London Logo Design Blog

A Better Butter Logo

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:39:52 +0000

Butter is just beginning to recover from its previous bad reputation. There was a time when people were replacing their butter with hydrogenated vegetable oil products, to the detriment of taste and, as we found out later, health. Then the reports began to come out suggesting that trans fats are far less healthy than natural animal fats. Now, butter is back. There is no better time for a new food and drink logo design for a dairy brand.

Irish dairy brand Kerrygold recently rebranded and updated their logo. Although it offers a variety of dairy products, the brand is best known in the UK for delicious, creamy Irish butter. The logo design was recently changed to emphasize the Irish origin of the company while also offering more emotional appeal.

Although the new logo design looks very similar to the old one, there are subtle differences. The font has been changed slightly, although it maintains a Celtic feeling. The trees behind the cow have been removed and replaced with grassy knolls. The shape containing the name has been changed to a softer shape that now contains the buttercup flowers, and a gradient has been added in the green fill colour. The green is just a little deeper, which creates a more calming effect.

Blue and white colours are the most commonly used in the dairy industry, so Kerrygold’s traditional green colour scheme really differentiates the brand while also hinting at the national origin. I don’t know if I would call this logo design “more emotional” as the press release from the company suggests, but it is more attractive and more modern.

Kerrygold is not a traditional company, but rather a division of the Irish Dairy Board. It was founded in the sixties to market Irish butter on a global basis. The logo design that is being replaced is not quite that old, but it has been in use since 1986. A little gold was added about five years ago, but nothing else has changed. It is definitely time for a re-design!

The new logo design has been gradually taking over in the UK, but it is being officially introduced in the rest of the world. The package will remain mostly the same, with the key difference being the new logo design.

Food and drink logo design is a unique field. In addition to developing a logo, the company must have packaging and other materials professionally designed as well. It is important that the package be clear about its contents, but also stand out on a crowded supermarket shelf. Because food purchases tend to have an element of spontaneity (we choose whatever looks good, that is), it is important that all visual aspects of the brand be top-notch. In this case, we think that the new Kerrygold brand will quite appealing and help take the company into a bright future.

Hopefully Kerrygold does not try to go several decades without an update this time!

A New and Childish Logo

Logo Design Company London — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:17:46 +0000

Sometimes having a childish logo is not a bad thing. If your business deals with children as its primary focus, it actually makes the most sense. A good example of a new “childish” logo design is that for the UK’s Osteopathic Centre for Children.

The company previously used a very different logo and even a different name. Formerly the Foundation for Paediatric Osteopathy, this is a charitable organisation in the UK that focuses on making sure that osteopathic services are available to our youngest citizens. However, the logo did not really express this goal. The writing was rounded and friendly, but also black and overly official. The image of a sweet-pea blossom was the most noticeable part of the logo, although it did not relate to the brand in any way. Clearly a change was needed.

The name has been changed and the font as well. The words are now written in upper case letters in a variety of colours, which tie into the colours used in the image. The logo image features a large, adult-sized hand with a child-sized hand layered over it. Some might call the image a cliché, but I think it works in this case. After all, a paediatric centre is all about adults helping children. My main issue is with the way that the two hands overlap. Only the tips of two fingers of the child’s hand are venturing outside the borders of the adult hand. This makes it seem like an accident. I would suggest either placing the child’s hand entirely within the adult hand, or rotating it so it overlaps a little differently. No part of a professional logo design should look accidental.

I have to wonder if an all-caps font was the right choice for this logo. On one hand, it allows the organisation to keep a professional image even while using friendly and informal elements such as rounded lettering and bright colours. On the other hand, writing in all-caps is associated with shouting. I would prefer to see a more professional-feeling font but with natural capitalization.

One of the key problems with this logo is that it will not work well in black and white. The colour is an essential part of the feeling, but it will not always be possible to colour it. Imagine this logo on a fax; it will be merely a shadow of its current self. Unfortunately, all logos must eventually be shown in monochromatic formats, which should be a major consideration in the logo design process.

Another thing I don’t like about this logo design (which I generally like) is that the two hands are clearly taken from the same vector. They are identical except for size. I don’t know if you have looked at any children’s hands lately, but they are shaped slightly differently from a typical adult hand.

Because of the use of colour and the hand image, this logo design looks a bit like the one used for the Madrid bid for the 2016 Olympics (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Madrid_bid_logo_for_the_2016_Summer_Olympics.svg). I’m sure this was not intentional, but it amusing that a colourful hand can mean so many different things.

