As brand identity designers our role is to communicate the brand's story using verbal and visual elements. While words are important shapes and symbols help communicate the brand’s story, values and personality visually.
While a brand's logo is not its entire identity, logo design plays a crucial role in brand identity as it is the one that graphically represents the brand.
Shapes and symbols carry what we refer to as pragmatic information. It refers to knowledge that both the designer and consumers understand. We have already discussed shape psychology in logo design in a previous article which you can refer to by clicking here. In this article we will see the role of symbols in logo design.
Almost every animal, plant, flora and object used in logo design has some symbolic meaning. However, the associated meaning can vary from culture to culture.
By adding more visual semantics to an existing symbol we add additional meaning to the logo we are designing. A logo is timeless when it has got a complexity to it such that people discover more meaning to it with time.
The following is a list of symbols and their associated meaning. They are in no way a comprehensive list, but they are some of the most universally accepted ones.
Star: excellence, direction, radiation and entertainment.
Heart: caring, and love, and emotions.
Shield: authority, protection, heritage and teamwork.
Arrows: accuracy, movement, speed and positive, upward or outward movement.
Flames: knowledge, eternity, passion, speed, and bad attitude.
Mountain: permanence and dependability.
Arch: efficiency, strength, and sturdiness.
Chain: unity, teamwork and strength.
Book: learning and knowledge.
I believe our role as designers is to take the ordinary and change it to something extraordinary.
I hope you found this article to be useful, if you are interested you can check out the following articles related to logo design - logo design types, shape psychology, colour psychology.
