Graphic Designers: 3 Important Logo Design Trends You Need to Know

As a graphic designer you know that a logo is a graphical representation of a company's products and services. This makes it important for you to understand logo design trends when you are faced with a logo design project. As a graphic design consultant, and a graduate student at Northwestern University, I have had experience with logo design and I found two great articles that highlight the logo trends of 2016, thus far.  

In Bill Gardner’s article, 2016 Logo Trends Report Sees Simplicity As King, for Graphic Design USA, he mentions the comeback of KISS. Which is a creative acronym for “Keep It Simple Stupid.” The main point of Gardner's article is, logos are simple. Gardner writes that designers are “rebelling against complexity” and moving towards simple minimalistic shapes for their logo designs.

http://gdusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/circles.jpg

In the article, A Closer Look at 3 of Today’s Logo Design Trends by Amanda Aszman, for HowDesign.com, Amanda shared the same sentiments as Gardner, and mentioned a few other trends. One of them being, logos are becoming geometric. More companies are adopting simple geometric logo designs with the hopes that it will represent the simplicity or uncomplicatedness of their service or product. Circles, in particular have been the most popular geometric shape so far in 2016.

Based on these two articles and my experience as a graphic design consultant, here are my three recommendations to consider when designing your next logo:

1.    Keep it simple: Avoid complex logos, stick with a simple logo. Simple logos
show that what your company has to offer is uncomplicated and simple

2.    Go geometric: When designing your logo, utilize simple geometric shapes.
They provide your logo a clean and minimalistic look that is on trend.

3.    Count on Circles: Circles in 2016 were popular and will remain popular.

Following these three trends will be helpful in designing a logo that will set any brand apart from its competitors.   

Max Do
I am an Information Design Strategy student at Northwestern University, as well as a graphics consultant for the largest healthcare brand in the U.S. I am a versatile designer with experience in print, web and digital design.

You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

3 Tips for Marketers: Don’t Let Poor Design Hold Your Awesome Content Back

If content is king, design is queen. Design is content’s partner; it’s better, more eye-catching half. Emphasis is always on the message, but you need good design to help you deliver it. As a graphic designer, strategic communicator and graduate student in Northwestern Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications [IMC] program, I have a few easy lessons that will help you marry your awesome content with good design.

Design has a big impact on how audiences understand and receive messages. Communications scholar and professor Curtis Newbold, also known as "The Visual Communication Guy," in Top 5 Most Common Design Mistakes that Will Make You Look Like an Amateur outlines some of the most common problems in designing communications: center alignment, all caps, overemphasis, small margins, and tacky fonts. He says that while most people know poor design when they see it, they do not know why it is bad or how to fix the design issues. He is right and offers practical advice for avoiding a typical #designfail.

Design skills are necessary for marketers and communicators who want to better communicate to, interact with and serve their audiences. Tips are useful, but even more so when combined with design thinking. Designer and AIGA member Emily Hamre speaks to the process of solving communication problems with design in her article 3 Tips For Becoming A Better Design Communicator: understand the problem, gather insights from others, and make ideas tangible. Just as you plan your message and carefully craft copy, design is planned. 

Universal design principles and theories can help guide your understanding of what makes good graphic design — but you don't have to learn them all. I've synthesized my knowledge of good design into three key design rules that you can keep in mind the next time you plan the design of your marketing communication:

1.  Make it readable. 

Readability is twofold. Think legibility and comprehension. Knowing your objective and audience is just as important to design as it is to marketing. Ask yourself, is the text easy to read at a glance, and can my audience easily take away the key message I am trying to convey? 

2.  Make it consistent.

Clear and consistent use of type, graphic styles, and graphic elements gives your audience a framework for receiving your message and understanding the information. You want to provide an overall visual system for your content that brings all elements together into a more easily understandable whole. Consistency makes things instantly recognizable, simplifies learning, improves user experience, and ultimately builds trust. 

3.  Make it pretty (or make it C.R.A.P.).

For some, "making it pretty" comes naturally. For others, some things to think about when arranging elements in a composition: structure, order, harmony, balance, which translate into the main principles of design – unity, variety, and hierarchy. You can achieve unity, variety, and hierarchy using different strategies. One of the easiest is the C.R.A.P. or contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. The best way to get better at making things look pretty is to look at pretty things. Look here and here.

These are my mantras. You too can learn these simple design rules to make your communications look more professional and let your awesome content shine.

Maggie Hutaff
I am a graphic designer and communicator in North Carolina. I hold a bachelor’s in visual communication from the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication and am currently working on a master of science in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University’s Medill School. I have taught Introduction to Graphic Design at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow me at @designmah.