Logo Design

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate reactions to the divine proportion (a ratio of 1: 1.618) in logo design across different cultures.Design/methodology/approach – The approach is a survey in three different countries: Australia, Singapore and South Africa.Findings – Results showed there is universal preference for the divine proportion across cultures. Logos based on forms found in nature that were expressed in the divine proportion were most preferred, but for artificially constructed logos, a 1:1 ratio was preferred.Research limitations/implications – A limited set of ratios were considered. Further research could investigate different ratios and different logos.Practical implications – International brand managers should commission designs that use natural forms based on the divine proportion. Different national cultures react similarly to logo designs, in contrast to many other fields of business where strong cultural differences exist.Originality/value – This paper is the first exp...

Although good logos are essential for creating brand awareness and brand equity, the effects of logo design features have not been tested empirically. Extending previous findings regarding the effects of design complexity and exposure in advertising to the field of brand logos, two experiments tested the effects of logo complexity and exposure on brand recognition and brand attitude. It was hypothesized that logo complexity moderates the effects of exposure on logo recognition and brand attitudes, such that exposure increases recognition and positively impacts brand attitudes in particular for complex logos. Experiment 1 (N = 68) tested the effects of six unfamiliar logos on recognition (in milliseconds) in a 2 (logo design complexity: simple vs complex) × 2 (logo exposure: one vs four) mixed design. Experiment 2 (N = 164) tested the effects of eight familiar logos on logo recognition and brand attitudes in a 2 (complexity: simple vs complex) × 2 (logo exposure: well-established vs recently established) within-subjects design. Findings showed that increases in exposure led to an increase in brand recognition and to more positive attitudes in particular for complex brand logos, suggesting short-term benefits for simple brand logos, and long-term benefits for complex logos.

Purpose – This paper aims to study how logo design characteristics influence consumer response. Based on an in-depth literature review on consumer responses to logo design, the authors included in this research one fundamental dimension of logo design, namely, naturalness and investigated the influence of the different types of natural logo designs on affective response. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 96 logos were selected as design stimuli. The logos were previously classified, according to the naturalness of the logo design, as having an abstract, cultural or organic design. Responses were gathered through a survey in Portugal, including two studies with 220 participants. Findings – Results show that naturalness is an essential logo design element which significantly influences consumer affective responses to the logo, and that natural logos are clearly preferred to abstract logos. Additionally, this research indicates that, within natural logos, organic designs are favored over cultural desig...

Five studies using a variety of experimental approaches and secondary data sets show that a visual property present in all brand logos—the degree of (a)symmetry—can interact with brand personality to affect brand equity. Specifically, compared with symmetrical logos, asymmetrical logos tend to be more arousing, leading to increased perceptions of excitement. As such, consumers tend to perceive asymmetrical logos as more congruent with brands that have an exciting personality. This can boost consumers’ evaluations and the market’s financial valuations of such brands, a phenomenon referred to as the “visual asymmetry effect.” The studies also show that this interplay between brand personality and logo design occurs only for the personality of excitement and the visual property of asymmetry. These findings add to theories of visual design and branding and offer actionable insights to marketing practitioners.

Five studies utilizing a variety of experimental approaches and secondary datasets show that a visual property present in all brand logos—the degree of symmetry/asymmetry—can interact with brand personality to impact brand equity. Specifically, compared to symmetrical logos, asymmetrical logos tend to be more arousing, leading to increased perceptions of excitement. As such, consumers tend to perceive asymmetrical logos as more congruent with brands that possess an exciting personality. This can boost consumers' evaluations and the market's financial valuations of such brands, a phenomenon referred to as the visual asymmetry effect. The studies also show that this interplay between brand personality and logo design only occurs for the personality of excitement and the visual property of asymmetry. These findings add to theories of visual design and branding, as well as offer actionable insights to marketing practitioners.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how logo design characteristics influence consumer response based on visual representation. Logos in different areas may have different characteristics that impact liking a logo. The logos of youth education brands were explored in this study. Design/methodology/approach The Kansei engineering (KE) method was employed in this research. In total, 115 logos of youth education brands were collected and classified into three categories: abstract, natural and text mark. Then 12 of these logos were selected as representative samples. A set of 171 Kansei pairwise image words was collected, and 14 of them were chosen for further investigation. The psychological projection experiment was conducted based on a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire with 120 participants. Three statistical methods including cluster analysis, factor analysis and correlation analysis were combined for the data analysis. Findings The results show that four factors affect liking a logo including a sense of contemporaneity, a sense of esthetics, a feeling of interest and a sense of style. Accordingly, the weights of these four factors are proposed. The positive correlation between logo characteristics and liking a logo was also verified. In addition, the classification results of this study confirm the wide use of natural and English text mark logos in youth education brands. Originality/value The results could guide designers and managers in selecting or modifying logo design for achieving a positive effective response. This is the first research on logo design characteristics linked with industry domains. This study also contributes to the KE approach to investigate the relative impact of logo characteristics on liking a logo.