Popular Children’s Brand Comes to Liverpool at Last

Logo Design Company London — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:27:53 +0000

Visitors to the Liverpool One shopping centre have probably noticed that a new and exciting logo design has recently gone up: the Lego logo design that represents a new Lego store in the area. This brand is very much in demand in the UK, with many enthusiasts bemoaning a lack of Lego stores in the country. While people in the Liverpool area are certainly happy for the new addition, those in other, Lego-less areas are still waiting to get a Logo location of their own.

About the new Lego store: it is in a prime shopping centre location near other child-friendly brands such as the Pumpkin Patch and The Disney Store. It includes a ‘Pick-A-Brick Wall’ with bulk bins of different shaped and sized blocks, a ‘Living Room’ that functions as a play area, and a ‘Brand Ribbon’ with different Lego projects, brand information and inspiration.

The Lego brand and logo design are recognized not just throughout the UK, but throughout the world. However, it was not always this way. Lego began making wooden toys in the traditional manner; their plastic blocks were very unpopular because parents did not want to buy plastic toys for their children. However, the building potential of the blocks was enough to woo the market, and the brand was quite popular by the late sixties, when the first Legoland was built.

The rest is history. Most people in Europe recognize this popular logo design, which has remained unchanged since 1998. It features bright colours that are appealing to the mainly youthful market, with a red background and white letters that are outlined in black and yellow. The letters are rounded and bubbly and rounded, which is ironic when you consider that the blocks are as square as can be. This just goes to show that a logo does not always have to refer to the product itself if it builds the right brand. In this case, it is a logo that currently is placed on millions of products as they leave the Lego factories.

The Lego logo design is currently a favourite in pop culture as well. For example, Google made a Lego tribute logo on their home page on the fiftieth anniversary of the patent for the little plastic blocks. It featured the Google logo made from Legos. In addition, Lego products were prominently placed in the Toy Story films, with the logo design in full view. This line of children’s movies includes mainly classic children’s logos toys, so this put Lego in a new category for many people.

One reason that Legos have been so popular is that they have never lost sight of their core market. While many adults enjoy Lego products, especially those of us who grew up using them, Lego continues to market to children. Indeed, the name is a shortened version of the Danish phrase leg godt, which means to play well. Hundreds of children in the Liverpool area are now playing well thanks to a new and exciting store in their area!

An Unusual Logo for an Unusual Business

Logo Design Company London — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:41:45 +0000

Giving is its own reward, or so we are told at least. Unfortunately, many people in the UK are cutting back on giving because we each have our own financial difficulties to worry about in this economy. Now, however, there will be a new way for the giving among us to band together and encourage each other. Blue Dot is a new initiative that is currently launching in the UK to encourage people for donating money and time to charities. The website is designed to track and reward charitable donations with a currency known as Blue Dots, and should be fully functional by the end of this month.

The website was the brainchild of Chris Ward, the creative director of Comic Relief. It will involve social media applications as well. The idea is that people who are willing to share their purchases with others on Facebook will also get involved in giving. As more and more people see their loved ones give generously, they will feel compelled to do so. The idea has the potential to create a culture of giving among the young UK people who make up the online community.

In addition, people can make giving a part of their CV. The website allows users to track and make reports of their giving, which may help to set them apart from other applicants in the search for a job. After all, employers would rather hire a socially conscious candidate than a more selfish one, all other things being equal.

The new logo design will be featured on the website and also in a variety of marketing schemes. It was designed to look like the planetary spectrum, with the eight planets of our solar system. The dots are even created in the relative size of the different planets. The logo was created to be simple and easily recognizable, with a flexibility that will allow it to be used in a variety of formats and modified as the future market demands.

The blue background of this UK logo design does not just relate to the name; it is the colour of a clear, sunny sky and therefore a calming colour. The logo has rounded, friendly lettering as well. The logo design is clearly designed to make people feel better about giving, which matches the purpose of the website. As the designer points out, the logo needed to be ‘obvious’ due to the young and fast-moving group of people that it is intended to reach. It seems to meet this criterion.

Although we tend to think of logo design as a marketing tool for businesses, a charitable organisation such as this one needs professional design as well. It is an essential part of promoting a cause and building public awareness and support. This makes good logo design essential. No one wants to see a worthy cause such as this one die out for lack of support. If you are running a charity or NGO, you need professional design services in order to build your brand, just like any other organisation.

