Source: pdanshov

As clothes make the man, logo makes the brand. It is not entirely true, as brands basically represent ‘a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller (or a group of sellers) and to differentiate them from those of the competitors’ according to Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing. In fact, I believe brands are not only a combination of some material or graphic elements, but kind of a spiritual entity. Going further, I’d say the brand is the soul of a product and the logo is the body.

While building a brand involves consistent marketing efforts, logos are created by graphic designers. As a logical consequence, famous logos of successful brands are created by successful graphic designers.

I am sure there are few people who have not heard about Coca-Cola and when seeing a Coke bottle ‘Always Coca-Cola’ doesn’t come in their minds. As well as when hearing the name, they instantly see the logo’s image.

Well, that’s what this article is about – famous logos. More precisely, it’s about the fonts used in these logos. Being a graphic designer you’ve probably found yourself not once in the situation of selecting fonts for different projects – a real challenge considering the multitude of options you can choose from – or even creating fonts. Whether you made a good choice or not is hard to decide since there aren’t any specific rules to be followed in this regard. In the end, it’s all about design inspiration. And Frank Mason Robinson, the one who designed Coca-Cola’s logo, had a lot of it.

Since we live in the age of technology and communication, I selected a relevant list of some of the most popular logos. They may be a good source of inspiration for your future projects as you’re probably looking for design resources. So let’s take a look at over 15 of the most famous logos and see the fonts used.

1. Apple

Font: Apple Garamond

Apple is the most valuable brand on the market and one of the most famous brands around the world. In addition, its logo is very popular being also very inspirational. The font used is refined and simple, in perfect accordance with the slogan – ‘Think different’.

2. Samsung

Font: DDT Cond SemiBold Font

Samsung follows the same simplistic logo fonts’ trend as its main competitor, Apple. The current font has been in use since 1993.

3. Google

Font: Catull BQ

Despite having a simple typography, Google’s logo font is lively and colorful – the four colors: blue, red, yellow and green that combined determine a larger palette suggest exactly the way the search engine works.

4. IBM

Font: Men In Blue

Simple and masculine, IBM’s logo’s font perfectly defines the Big Blue, as IBM is nicknamed. The 8-bar logo has been used since 1972 and it’s another proof that simplistic design will never be out of fashion.

5. LinkedIn

Font: Myriad Pro Bold for ‘Linked’ and Myriad Pro Black for ‘in’.

The fonts used in Linkedin’s logo are ‘linked’. These fonts are related, being part of the Myriad fonts’ family.

6. Skype

Font: Helvetica Rounded Bold

Flowing curves, narrow characters and blue, again, make Skype’s logo stand out the crowd.

7. Yahoo!

Font: Yahoo Font

Yahoo! is, indeed, ya-hoo! The font is original and it cannot be confused since it can only be seen in their logo.

8. Facebook

Font: Klavika Bold

Returning to the simplistic style, the lower-case characters on the plain blue background make the Facebook logo one of the most famous logos worldwide.

9. LG

Font: Helvetica Black

Following the minimal trend, LG logo font is simple, modern, and hard to forget.

10. Sony

Font: Clarendon Bold Expanded Font

As well as Samsung and LG, Sony uses a consistent logo. This font is, again, simplistic, the upper-case characters inspiring power and strength.

11. Microsoft

Font: Segoe UI Semibold Font

The current logo and the font used are new – this logo has been adopted for less than a year and changes the well-known minimalistic path followed by Microsoft. The new grey font has now regular characters suggesting stability, the logo overall looking friendlier than the old one.

12. Hewlett-Packard

Font: Baucher Gothic URW Bold Extended Font

Modern and elegant, this font has very simplistic lines, too. The logo overall reminds of the Yin-Yang symbol, the blue circle suggesting continuity.

13. Dell

Font: Futura Pro Extra Bold Font

Simple, blue – there’s obviously a trend here – narrow upper-case characters. The rigidity that may be evoked since the characters have no rounded corners contrasts with the ‘E’ indicating flexibility.

14. Flickr

Font: Frutiger Font

The pinked final ‘r’ is what makes this common font standing out and Flickr be one of the most popular brands. It encourages you not to feel blue anymore, as there’s always a pink side worth considering.

15. Twitter

Font: Pico Alphabet

There’s no novelty here, simplicity is the ‘keyword’. However the letters seems quite playful, having rounded corners and being in lower-case, excluding any formality.

There is a common trend among these logos: besides consistency (some have remained unchanged for more than 30 years), they are very simplistic and most of them are monochrome. More than a half (Samsung, IBM, Linkedin, Skype, Facebook, Hewlett – Packard, Dell, Twitter) of these logos go blue, while the others exceptionally use maximum four colors (Google, Microsoft). There is, certainly, no coincidence in choosing blue. While red is the easiest people perceive, blue has more profound characteristics.

Given the complexity of the services and products these listed companies produce, the blue color used in their logos match the general idea of high technology, continuous improvement, evolution, infinity. Less is definitely more and simplistic design works great, especially when it comes to logos of companies in the technology or communication industry.