The Four Main Types of Logo Design
and Choosing the Right Type of Logo for Your Brand
Article information
- Category: Logo Design
- Date: October 2024
Although we encounter an innumerable number of logo designs in our daily lives, some good, some awful, in a plethora of different styles, forms and colours, we can distill the visual look of a logo into four main categories:
The Wordmark Logo Design
A wordmark logo primarily consists of just the product or company name written in a particular typeface. The logo design relies on the distinct letterforms of the font, the use of colour, and subtle modifications to make the logo interesting and memorable.
The Monogram or Lettermark Logo Design
This type of logo design uses a letter, usually but not always the first letter of a brand name, or multiple letters, commonly the initials of the brand. Stylized letters are often used and blended with each other to form a distinctive mark. This mark can be used alone or together with the brand wordmark, depending on the end use situation.
The Pictogram Logo Design
A Pictogram logo uses a simplified, usually minimalistic, graphical symbol or icon to represent the brand, transmitting its message without the use of words. The effectiveness of these logos depends on their ability to be quickly and easily recognized. The best examples of Pictograms communicate through strong visual symbolism.
The Combination Logo Design
Combination logos as the name suggests, are a mix of both text (wordmark) and a graphical element. They offer greater branding flexibility as the text and symbol can be used together or separately depending on the final usage and brand recognition – well know brands may not need to use any text at all.
Although a logo can generally by grouped in one of the four main types above, the graphical style used when designing the logo also plays a major role in its visual identity. For example does the logo use flat 2D shapes and colour or is it 3D with colour gradients and shading? Will the logo transmit modernity or will it hark back to tradition and heritage? All these factors and more will have to be considered when designing a brand logo.
So which logo design type is the correct option for you and your business?
Creating the perfect logo for your product or company isn’t just a simple case of sketching out a cool image and slapping on some text. There is a design process that should be followed. While we would never discourage anyone from trying to design their own logo – the logo design process is too much fun! – we would recommend getting experienced graphic designers involved.
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