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World brands: the most recognizable logos

  • michaelkwilliams16
  • Feb 18, 2021
  • 7 min read

The visual identity of a company may not work or make the brand soar to the top. The design of a company or brand logo is, in fact, one of the most important aspects of its visual identity. Not only does it distinguish one brand from the other, but it has the potential to improve company performance, influence customer choice, create loyalty, and build brand equity. All of these are powerful moves that brands have the potential to make.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), also called the International Organization for Standardization, is an international body made up of representatives of various standardization organizations founded in 1947. It promotes proprietary, industrial and commercial standards throughout the world. The organization's protocol for estimating brand equity is based on six key requirements: transparency, validity, reliability, sufficiency, objectivity, and financial, behavioral and legal parameters. Brand equity goes hand in hand with reputation, which also helps dictate success. Maintaining a positive brand reputation is critical to the overall success of a business.

Previously, we have explained aspects of a logo, while outlining the reasons why authenticity is so important to the design process. Now, we've hand-picked ten of the world's most recognizable brands to go into the history and evolution of logo design in search of answers to what has made them so successful. The ISO would be proud.


Coke

In the spring of 1886, Atlanta pharmacist John Stith Pemberton produced a syrup that would change the world. Things escalated quickly once the local community made raving reviews. Pemberton's accountant, Frank M Robinson, came up with the Coca-Cola name, suggesting that the two Cs would look good in advertisements. Robinson designed the company's script by experimenting with an elaborate Spencerian script, to include a dramatic look at the name he had just given. The familiar red and white color palette that is ingrained in our cultural landscape has more than traditional qualities. Red portrays power, emotion, and energy. The color itself triggers impulse purchases, with studies previously conducted to prove that poker players with red chips bet more than those with blue chips. The fiery white and sweeping italic text suggests a time from the past, a fiery nostalgia. The palette coincidentally matches the Santa Claus costume, which has since become a Coca-Cola mascot, connecting more tradition with the iconic brand. Fast-forward to today, where Coca-Cola takes the rank as the largest beverage manufacturer and distributor and even more so, one of the largest corporations in the world. With its trademark officially registered in 1887, there have only been slight changes, making Coca-Cola a well-deserved world brand that matches stability and tradition.

Pepsi

Before Pepsi, there was Brad's Drink. Created by a pharmacist in North Carolina, Caleb Bradham brought this medicinal aid to life in 1893, just a few years after Coca-Cola and a few years before Pepsi emerged. Five years later, Brad's Drink became Pepsi-Cola, a name derived from another word for indigestion, which is "dyspepsia." Pepsi has been a brand that has challenged the equation of what makes a brand timeless and recognizable: consistency. Over the century that Pepsi has existed, there have been twelve significant logo redesigns, not counting smaller products and flavor variations. Despite these ongoing changes, Pepsi has promised one thing: satisfaction. Its red, white and blue tones have created a clean and aesthetically pleasing logo through intentional curves and circles. The creative director of Twitter stated that the overlapping circles called for potential networks, interests and ideas to be realized, to be connected and intersected between peers and friends. Its current approved logo remains recognizable despite the constant evolution of the company.


McDonald's

McDonald's is America's number one fast food company, founded in 1940 as a single restaurant. Over time, those golden arches that make up the "M" for McDonald's have become synonymous with our collective idea of ​​convenient food. Those bows have become much more, symbolizing the culture of fast food and America in a specific way. The brand has gone through a few redesigns since its inception, but they have stayed with the same concept for decades. Those iconic arches were based on one of the original restaurant designs that featured separate golden arches, which looked like an "M", over the building.

Nike

Nike is the most valuable fashion brand in the world, its pipe being one of the most iconic brand identities that exist today. The logo is thought to have been originally designed in 1971 by a student of Phil Knight, one of Nike's founders. But it's from designer Carolyn Davidson, who received $ 35 and Knight was quoted as saying, "I don't like it, but in the future I will." Davidson was inspired by the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, modeling the logo after her wing. Greek folklore narrates that the goddess Nike influenced many brave warriors to win battles to protect their homeland. It is said that the wings of the goddess Nike brought motivation and fearlessness to the warriors heading to the battlefield. It was important for the designer both to convey the message of movement and to differentiate himself from his rival company, Adidas. The Nike logo uses the white space around it as much as the curve itself stimulates movement, where you can almost hear and feel the design. Its simplicity means speed and agility, and it also allows it to look good on all of the company's products, instilling the icon in every possible way.

