6 Logo Designing Trends You Must Watch Out For In 2021

The art and craft of logo designing is on a constant roller coaster ride with no end. Bespoke and intellectual designers thrive to create memorable and brand-specific logos. Newer designers and organizations are very comfortable following the trends of the crowd, in the meanwhile your competitor is thinking out of the box yet relevant logo designs. Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or designer, you should understand these trends because a logo is the most critical visual artwork of a company. Brand identity begins with a relevant and bespoke logo. 

Social media optimized logos, simple fonts, and bright colors were popular in 2019. In 2020 due to the pandemic, we saw a renewed focus on responsive logo design, simple typography, and a renewed popularity of vintage styles. Let’s have a look at what logo trends will sweep the graphic designer’s market in 2021.

Before we deep dive into the logo trends of 2021, let’s throw some light on what exactly makes a great logo? At the grass-root level, a logo is a small, symbolic piece of artwork that represents your business/organization/service.

4 basic pointers to keep in mind while you design a logo:

1. Include your brand elements:
As a designer, you have to collaborate with the brand elements to make beautiful artwork. Including relevant elements of the business has always proven to be fruitful (e.g a preschool logo can include kids as an element and a fitness instructor can include weights, dumbbells, or certain gyming elements)

2. Be instantly recognizable:
Here you have to design a logo that people can immediately relate to. Your logo must in the future encourage brand recall and pleasant memories. (e.g. we all know the Mc Donald bench outside each and every McDonald’s outlet)

3. Make a flexible logo:
A versatile/Flexible logo, in the long run, is cost-effective. This is because it saves you money and time as you do not necessarily have to create separate logos for different media ads and products. This also encourages the standardization of your logo. Image an Airtel logo colored differently for print and differently for social media graphics. You will definitely lose interest in the brand as it is not communicating consistency in its logo.

4. Be timeless :
This logo should have no expiry. It should be valid now and for a long period of time. Ensure your design is a holistic logo with no missing elements.

Let’s move to the core of this blog, below are Top 6 Logo designing trends 2021 has in store for you.

1. Going Minimalistic (less is the new more):

It is really surprising to see fancy logo designs going out of fashion and minimalistic with meaningful logos taking charge. MInimalistic logos have got tremendous attention over the past few years. Logo designers today have grown with a mentality that minimal design with maximum impact is the key to designing a bespoke logo. In the above examples, you will notice a minimalistic logo is less (size, elements colors, etc) which makes it look more appealing to the eyes of a viewer. So designers in the current generation believe less is more. The biggest advantage of minimalistic logo designing is that its visual area is small which makes it easy to adapt to different backgrounds and mediums of advertising. 

Expert advice: If your brand doesn’t fall under the warm, playful category, this trend isn’t for you. Eg: if you own a kids toy shop this trend will work well compared to a PVC pipe selling business. We recommend you identify your brand personality before utilizing this trend.

2. Strong Fonts:

Fonts/ typography is equally important to the elements you use in making your logo. In fact, most brands just have recognition due to their bold fonts with no elements involved in their logo. Designers of the current generation have grown bolder and hence if you scan through the logo examples shown above you will realize they have used fierce fonts to grab your attention. But not any font will do, you cannot just pop in your brand name with any generic font and say it’s done. You need to personalize it according to brand personality. For example: if you are looking to design a logo for a hair and makeup artist you could use fancy bold fonts. On the other hand, if you’re designing a logo for a formal company like a fabric manufacturing company, you will need a formal font with probably a fabric texture to it. 

The best part about this trend of logo designing is that it’s elastic in nature. You have a variety of bold fonts to choose from that there will be one perfect brand font that will communicate your brand personality efficiently. 

Expert advice: When you’re collaborating with a digital agency for your brand logo, remember that font doesn’t only mean letters. You have to ensure your logo is custom-designed to reinforce your brand personality.

