Journal
Logos with icons get noticed in social media
I’ve recently designed a slew of logos that all have one thing in common. Each one has an “icon” associated with the word mark and each one was influenced by the constraints of social media. I’ve always been a big proponent of developing icons as it adds a unique property to the logo, and creates a shortcut for people to use to identify their brand. While icons have been around for years, it’s the overall shape of the icon that I found myself studying. It’s just square. At first I didn’t realize I was even doing it and now I actually seek to create icons with square shapes.
I realized this is due to the way social media allows for a small headshot that is square in shape. When you see people trying to fit their entire logo in that square, inevitably it looks awful, cut off and most times unreadable. Now some would say, you shouldn’t separate the icon from the word mark, but I don’t subscribe to that theory. I say use it as a graphic element, a watermark, or even a small mark on proposal interior pages. With applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all the rest, the full name of the company resides high on a page and is the same font for every company. This creates a democratizing effect across the board. Meaning, no company is elevated over another in this way. Yet, by using just the icon to separate yourself from the pack, a unique identifier creates impact. It says, I can make this dull and dreary social media page stand out from the rest. Below are a couple of examples of logos I’ve done that seem to work really well in this context.
The Scheiderer Partners logo utilizes curvy and interlinked S&P characters against a very straightforward treatment of the name. The “partners” are both very lively people with a great sense of humor who are also writers. Since Scheiderer is indeed a tough name to spell, we opted for simplicity through upper and lowercase letters. This allowed us to bring the “personality” of the logo out through the icon itself. It’s playful, it links two letters together signifying fluid teamwork, and the orange color creates a vibrant punch. Below the icon commands attention in Facebook and Twitter.
Here the icon stands out and even works very small almost live a fav icon
Another example is NBIS or the Network for Business innovation and Sustainability. Obviously the name of the organization is way too long to get into some tiny, square configuration. Instead we use the icon portion with the acronym in all our social media. The examples below show the icon on a branded YouTube channel page and Twitter. No matter how tiny it gets, it’s still readable.
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