Adidas

Founded and based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, Adidas stands for elegance and durability. The brand has pioneered the design of a minimalist corporate logo. The brand with the three stripes has become the quintessential symbol of Adidas. Adidas bought the three-striped brand from a Finnish brand in the 1950s and the iconography was created by the company's founder, Adi Dassler. Dassler first used these markings on the brand's footwear in 1949, when he especially wanted to create a symbol that could be immediately recognized in athletic competitions. Despite being a simple design, it became so fiercely associated with the brand that Dassler even called its business "the company of the three stripes." For a bit of background in the design itself, it is easy to recognize that the stripes are formed in the shape of a mountain. This is intended to inspire and challenge clients to push themselves to their full potential.

Google

Google is synonymous with a lot of our digital research, including the Internet, and they have made our list for a reason. The American multinational technology organization that specializes in Internet-related products and services has the best reputation of any company in the US and is currently one of the most recognized brands in the world. In its early days, Google had two logos. In 1996, the Google logo featured the image of a hand and the original company name (BackRub) in red type. Once they rebranded to Google, they released a much simpler logo in 1998 that exclaimed "Google!" in a multi-colored tone. Ruth Kedar was the graphic designer behind the now famous logo. "We ended up with the primary colors, but instead of having the pattern in order, we put a secondary color in the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules." There has been much discussion about the imperfections of the current logo, and British designer Will Patterson gracefully explains why the Google logo is optically perfect despite its mathematical and geometric imperfection.

Facebook

Facebook was founded in 2004 and has helped give people the power to build community while bringing the world closer together. What started out as a small, very local website in a college student's dorm has since expanded into THE social media giant we know today. When Facebook began to evolve from a university networking site to a global social media platform, founders Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker hired Mike Buzzard of the Cuban Council to create a new logo for the company. The logo that Buzzard designed is almost identical to the logo associated with Facebook today, as the company has only made minor changes over the years. The logo's blue color scheme was chosen because Zuckerberg suffers from deuteranopia, a form of color blindness. One color that someone who suffers from deuteranopia is able to easily distinguish is blue. The Facebook logo is simple and straightforward in design, with lowercase white letters on a calm blue background. Although the scheme was chosen on the condition of Zuckerberg, there is still meaning to the color scheme itself. Blue and white have long been used in combination to represent purity and optimism, which is something Facebook strived for as a brand.

Twitter

"Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter," said former creative director of the social media company, Doug Bowman. Its signature icon has long been distinguished from other platforms, and it has come a long way from the beginning, also known as "twttr". The official launch of Twitter was on July 15, 2006, when the founders hired Swedish graphic designer Linda Gavin to develop the first official logo in one day.

The brand remained the same until 2010, when it evolved into how we know it today through the eyes of Martin Grasser. Its design, the current logo, is based on a hummingbird, with its illustration based on fifteen circles. Grasser said the circles symbolize the idea that Twitter democratizes information and gives everyone a voice, to convey a neutral visual. The former Twitter creative director called the visual identity shift the "ultimate representation of freedom, hope and limitless possibility." The platform communicated how simplification can be a sign of success.

Instagram

CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom had no idea that Instagram, the social photo-sharing platform, would grow into a massive international network. After Facebook bought it in 2012, Instagram became one of the most active social media platforms out there today. All of their logos(Cheap Modern Logo Design Service in Brentford, UK) have been based on the shape of an instant camera, dating back to the network's key designation of photo sharing. The original Instagram logo from 2010 was designed by Systrom, and it was an imitation of a Polaroid camera with a rainbow stripe. Now, the Instagram logo is a minimalistic sunset-colored outline of the original Polaroid camera image. The shift from a distinctively analog camera to minimalist digital illustration that is now caused an uproar from its existing community, but the memorability and recognition still remains.

Amazon

We'll end our list of world brands with real success: Amazon.com, Inc.The American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington is an e-commerce, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and digital streaming technology company, now considered one of the "Big Four" companies along with Google, Apple and Facebook. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hired Turner Duckworth to create the Amazon logo. Initially, the logo was the letter '' A '' with the shape of a river inside. Replaced in 1997 with more detailed text (including '' amazon.com '' with the slogan '' The largest bookstore on Earth ''). The logo we know today with the yellow line was adopted in 1998, showing a message that they sell everything from "A" to "Z".

 
 
 

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