Today’s businesses operate in a saturated environment. A company might own a space today to find competitors popup in their space tomorrow. So, how do businesses create brands that stand out amidst the competition with a logo design that’s memorable and unique? Also, with one that will stand the tests of time in an increasingly competitive space?

Let’s start with what a logo is. A logo is a design element that represents a business. Now, what makes a good logo design? Well-designed logos will reflect the essence of a brand. They’ll be timeless, clean, and connect with the customers they’re intended to connect with.

When working on a logo design, be sure to, alongside your design agency, incorporate these three factors of good logo design:

• Represent the essence of your brand
• Be clear and recognizable, clean and timeless
• Be simple yet functional, and unique to your brand

When creating a new logo design, every design element in your new logo should be thought out. If, for instance, a design element creates a question in the mind of the viewer or if it doesn’t fall into the factors of good design, remove it.
So, what logo design elements and styles will the market likely keep and continue to incorporate in the coming years? Here are five of our favorites:

1. Clean type

Clean type design includes fonts that may feature negative space but still are highly readable. For example, more dynamic type designs might include typography that’s less linear than we would see in the past. This style comes off as more whimsical and fun and can capture interest in a logo design. Also, we’ll see more use of experimental typographic treatments for logos with a more creative use of age old techniques, allowing designers to bring typography to a new level of intrigue.

2. Color is the new black

Today’s online spaces allow design agencies to use color in a way that would be more restrictive in the past, and more prohibitive to change. Hence, the entire look of your brand, from your logo colors to the website’s colors, can be more rich. While the use of gradients is one that’s become overused in the past couple years, brands and their design agencies can still play with modern and straightforward use of hues and colors in a way that makes them stand out.

3. Modern lines

Clean, modern lines inspired from architectural design is likely here to stay for a while, as they communicate a fresh and timeless elegance. Modern logos have a way of being effortless and distinct in a way that can work well for some brands. Such logo designs might flow from different shapes and even layer shapes in a way that makes the logo design more distinct while still maintaining simplicity.

4. Subtle animation

2018 and 2019 are the years to continue incorporating SVGs and GIFs into logo designs. Animated logos can be in the form of SVG or GIF format, and in a time where user engagement and attention are fleeting, animation is a great way to add interaction to your applications. Your design agency should be skilled in working with SVG vectors or animated GIFs, and start with a logo design that lends itself to subtle animation.

5. Responsive designs

With talk of responsiveness everywhere, responsive logo designs are just as crucial as responsive web design. This means you’ll want your logo design to adapt across screens. The best logo design agencies will create vectors that adjust to different screen sizes and mediums. The benefit is the logo design retains its essence across the points it touches.

What’s next?

As humans, we recognize well designed and branded logos amongst a sea of those that aren’t. Logo designs that translate across mediums – from print to social to web and beyond – create stronger associations in the minds of a customer, and help associate brands as they’re intended.
So, what do you think the coming years will bring to graphic and logo design trends? Are you hoping to keep gradients around another year or two or how do you think the use of color will evolve? Let us know below!