Knowing the trends forcing companies to rebrand will help you develop better logos. We used brilliant corporate branding of the last year to signal logo design trends because there are reasons big organizations spend money on rebranding to certain logos. The overall trends are a push to simplicity, and exclusive use of sans-serif fonts.
Simple Symbols:
logos are becoming very simple, with flourishes stripped away.
Simple Type:
a motion away from decorative, handwritten and script fonts.
Heavy to Bold:
bold fonts are changing beefy fonts.
Thin to Bold:
light fonts are being replaced with bold fonts.
No Serif Fonts:
once elegant serif fonts are being replaced.
Less All Caps:
there are some all-caps logos, but far less than years ago.
Flat:
use of gradients is down, with logos only using one or two flat colours.
Logos are a part of the culture, and the tradition always changes. Options change, things don’t mean what they used to, and perceptions of logos may not be what they once were. Many companies change their logos to make sure they are not left behind.
We have designed many logos, and plan to design many more in 2019. We need to understand what the logo and visual identity design trends are. Logo trends allow us to understand what clients are looking for, and how public perceptions of design features are changing.
But that does not mean that we have to follow the trends every time. With any given design, you can want to buck a trend for good motives. For example, if the trend is towards sans-serif fonts (which it is right now), then a wordmark with a serif font is going to stand out.
We should take notice if companies are spending tens to loads of thousands and thousands of dollars moving far from a design with specific features and in the direction of a brand new design they believe will be perceived better.
Overall trends
This year sees the continuation of the general trend of logos getting simpler. The rise of social media and smartphones has required logos to be recognizable when really small, like a profile picture on a news feed. Simple logos work better on mobile and social media.
But this year we see the dawn of the brand new overall trend in type: absolutely the domination of sans-serif and contemporary fonts. Designers and companies are warding off serif, decorative and script fonts like they are radioactive.
