If I say Starbucks, you think coffee.
More specifically you picture a white paper coffee cup with that strange looking green mermaid on it. If it happens to be 105 degrees outside like today, you picture that same green mermaid on a plastic cup of Passion Tea Lemonade.
Now you’re thirsty, now you go buy Starbucks. That my friends is called Brand Association and a key component to becoming a multi-billion dollar company.
Most people probably don’t even know that the thing on the Starbucks cup is a mermaid, but that doesn’t mean our minds don’t still immediately associate the name Starbucks with this logo.
So why is it that some logos are more memorable than others? Adweek did a study on the top 50 most beloved brands and what makes their logos stand out.
Color itself can help us to associate a brand, for example our green mermaid. Blue is used most often in logos whereas orange is used the least. Red, such as in the Coke logo, establishes a sense of passion. Blue is a color typically associated with comfort and trust.
Though round shaped logos tend to be more easy on the eyes, thirty six of the fifty logos observed in the Adweek study were angular. This is because rectangular, flat logos look better on screens and mobile devices, which is the prominent way we see ads nowadays.
Some companies, like Apple, chose to use no words at all; the symbol is all your mind needs to automatically fill in the company name.
So remember, when it comes to creating a successful logo, simplicity is key.
