are a vivid ex­ample of a long-term trend. It's hard to say with cer­tainty how long they will re­main in the lead, but today they right­fully take their place and are still very pop­u­lar among logo de­sign­ers. Gradi­ents al­low you to give a strict and veri­fied graph­ic solu­tion an ad­di­tion­al zest, elim­in­ate the ex­cess­ive dry­ness of a simple, lac­on­ic logo, give emo­tion and ex­press­ive­ness.

Re­cently, gradi­ents con­sist­ing of bright but cool neon col­ors have been es­pe­cially pop­u­lar. Even a very dis­creet graph­ic sign can trans­form bey­ond re­cog­ni­tion and demon­strate its rel­ev­ance.

Logo design

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing gradi­ent fills (from left to right): Avas­am (by Aiste), Arione (by Sumon Yousuf), Mar­garet (by Imon Ahamed)


Logo and corporate identity

An ex­ample of a logo and cor­por­ate iden­tity us­ing gradi­ent fills: Cashtree project (by Min­Jee Hahm)

Neg­at­ive space, form and coun­ter­form

Here is an­oth­er strik­ing ex­ample of trends that are not dy­ing. While the idea of us­ing the void between form (coun­ter­form) to cre­ate ad­di­tion­al mean­ing and ex­pres­sion in logo design is not new, this ap­proach is now gain­ing in pop­ular­ity. For the con­sumer, no­ti­cing this second ob­ject formed by the coun­ter­form space and count­ing the whole idea is like a re­ward for ob­ser­va­tion. Years of ex­per­i­ence have shown that such brands at­tract audi­ence in­terest and are re­membered for a long time.

Cre­at­ing a logo us­ing coun­ter­form is not an easy task, but the time and ef­fort put in­to it will no doubt be re­war­ded.

Logo design

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing neg­at­ive space/coun­ter­form (left to right): Pizza (by Ak­de­sain), Air­care (by Clara Mul­ligan), Cas­tello (by Bat­raz Dz­ida­han­ov)

Ba­sic shapes and simple geo­metry

Pre­vi­ously, com­pan­ies, try­ing not to get lost against the back­ground of com­pet­it­ors, and fight­ing for the at­ten­tion of the con­sumer, chose com­plex, de­tailed and ef­fect­ive lo­gos, over­sat­ur­ated graph­ic space. There was more and more noise in it and less and less in­di­vidu­al­ity re­mained, un­der­stand­able to the audi­ence. These pro­cesses should in­ev­it­ably lead to the emer­gence of a trend to­wards sim­pli­fy­ing the form and com­pos­i­tion of lo­gos, which happened not so long ago by his­tor­ic­al stand­ards.

Striv­ing for con­cise­ness, the de­sign­ers drew at­ten­tion to the ex­press­ive pos­sib­il­it­ies of simple geo­met­ric shapes or their com­bin­a­tions to cre­ate a clear im­age and con­vey brand val­ues. Such lo­gos are easi­er for the con­sumer to re­mem­ber and look fresh and rel­ev­ant.

Logo

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing ba­sic shapes and simple geo­metry (left to right): Pulse (by Agata Walas), Sellx (by Jer­oen van Eer­den), Dah­makan (by Bazil Zieel)


Corporate identity design

An ex­ample of a logo and cor­por­ate iden­tity us­ing ba­sic shapes and simple geo­metry: Pulse project (by Agata Walas)

Tall ver­tic­al lo­gos with ovals

The trend of build­ing ver­tic­al lo­gos is unique. Without a doubt, this has not happened be­fore, this is something new in the his­tory of logo design and cor­por­ate iden­tity. This trend was born, most likely, as a res­ult of the massive use of mo­bile ap­plic­a­tions by people, as well as the need to use ver­tic­al forms of lo­gos in mo­bile ver­sions of sites. This cir­cum­stance forced the de­sign­ers to look for new ways to ar­range the logo and slo­gan in­to a single ca­pa­cious im­age.

The ver­tic­al lo­gos are based on the Art Deco aes­thet­ic, in which el­eg­ant ver­tic­al frames have been ap­plied with spe­cial love, and the use of semi-oval shapes in them gives spe­cial ex­press­ive­ness to such solu­tions. It is also worth not­ing that in the near fu­ture, many de­sign­ers will be­gin to de­vel­op this dir­ec­tion in view of its spe­cial ver­sat­il­ity. Ap­par­ently, this trend has come to us for a long time!

Logo design

Ex­amples of tall ver­tic­al lo­gos with ovals (from left to right): Dan­deli­on (by Huynh Viet), Pharus Train­ing (by Cer­en Burcu Turkan), Pizza Garden (by Md Hu­may­un Kabir)

Over­lap­ping and over­lap­ping ele­ments

Ele­ments that are simple in form, such as parts of geo­met­ric shapes, planes and lines, can, when su­per­im­posed, cre­ate a very in­ter­est­ing visu­al ef­fect at their in­ter­sec­tions, which many de­sign­ers have been act­ively us­ing lately. In ad­di­tion, when cre­at­ing lo­gos, these ef­fects are of­ten in­teg­rated with mir­ror sym­metry or ro­ta­tion around a single cen­ter. This is not done by chance, since ac­cord­ing to the res­ults of many stud­ies, people like the sym­met­ric­al shapes of lo­gos, which make them feel se­cure, con­fid­ent, or­derly and re­li­able. All this to­geth­er gives the audi­ence a very ex­press­ive and mem­or­able graph­ic sign.

Of great im­port­ance in such lo­gos is the choice of the col­or of over­lap­ping ob­jects, since when they in­ter­sect, their own spe­cial shade ap­pears. Over­lays and in­ter­sec­tions look very mod­ern and tech­no­lo­gic­al, such solu­tions can suit many brands that strive to al­ways re­main rel­ev­ant.

Logo design

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing over­lap­ping and over­lap­ping ele­ments (from left to right): Flow (by Vadim Carazan), Syn­ergy (by Al­lan Peters), Fris­bee (by Jer­oen van Eer­den)


Logo and corporate identity

An ex­ample of a logo and cor­por­ate iden­tity us­ing over­lap­ping and over­lap­ping ele­ments: Be­ne­vol­ent project (by Design­works Stu­dio)

Op­tic­al il­lu­sions

Turn­ing to ex­press­ive means of op­tic­al (visu­al) il­lu­sions in logo design can be an ex­cel­lent solu­tion if you need to grab the at­ten­tion of the con­sumer. Such tech­niques force us to con­sider the logo for quite a long time, thereby cre­at­ing in­terest in the brand's products or ser­vices. Op­tic­al il­lu­sions can be very dif­fer­ent: col­or, volume, di­men­sion­al, etc. Re­cently, ef­fects that im­it­ate not volume, but move­ment have be­come pop­u­lar. So, with the help of an op­tic­al il­lu­sion, a mod­er­ately lac­on­ic and in­her­ently stat­ic logo ac­quires the en­ergy of end­less move­ment, and this can­not but fas­cin­ate!

Logo design

Ex­amples of lo­gos us­ing op­tic­al il­lu­sion tech­niques (from left to right): Sφera (by Mis­ter­Shot), Kwikbit (by Al­lan Peters), Ab­stract geo­met­ric mark (by Prag­matika Design)

Publication date: 10 January 2022