“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Steve Jobs
Let me tell you a secret. It’s something not many people know about, and even less people know how to do. The secret is: logos should be simple.
Simple, as Steve says in the quote above, is actually very hard to do. They should be simple for two reasons:
1: So they are quickly understood.
2: So they are easily memorised by your customers.
These 2 steps are of critical importance to your logo and brand awareness. I’ll be diving into the concept of simplicity and memorability in this article and how you can use simplicity to drive brand awareness and how to stand out in the visual traffic jam we call our lives.
How simplicity works.
When designing a logo, some people want to add as many elements as they possibly can. I’m often seeing logos that disturb me on numerous levels, but mostly it’s because there are so many parts and components the designers have managed to cram in there. In fairness, the designers are not always to blame, we all have paymasters, and sometime clients are idiots too. A great logo, should really only be trying to say 1 or two things, maximum. We can say the name of the company, and may add a little something else, that suggests the essence of the brand, perhaps something they do.
We definitely don’t want to be saying more than 2 things. That’s where it start to get complicated, and we don’t want that. Let’s talk about a few world class logos and let their greatness inspire us towards better things.
We’ll start in 1978, the year Nike updated the original logotype from Carolyn Davidson – the young designer who created the original swoosh. We start in 1978 because the original 1971 Nike logotype was crap. (Logotype: Usually the uniquely styled word of the company – think “Sony”. Logo: The brand mark – think the actual Nike tick or “Swoosh”). The original word ‘Nike’ was written in a handwritten style that was set over the Nike ‘swoosh’ and it just didn’t work, so we can move on from that and hurtle ourselves towards 1978.
The NIKE update. Stunning. The updated design introduced us to the word ‘Nike’ in a variation of the Futura Bold Condensed Italic font, which radically altered the previous design. (FYI – The difference between a Typeface and a Font? Typeface: Think ‘Futura’. Font: Think ‘Bold’ or ‘Italic’.)
By introducing the classic Futura font, the in-house team at Nike turned a good logo into something unbelievably brilliant. This subtle masterstroke shows us what a monumentally huge difference subtle tweaks can make to a logo.
The Nike logo (we’ll use that word to cover both the “Mark” – the swoosh and also the “Logotype” – the word “Nike”) is unbelievably brilliant for many reasons. I would in fact go as far as to say it’s the best logo of all time. Basically this logo is The Beatles of all logos: it’s separate elements form a wonderful synergy where the sum of its parts are greater than the whole. Yes, I just said that. Let’s break it down and see what we can learn from it.
First of all, on a higher level, let’s talk about the word “Nike” which goes hand in hand with the overall branding, as well as the design of the logo. The name of the company is the first win in the overall brand and logo. The name is short, funky, unique and memorable. (Remember: Simple is good.) 4 letters. There aren’t many 3 letter words that have quite the same impact. Nike is also the Goddess of Victory – wow, how about that? Powerful stuff. Who wouldn’t want to be associated with Victory? I know I do. I can’t see a sports label called “Defeat” being quite as successful.
So the word “Nike” is in itself, brilliant. Working with a great base makes it easier to design a great brand and logo. IBM, FedEx, Apple, BBC, Bose, CNN etc. Short words are good, and more importantly – easy to remember for your customers. So when starting your business, think small. (And then big.)
The evolution of the logotype of the Nike word, was also an immensely important moment. I’m not sure if it was a design agency who tweaked it, or it was done in-house. Somebody somewhere knows. No matter, it was a monumental sea change in Nike’s brand awareness. What changed? A couple of things – they moved the word ‘Nike’ off the swoosh (no idea what it was doing there in the first place – it was 1971 so maybe that was cool then) and changed the font to Futura bold condensed italic. What did this mean for the logo? It went from being a soft, gentle and sensitive handwritten message to BEING SUPER BOLD, CONFIDENT AND AGGRESSIVE. It became a shout instead of a whisper. It said “Get up off your ass and go do some exercise!”, long before someone in a design agency came up with “Just do it.”
Classic, bold and so eighties. In a design sense too, making the “Nike” word italicised gave the word itself meaning, that it was ‘in motion’ and if not in motion – then waiting for the starting gun, ready to explode off the line. The size of the word in relation to the swoosh, is also of major importance. The designer has taken great care to make the proportions sit perfectly. If the word was any larger, it would look odd compared to the size of the swoosh. Similarly, if the word was any smaller the Swoosh would look huge. The magical part about the positioning of the word though, is really where it sits.
Having the “E” of Nike touching the Swoosh is just so fantastic – it makes the logo more compact and solid visually, rather than two separate parts. The way the designer left space at the bottom of the “N”, for the curve of the Swoosh to stand out and announce the beginning of the shape is critical. Imagine if they had joined that part of the word as well? It would have become almost illegible. By creating that space, we can easily read the “Nike” word, and understand we’re looking at tick mark. It also beautifully cradles the Nike word, making a visually appealing shape, even though the word and the swoosh are actually very angular and sharp.
Even though there are harsh shapes in the logo, this is not what comes across – we just really see the Swoosh and all it represents, speed, fluidity, focus confidence and power.