Top Rate Logo for Toprooms

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:19:37 +0000

If you are like many people in the UK, going on a business trip or holiday means staying in rather generic corporate hotel rooms that are all the same: equally awful, but clean and safe. Most of us would rather stay at a smaller, private hotel with a little personality, but it is hard to find one from a distance. Not only is it hard to find a good, privately owned hotel while in another town, it is difficult to tell whether it is a good one. Private hotels can be hit and miss when it comes to quality. What we really need it a website that gives us access to these private hotels, allows us to see how other visitors have liked them and lists amenities so we know exactly what we are getting into.

Obviously Toprooms.com is a website that is well-needed in the UK. It is much like other travel websites, except that the business offers only independent brands such as privately owned hotels and bed and breakfasts. The site allows booking of these small, local accommodations and also allows people to get the inside edge thanks to recommendations from locals.

Many people in the UK prefer small, local brands over large multinational ones, so this is a much-needed website. However, many of these potential customers simply did not know about the website. Clearly a change in branding and marketing was in order.

The new travel logo design is simple, with the name of the company written in lower case letters that are simple and unassuming. The letters are written in white against a purple background. Many of the marketing materials feature a green background also with lower case white letters, except that these are written in a more official font with serifs. There are artistic accents, such as a loop at the bottom of the Y’s. This makes the brand appear trustworthy and professional, but also a little fun and unique.

The wording used in the marketing functions as a call to action: ‘say yes to charm and originality’, for example. However, toprooms.com has kept their original strapline, ‘stay original’. This play on words is appropriate for the industry and certainly remains relevant to the audience. It highlights the fact that the hotels on this website (and the visitors as well) are a little different from the typical holiday goer.

The new logo design is quirky, colourful and fun, but it also has the simplicity and memorability necessary for a website of this nature. Because toprooms.com represents a variety of different establishments and also offers services other than hotel bookings, it was important to have just the right brand: one that is appropriate enough for a unique brand, but flexible as well.

The new UK logo design and the marketing campaign that accompany it are both perfect for this brand. They represent a simple concept, a non-threatening brand, and a little uniqueness. This will definitely appeal to the target market, which makes this change a winner.

Auckland Logo Bites the Dust

Logo Design Company London — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:35:37 +0000

UK destination branding is big business. An increasing number of regions, towns and cities are creating logo designs that represent what makes them unique. This is not merely good for the areas with the professional tourism brands, either. With more and more people in the UK taking holidays close to home, this offers a range of economical and interesting options.

However, some logos seem to be ill-conceived and poorly designed. To find the latest and most notable example of this, we must mentally move overseas to consider the logo design for Auckland, New Zealand. This logo was created three years ago at the cost of $174,000 New Zealand dollars, which comes out to a little more than 90,000 quid. Clearly this was an expensive failure.

The logo design features an upper case letter A. The edges of the letters appear frayed, and a few spare paint droplets dot the surrounding area. The colour palette is warm and reminiscent of a sunset. The image was part of a larger plan to promote Auckland as an international city. The image was used in a variety of contexts, including in promotions for the Rugby Cup held in the city.

The logo design is attractive and interesting, but it created a great deal of outcry almost from the moment it was introduced. It was called, among other things, appalling, and compared to a ragged pair of jean shorts. The residents of Auckland did not feel that this logo adequately represented their city in any way.

Even worse than the outcry, many people in the city never even noticed it. A recent survey of Auckland residents found that only eighteen per cent even knew about it. That is not the high recognition factor that most people hope for when developing a destination logo. This was the final straw; the logo design was scrapped completely, and the mayor recently announced that Auckland is seeking a new one.

Until a new logo design is developed, the Auckland Council will use the former pohutakawa flower logo, which uses the unusual shape of a plant that is indigenous to the area. There is also some talk of returning to the ‘City of Sails’ brand that was used for more than a decade prior to the introduction of the new logo design, a reference to the city’s waterfront location and huge number of sailboats.

So, where did this destination logo go wrong? The first and most obvious issue is that it does nothing to differentiate the Auckland brand from its competition. Obviously there are many cities that begin with the letter A, and many of these have sunrises or sunsets that tie into this image’s colour scheme. The pohutakawa image and the City of Sails both tie into the city directly, so these would excellent sources of inspiration for a destination brand.

Whatever the Auckland Council selects, it will have to be a budget-friendly design. The city cannot afford any more expensive branding mistakes.