3. Artistic Lines:

Line art is a multifaceted and timeless way of expressing a brand’s personality. These features of line art make it a trending form of logo designing. With the help of connecting lines, you can make almost any object. The above examples display how some line strokes can make meaning: A bird, a rooster and a women’s face. This is a way to encourage artists to explore paper-pencil designs. This artistic touch makes playing with lines in your logo a refreshing and flexible trend compared to digitally made designs. The biggest advantage is that line art logos can be placed on any background. Adding to that, there are limitless styles you can use for execution, you’re sure to find one to match your brand’s tone.

Expert advice: We recommend you infuse light as well as heavy lines in your logo. You can also have 2 versions of your logo: Light lines (thin like the women logo) and heavy lines  (like the air Bnb logo). The heavier line weight version can be used on busier backgrounds for higher impact.

4. Geometric Framing:

As mentioned earlier in our blogs, just not geometric shapes in graphic designing are popular but also in logos. We are not only talking about using geometrical elements in your logo but your entire logo is now fitted into a geometrical shape. The trend we are introducing to you is geometrical framing, not the use of geometrical figures. This trend is elastic enough to deliver a wide variety of unique logos. So, you can have the classic, grounding influence of a geometric shape without sacrificing meaning or visual differentiation. The most commonly used shapes are circle, square and triangle. Seeing the latest trends in designing many more geometrical shapes like hexagons, rectangles and diamonds are gaining popularity.

Expert advice: There are multiple ways to visually define and interact with geometric shapes. Ask yourself: should your brand-specific elements remain inside the geometric shape or break out of it? Any choice you make should reinforce your brand’s meaning and personality.

5. Broken Geometric Shapes:

As mentioned above, geometric logos have always been and will always remain attractive. This trend is an example of thinking out of the box. A variation to the geometric framing logo is the broken box logo, it’s everywhere… and, it’s underwhelming. It’s not just limited to boxes being broken, any geometric shape can be broken. Placing a continuous box around your text or a brand element is considered to be simple, it’s because people/brands have already done it. The above example of the Burj Khalifa sticking out from the top of the circle demonstrates height beyond earth. The second example of the Gucci logo is where a part of the 2 circles are bent to make 2 G’s in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Expert advice: if you are keen to communicate your brand helps you to “think out of the box” then this is the logo design you must work on. We recommend this logo design for industries like Art, Media, digital businesses.

6. Increased Use of Negative Space:

Negative space designing is where the background of the logo communicates a brand element. A logo must cram its full meaning/purpose in a small area. You naturally will strive to make every single aspect/element count to communicating your brand value. Negative space designs can be executed in a wide variety of artistic styles. Since negative space allows the background to peek through and become part of the design, such designs are flexible. Also people these days enjoy clever logos with a surprise element compared to direct designs. Research says a logo that makes you smile, or infuses a hidden secret, is likely to be more memorable for the cheer reason it made you think beyond what’s presented directly. Have a look at the logo examples above. The best example of negative space is the WWF log where the black parts are placed intellectually so that the final logo shows a panda. The NBC logo demonstrates a peacock with colorful feathers, not sure if you noticed that. Designers continue to embrace the challenge of purposeful negative space in logo design – and we expect to see this continue into 2020.

Expert advice:  Logos with meaningful negative space imagery can make quite a creative impact. Do not avail of this design trend just because you like it, the negative space should make solid sense and must correlate with your brand.

Your thoughts please:
Do any of the above logo designing trends strike a chord with your brand logo? If yes, great job. If not, don’t panic. When you start a new business or are considering rebranding, it’s natural to want to prove yourself with a difference. We will agree with you if you say, it’s tempting to follow a popular trend simply because it’s currently the talk of the town. Think about this, what if your brand logo is the next talk of the town. This will happen if you create a pleasant difference. Also, giving trends an upper hand over your true brand identity will hurt you more than doing good. So, always put your brand at the topmost priority. We’re happy to help you find a logo design that embodies your brand identity. 

Ref:
https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/logo-design-trends-2020/