RED = POWER!! In 1985, Nike added Red. I know, genius right? Well, in a way, it was. Red means danger doesn’t it? Well, it does and it doesn’t – it depends on the context in which we are viewing it. Red means danger when your driving your car, or you’re about to delete an email. But red in the world of branding means something entirely different. Do we think of danger when we see the Kelloggs logo? Only if someone is going to eat my Crunchy Nut cornflakes. Do we think of danger when we see the Coca-Cola logo? Not really. You feel thirsty, if anything. So the colours we employ in our logos are really not indicative of any pre-learned meanings. Only once we’ve learned more about the company do we really associate colours with the company and we GIVE the colours meaning. Coca-cola’s red makes me thirsty, but it’s just a colour – my brain is comfortable associating that particular red with Coke. (There isn’t many items of food that are blue, remember.)
So I associate that red with Nike now as well. (Or at least I did in the eighties.) And when I think of Nike, I think of heat, exercise, power and passion – and all of those things sit nicely with the idea of the company. If Nike had chosen Blue – even the thought of it makes my stomach cramp – it would have been a disaster – and that’s generally why you NEVER see the Nike logo in blue. It’s cold, calm, removed and peaceful, like the ocean. That’s not Nike.
So red seems on the surface like an arbitrary colour, but when you delve further into the psychology of it, its the only possible choice they could have made. And this is important for you and your brand and logo. What does your company stand for? What does it do? How does it make people feel? You won’t see many diving gear companies with red logos or barbeque manufacturers with blue logos. Colour matters.
As a child, I wanted the box as much as the sneekers. You can ask any person what the “meaning” of the Nike logo is, and they’ll give you a hundred different answers. This is part of its magic – it’s not exact or very specific – unlike say the Microsoft Windows logo. Which is er..a window. I said at the start of this article that you shouldn’t fit too many things into a logo, maybe 2 at most. The reality is that the Nike logo IS only 2 things – the word and the swoosh. That’s it – relatively simple. The interpretation from most people I expect might say the Swoosh was “Speed”, “Yes”, “Correct”, or “Power” – and all of these things would be correct – and they are all very powerful, exciting emotions. Tick! Now in fact, after a billion dollars spent on marketing, so ubiquitous was the brand that they binned the word! How incredible is that? Now it’s just the Swoosh, as we all know.
Talk about simple – and there’s nothing else like it.
Nike Logo
The real genius of Carolyn Davidson’s first design, was of course, the Swoosh – now living in perfectly alone, everywhere across the world. At certain points in a megabrands life, they can move away from pesky words, and simply bathe in their worldly recognition. Nike, Apple and a handful of other brands can mange this iconic status. With the Nike swoosh, Carolyn created something that was truly exceptional, and deserves its solitary space. We salute you!
Pretty, but too damn complicated for those pesky brand designers.
The Mastercard Logo
Another logo that deserves a mention in the Mastercard logo. I’m not a particularly huge fan of the organisation myself (there’s got to be some kind of disruption potential here!) but it’s a great example of how simplicity can be very powerful. It’s also a great example of how everyone – small business and entrepreneurs can re-create this kind of simplicity for their own brands. The Mastercard logo also has a great history that shows us how they got to where they are today. (Unlike Nike, which had minimal evolutions as we have seen.)
The Mastercard logo above is a great example to all businesses, for several reasons. The first is that as mentioned above, it says only two things, as per our logo design guidelines. It’s incredibly simple and at the same time, very powerful. The logo says “Mastercard” and then simply the two circles, which again for many represents many things. It can mean the interchange of money, a transaction, movement, fluidity, ease of use or any other thing – but all of them are positive and meaningful.
That’s all you need in a logo – a word and a symbol. This will suffice for most businesses. The symbol should be simple, and of course applied consistently to all communications from the company, from a website to a business card. There’s no need to make it complex or fall into the classic non-thinking of trying to fit too many things into your logo. It’s important that the symbol is simple, well designed and nicely balanced. What do I mean by ‘Nicely balanced’? It means pleasing on the eye. It could be that it’s symmetrical (like the Mastercard logo for example) of the elements of the logo sit well together, everything in the correct place and one doesn’t overwhelm the other. Or that the size of the logotype is balanced with the logomark – much like the skill in which the Nike word was balanced with the swoosh in it’s earlier iteration.
This is where the skill of Zenn designers is of use to you – you can simply answer a few questions and your new brand is ready to use! Designed by our world-class A.I. superbot, our logos are ready for you to create your new business – with a logomark that will help you stand out from the crowd with your gorgeous new logo and editable design assets! Get started here.
There’s a beautiful simplicity to this new logo – and I love that in some environments they have chosen to drop the Mastercard word. It’s a great logo and instantly recognisable. I also like how they have moved away from the cream backgrounds and gone onto the dark theme – this really makes the circles pop! Designed by Pentagram in New York by Michael Bierut, it really is a beautiful masterwork. There’s also a fun video on logo design from Pentagram here.
At Zenn, our A.I. focuses on creating simple, beautiful and memorable logos for our customers. There's no need to complicate things. Keep it simple with Zenn.com.