Facebook to Track Olympic Brands

Logo Design Company London — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:26:25 +0000

The London 2012 Olympic Games have turned into a huge marketing event, in addition to a huge sporting one. Indeed, well-recognized brands from all over the globe are paying millions of dollars just to place their logo design on some obscure piece of equipment or memorabilia. Many of the corporate sponsors pay these huge fees just to be able to use the London Olympic 2012 Games logo in their own advertising, for the right to call themselves an ‘Official Sponsor’ of this notable UK event.

The reason for this is simple: there are few sporting events as notable or as trusted as the Olympic Games. While the Games have had their fair share of scandal, they always seem to emerge unscathed. People in the UK view the Olympics as a representation of quality, fairness and athleticism. These are qualities that many companies would like to have associated with themselves. Olympic sponsorship is one of the best ways of achieving this. In addition, the Olympics are about as high profile as a sporting brand can get. Whatever your UK market, you can safely bet that your consumer base has heard of this event.

We have always wondered if the huge sponsorship fees really pay off. Until now, there has been little means of measuring this, but social networking giant Facebook has a plan. The company plans to track how the influence and popularity of Olympic sponsors changes as the Games approach, which will roughly indicate whether the sponsorship fees are indeed worth it.

How do you track influence and popularity? On Facebook, measuring that abstract phrase ‘word of mouth’ is actually rather simple. The website will look at tangible factors such as how fast news about key brands travels around member pages. There will also be polls asking users how they feel about certain brands, which will show subtle changes in market opinion.

The information gathered by Facebook will be shared with sponsors so that they can change their campaigns before it is too late, getting the most mileage out of their Olympic sponsorship. Brands can see which techniques have been effective for other sponsors before the time has passed, which presents a new and interesting opportunity to tailor a marketing campaign to its audience almost in real time.

This is not the first time that social media have been used to track market indicators. Facebook ran a similar campaign on a smaller level for last year’s World Cup. The website found, among other things, that the advertisements from Umbro made people more likely to buy items bearing the company logo design. Last year, HP discovered that analysing Tweets about a movie can accurately predict the opening weekend box office numbers. While some people in the polling industry feel that social networking measurements do not give a comprehensive picture due to the limitations of the genre, it has proven to be a very effective tool indeed. Although Facebook is not an official Olympic sponsor, they just might be the unofficial social buzz tracking company of London 2012.

Reference Article

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Waitrose Opens a New Concept Store

Logo Design Company London — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:16:48 +0000

Waitrose is one of the most popular brands in the UK. Indeed, the company is always expanding into new and interesting fields. As of this week, Waitrose is branching out and opening a completely new type of store, called Waitrose Food, Fashion & Home.

The store, which is huge at more than 7000 square metres, is located in London’s Canary Wharf. It is not just a new concept for Waitrose; it is the largest store that the company owns. It will be selling the traditional Waitrose offerings of groceries, food and drink along with furnishings, beauty products and fashion. In other words, this is Waitrose’s first steps into the superstore model.

The name of the new store refers to its expanded offerings, and the logo design is merely an extension of the old Waitrose logo. The Waitrose logo is in the same font and colour, with the rest of the wording in clean white. The internal signage is also based on the Waitrose logo, with a bright and modern feeling that complements the brand well.

In addition to being designed to be an extension of the Waitrose brand, the new concept store was designed to be sustainable and environmentally friendly as well. Timber from sustainable forests was used, along with other ‘green’ materials.

This location was chosen to test the new concept not just because of the size of the store, but because of the location and demographic. The Canary Wharf location is the highest selling brand in the Waitrose company. Waitrose felt that this was the ideal market for experimentation. If the new type of store is successful, we may be seeing this new concept and logo design all over the UK.

This is not the only change for the major UK retailer in the past year. In addition to introducing many green company initiatives intended to appeal to the store’s eco-conscious customer group, Waitrose opened a large virtual shop in west London as a means of competing with online grocery brand Ocado. In addition, the company offers home delivery from many of its London

Waitrose’s growth can only be good for the grocery retailer. Many people in London are looking for ways to simplify their lives. Offering everything that a shopper could want in a single convenient location is certainly attractive to modern markets. On the other hand, Waitrose may be spreading themselves too thinly. Even if they have the capital to finance these huge expansions, they may not have the brand equity. The Waitrose brand has changed a lot in the past few years, from a simply grocery store to so much more.

Other grocery retailers in the UK seem to be following suit. Both Tesco and Asda have expanded their delivery models, and both are offering expanded lines of merchandise. This seems to be a new and emerging type of grocery brand, one that is appealing immensely to modern people in the UK.

