Logos: The Less Is More Trend

“Less is more” has become a pretty strong trend lately in the world of logo design. More and more brand facelifts are sharing a common theme: simplicity. To name a few just in the past couple weeks, Netflix, Paypal and Avery have followed suit. Take a look:

The big question is, other than being aesthetically pleasing, why do brands simplify their logos? Why has “less” become so much “more” in today’s marketplace?

Smartphones

It all comes down to smartphones, tablets and other devices which require responsive design. Especially for smartphones, the responsiveness of your logo is essential. Usage studies show that almost 63% of consumers worldwide use their smartphone as their primary gateway to the internet. Smartphones have smaller screens and display less detail than a desktop or laptop. A smartphone screen is about the size of a business card, which means a smaller logo on the screen, too. It’s always been understood that a logo should be scalable and reproduceable in small sizes, but those parameters have become more extreme. Detail has to be removed from logos so they can be read properly in extremely small sizes.

Flatness

The trend toward simplicity has also led to a trend toward “flatness” in logo design and other graphics. Shadows and blurs don’t scale well. A great shadow at one size can become a dark blob at a smaller size, often rendering the core logo or graphic unreadable.

Photos

This is also a consideration with photos. Not all photos render well in smaller sizes. The key is to preview them on your smartphone to test their quality and effectiveness to reproduce at a small size. It might take some creativity to make an image work well in both small and large sizes.

There’s a high standard to meet these days but it’s totally achievable. Just being aware of the potential issues can go a long way to help you solve them. It’s important to keep up on what is important to consumers. Brand consistency is a must. Using different logos for each social media platform due to different size requirements isn’t a good approach. You must use your logo consistently — even if that means taking on an overhaul, like Netflix, Paypal and Avery did, to have one that works well for everything.

The answer seems to be clear: simplify and streamline. Streamlining your logo makes it suitable for every media and web space and consistent use raises your brand awareness across the media spectrum.

To get a feel for the range of sizes your logo needs to accommodate, check out our Social Media Dimensions Blueprint, an infographic that shows all the cover image sizes required for the most popular social media platforms, as well as the logo sizes required for each. It might help if you decide to take on a simplification.

~ Bethany Howell, art director

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