Interesting Bloomberg video below on the latest trends in brand identity and logo design. Brand logos are increasingly becoming simpler, losing all the drop shadows and lighting effects we’ve seen in recent years, or as the video notes, we’re seeing “a return to sobriety after a spasm of software-abetted intoxication.” Four main reasons are offered for these changes:

  1. Mobile first design — with traffic increasingly coming from phones, simple, easily recognizable logos that work at small sizes are essential
  2. Maturity — start-up companies often start with a whimsical, playful logo, but as they mature and want to be taken more seriously, their logos are “professionalized”
  3. Fashion — many are simply following the latest design trend
  4. Portals — simplification of logos opens possibilities, and can better represent a company’s broad interests rather than pigeonholing it.

When was the last time you re-designed your company’s logo?

David Crotty

David Crotty

David Crotty is a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. Previously, David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

Discussion