Play.com Loses Direction?

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:01:45 +0000

Play.com is a well-known website in the UK, a homegrown alternative to Amazon. It is the second largest online retailer in the UK, following—you guessed it—Amazon. It is also available in the US and a handful of other countries, although the new logo design that we are writing about today has only been released in the UK market. This makes sense because our country remains its top market and thus its top branding priority.

Play.com basically sells toys for adults, diversions including DVDs, CDs, books, electronics and more. This August, we noticed that the website was changing. It officially made the switch a few weeks ago to a new and more modern brand.

The old logo featured the name of the website in indigo upper case letters, rounded in a friendly way. The .com portion used smaller lettering, which never made sense. The image featured a play button similar to those seen on a VHS or DVD player.

This image is conspicuously absent from the new logo design. The new logo features simply the name of the website. Instead of using smaller letters, the .com portion is now slightly thinner. This brings attention to the word ‘play’ without being as obvious. In addition, the colour palette has been changed as well, from indigo and gold to a more youthful blue and orange.

We have never been fans of using buttons in logo design, although they certainly work at times. The problem with this play button in particular is that it is rounded and looks like one on a VHS player. Do you own one of those? We didn’t think so. This is hardly the outdated image that the company wanted to present.

However, the new logo design feels a bit bare and understated. Perhaps this is just because we are used to seeing the more complicated old logo. The play button was not just relevant to the name; the arrow gave the logo design a feeling of movement and a focal point. While the image certainly needed redrawn, it did not deserve to be discarded altogether. In addition, the writing is a little too rounded. Lower case sans serif lettering is quickly becoming over-used in UK logo design. While it works well for some brands, it just does not seem technological or official enough for a brand with this clout. After all, Play.com is a leader in UK retail.

Although it would be nice to see some sort of image in this new logo, a change in products is one good reason for the play button to bid adieu. When Play.com opened shop, they sold mainly DVDs. This made the image highly relevant. The web superstore now carries a variety of items, so the play button probably needs to go. Still, this logo design feels too safe. It needs something else.

Has your business made huge changes since your logo design was created? If so, it may be time to rebrand. It is possible to create a UK logo design that will be relevant to your company and your market without making drastic changes such as this one.

A Canadian Example of Good Design

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:06:32 +0000

We write a lot about UK logo design, for obvious reasons. We tend to be especially interested in the logos for UK museums and other design-based organisations. However, many of the designs are simply not that great. There are notable exceptions to be sure, but many arts organisations in the UK are in desperate need of new branding.

The arts are an important part of Britain’s heritage, yet they seem to get short shrift in everyday life. Part of this is awareness; people simply are not aware of the different cultural events going on around them. Sometimes these get lost in the fray of marketing. Good design can overcome this, or at least begin to make strides toward overcoming.

Today we thought we would look at a Canadian arts organisation that has recently rebranded and is seeing more success and awareness as a result. The organisation in question is the Arts and Culture Centres of the Canadian province Newfoundland and Labrador. The old brand was stale and unattractive, in black and white with an image that looked like a traffic light and had ‘CC’ (not even the full acronym) where the round lights would be. The font was bland. Nothing about this logo design indicates that something exciting or noteworthy is happening in these centres.

The result, unfortunately, has been that these centres, which are present throughout the province, are underused. There are few events, and just as few attendees and supporters. This is a problem that is also seen in British arts and culture organisations.

The new logo is more modern and attractive, which will definitely help to build the ACC brand. It features the colours traditionally associated with printing, with a stylized A that is styled to resemble a bulls-eye shape. The C’s are drawn to nestle into each other, a detail that creates a professional look. The full name of the centres is written below in a space age font with upper case, grey letters that are all business.

It is easy to see how this logo design will impact the arts community in the Labrador and Newfoundland province. This logo is much more eye-catching; moreover, it is much more inviting. It is easy to see local arts lovers buying event tickets bearing this logo, or to image billboards built around this brand. The logo is already being used in social media and on the centres’ websites. We especially like the way that the social media buttons have been designed to turn the A from the logo into balloons. Other changes are in store for the ACC as well; for example, online ticket sales will be introduced this autumn.

Good UK design is desperately needed to support the arts. No one is going to take a museum, theatre or other arts organisation seriously if they have a brand that does not communicate their artistic style. We are happy to see that so many museums and arts organisations, both in the UK and elsewhere, are beginning to rebrand and use social media to promote their causes.