Henderson and Cote (1998) investigated the effect of logo design on consumer responses. They focused on logo graphic design to develop guidelines for logo selection and modification. Drawing on the logo strategy literature and input provided by graphic designers, Henderson and Cote (1998) identify a set of subjectively measured logo design characteristics (i.e., a logos’ naturalness, elaborateness, harmony, and roundness), as well as a set of objectively measured design characteristics (i.e., the number of parallel and repeated elements, and the logo’s proportions). They then examined the impact of these logo design characteristics on consumer responses to the logo: positive affect, familiar meaning, correct recognition, and false recognition. Results suggest that positive affect is evoked by moderately natural, moderately elaborate, and highly harmonious logos. Familiar meaning arises from highly natural and moderately proportional logos; false recognition is more likely for artificial looking, highly harmonious logos at moderate levels of parallel elements and proportion. Correct recognition, on the other hand, is furthered by highly natural, moderately harmonious logos with many repeated elements. Positive affect and familiar meaning also increase correct recognition. � Janiszewski and Meyvis’s (2001) research on the impact of stimulus characteristics (logo complexity) and stimulus presentation (repetition) on processing fluency also has implications for the logo design – consumer response relationship. Results indicate that logo meaning, logo familiarity, and exposure presentation schedule affects consumers’ sensitization and habituation to the logo. These, in turn, impact processing fluency and consumer preferences for and judgment of logos in terms of their expensiveness. The authors also suggest that more meaningful logos are more resistant to wear out when due to repeated exposure.

Logos serve a fundamental role as the visual figureheads of brands. Yet, due to the difficulty of using unstructured image data, prior research on logo design has largely been limited to non-quantitative studies. In this work, we explore logo design from a data-driven perspective. We develop both a novel logo feature extraction algorithm that uses modern image processing tools to decompose pixel-level image data into meaningful features, and a multiview representation learning framework that links these visual features to textual descriptions of firms, industry tags, and consumer ratings of brand personality. We apply this framework to a unique dataset of hundreds of brands. Our model is able to predict which brands use which logo features, and how consumers evaluate these brands' personalities. Moreover, we show that manipulating the model's learned representations through what we term "brand arithmetic" yields new brand identities, and can help with ideation. Finally, through an application to fast food branding, we show how our model can be used as a decision support tool for suggesting typical logo features for a brand, and for predicting consumers' reactions to new brands or rebranding efforts.

This study suggests a suitable logo design application of a three colors LED light source and flexible plastic optical fiber (POF). In this study, characteristic relevant brightness of (according to the embodiment conditions of the flexible POF for logo design) for smart clothing were analyzed through two experiments. The suitable conditions of the logo design for three colors of light source were observed in `Experiment 1`. The angle of to and the length of 8cm to 16cm appeared a more suitable condition for green-colored and red-colored light sources. The angle of to at a length of 8cm to 12cm appeared a more suitable condition for a blue-colored light source. In `Experiment 2`, a `Klavika` in small letter was selected as suitable logo design for the application POF. The alphabet was separated by a morpheme, which is the minimal linguistic unit. All alphabets were classified into sixteen morphemes. The luminance of fourteen morphemes (realized by the embroidery method) were measured and analyzed. Subsequently, eight morphemes appeared to show a relatively equal luminance of in a green-colored light source, in red-colored light source, and in a blue-colored light source. Four of the fourteen morphemes, showed a 20% brighter level of luminance compared to the eight morphemes above, the cast of combination of green or red light source. This result indicates that a flexible POF with 20% less luminance are believed more suitable for four morphemes combined with a green or red light source. The results of this study provide fundamental data for further approaches to clothing logo design for the application of a flexible POF.

Application of Chinese character symbol as modeling elements in logo design was a new way of thinking and new method in recent years,which was a novel visual expression form and had far reach meaning.Chinese character modeling itself has very strong mark feeling and high artistic value,its graph characteristic is the Chinese character symbol design foundation;the typical design method was the combination of Chinese character decoration technique,and concretization and abstraction calligraphy character changing technique.The bright nationality characteristic is the Chinese character symbol cultural characteristic.