The Age of the Wordless Logo (2016)

Our name is only three letters, so it makes for a very easy lockup, and I believe it's strong without any symbols. I wouldn't call this the best approach in every case, but it's what we prefer: http://tsrgames.com/

A symbol alone as a logo is good for an iconic brand, but not necessarily for a brand trying to establish themselves. A logo + symbol can work when that logo adds something to the meaning, like Amazon's smile mark or the Salesforce cloud. And sometimes the logo alone is stronger, like Google or IBM.

Wordless logos are as old as advertising. Car companies have relied on their symbols to speak for them for decades, and it's easy to think of classic symbols like the Playboy bunny, Penguin books, Swiss army knives, etc. that have been wordless most all of their lives. Apple's logo has been used without words right back to the 1970s.

There will always be different approaches that work for different brands. Choosing the right approach for any company is always on a case-by-case basis.

All these years we've received hundreds of requirements with similar specifications such as "We want a logo that we can use just as a mark, Eg: nike, adidas, mcdonalds, etc."

What client did not understand is that it's not just design or branding that makes these big brands recognizable to every person but their huge expenditure on 360-degree marketing campaigns. Not just any marketing campaign but high targetted quality campaigns where they are spending a huge sum of money everyday for decades.

Although, this article reminds me of a time when Web 2.0 had been at rage and there were articles which said it's the Age of Web 2.0

All the logo design brief we received thereafter were "We want a Web 2.0 logo".

I have a theory that we're almost always in a design bubble.

Look back in the history of most major brands, icons and trademarks and the ones that most people would consider classic all seem to come from two or three distinct eras.

The rest can be viewed as "what the hell were they thinking?". Current thought doesn't seem to be shaping up for any classics.

Of course, this ignores the fact that they're low on the list, with many of the top spots going to companies with their name in the logo.

If you look at the boxes now[1], they only have the Amazon curved-arrow logo on them. Even the black Prime branded packing tape no longer says Amazon on it. Also the ending of the TV adverts are the same, with just the curved arrow logo.

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[1] In the UK, at least.

It was a very simple ad, but it made me double-take, because I suddenly realized that the squircle has become such an ingrained visual term of our cultural reference frame that it's sufficient to show just that outline to communicate that this is advertising for a mobile app.

just have a unique font made for your brand and nothing else.