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A good logo design or a good corporate brand identity is instrumental in selling a product or to ascertain its legitimacy in the eyes of the prospective customer. In the graphic design world flexibility and scalability are the key factors which determine the success of a particular logo design. A logo should be beyond the barriers of cultural diversity, language, its mode of transmission media and colours. Let me elaborate on this. You might need to transmit a logo via fax or email. It might be printed in a newspaper, published in a website in black and white. So a logo has to be a timeless, durable and universal face of your brand which is scalable.

We find so many companies re-designing their logos and brand identities. It’s not for nothing. They have felt that their logo does not comply to the above guidelines and they took decisions to redesign their logos. A change in brand identity is not an easy thing to carry out. It costs the company a lot. Apart from the direct cost of designing a logo or brand identity, they have to change their letterheads, visiting cards, envelope, and any pre-printed stationery that they might have with the new logo. They also have to spend a lot in advertising by which they can let people know about the change of their brand identity. Still companies change their logos and brand identities when they find that the current logo is not good enough.

Let us take a look of some of the major companies who have decided to change their logos in spite of the difficulties listed above only because they thought that their logo was just not right.

1. Animal Planet Logo : Their old logo had an image of the earth which was not always printable on all media. Suppose in a FAX message the image would appear like an obscure round solid.

Logo of animal planet before and after redesign

2. breastcancer.org Logo : Their logo again had a solid pink background and a kind of orange foreground. In black and white print the logo would loose its charm and effect. So they used gray to just write the name of their domain. As a pictorial representation they added a rounded double helical structure of the DNA strand since cancer depends a lot on genetic factor. Quite a bit of though went in.

Look at the double helical DNA strand.

3. British Telecom Logo : They had the overlapping human beings which was difficult to print. They replaced it with circular discs which can mean two things. Dish antenna and the earth. They want to convey the message that their dishes cover the entire planet. Also the old logo showed a man speaking through a cone which represents old mode of communication rather than dish antennas.

Their unique discs represent the planet and dish antenna.

4. Discovery Kids Logo : They have simplified their busy design which was difficult to print in black and white again. Their current logo uses the simple font Arial Rounded MT. Its easier to print and colourful so that it appeals to kids.

Check out its simplicity.

5. Ford Logo : The ford car manufacturing company though about its logo and decided to remove the gradient in the blue colour in the oval disc. Instead they have now made a logo which is easier to print and has no gradient effect.

They removed the colour gradient in the oval disc.

6. Jack-in-the-box logo : They used an iconic box as a representation of their concept.

They introduced a box to make their logo meaningful.

7. QVC Logo : They simplified their logo with just an iconic ‘Q’ with a slight 3D effect. First it struck me as why they are using this 3D effect. Then someone told me that since they are an online e-commerce business so they do not often need to fax or print their logo. So they wanted to create an impression by using 3D, their way of standing apart.

They used 3-D to stand apart.

8. Sierra Mist Logo : Take a look at the misty effect in the word ‘mist’. I would not rate this logo very but look at their specific case. It is just the name of a product and not the company. They just print it on the drink cans. So the logo is justified.

Look at the mist effect.

9. Tropicana Logo : This redesign has been criticized because the orange with the straw was iconic for tropicana. But they decided to make their logo simpler.

They removed the orange and the straw and made it simple.

10. Discovery Channel Logo : They simplified the font so that it becomes more readable.

They used a universal font which is more acceptable.

So now as you have seen why companies around the globe are redesigning their logos you might start thinking about your own logo and find out if it needs a makeover.