Popular Animated Logo Design
These days logos are everywhere you look and many are so ingrained in our collective consciousness that we’re arguably too familiar with them.
Who could help knowing what those big golden arches on the motorway mean? And who could ever disassociate that little silver ring containing with three silver spokes that adorns so many car bonnets, with quality engineering and status?
One could argue that the market for logos is pretty saturated so, as a company or a designer, it’s hard to achieve standout. One solution is to move with the times, literally. By making your logo move through time – ie.by animating it – you can ensure it communicates a lot more than a static logo might.
One industry where an animated logo is par for the course is cinema, where the kinetic design of a company’s logo is pretty much a calling card for the quality and style of their productions. However, other spheres of business are also following suit. We take a look at some examples below, all of which demonstrate how animated logos can really wow an audience.
Pathe
There’s something very peaceful and innocent about Pathe’s mobile style animated logo. The way it seems to hang in mid-air gives it grace and fluidity, though the shadows hint at more complexity and perhaps a darker side. The inclusion of the rooster’s shadow at the end harks back to the days when Pathe created the newsreels that were shown in theatres prior to a feature film in the early 1900s, all of which featured a crowing rooster at the start.
Pixar
If someone tried to tell you that an animation of a lamp could be funny, warm and engaging, you’d struggle to believe them. But after seeing Pixar’s standard logo animation you’d know it to be true. The light-hearted, clever feel that typifies a Pixar film is beautifully captured here, by the modern-day masters of animation.
Scott Free Productions
This bewitching sequence, segwaying into the Scott Free Productions logo, just goes to show that these things can become small, self-contained works of art. There is something wonderfully haunting and then empowering about what we’re shown here as an audience. There’s almost the feeling that this is what Ridley Scott’s creativity would look like if it were pinned down onto the screen in its purest form.
And finally…
What animated logo compilation would be complete without a nod to the masters of logo reinvention, on an almost weekly basis? In what are known as Doodles, Google take their world-famous primary and secondary colour logo and dedicate it to various causes and anniversaries. These dedications are often pretty involved in terms of design and massively confident in terms of taking their brand and messing with it. Themes have included things like Milan Rúfus’ 85th Birthday, St Patrick’s Day and of course Google’s own Birthdays.
