Your brand’s logo design is often the first impression potential clients have of your company. It is a point of recognition for clients and serves as a basic design foundation for expanding your brand. A good logo can help people to connect with and trust your brand, this cycle of brand awareness and then brand consideration sets them up to be more open to buying your products or services in the future.
But in 2020, it’s not enough to just have a pretty logo. Take a look at how logo animation can enhance your branding.
“A great trademark is appropriate, dynamic, distinctive, memorable and unique.” – Primo Angeli
A memorable logo typically includes multiple elements starting with brand-specific colors, a unique font, and in some cases complementary shapes. What you don’t see is that the logo design also requires a complex mixture of design tools and technologies, which are always changing. A good logo designer will need to explore new ways to make logo designs memorable and unique.
For many companies going through a brand redesign, a logo can serve as a starting point for the rest of the brand’s assets, both digital and traditional, from the website to your business cards.
When we consider ways to make logo designs memorable and unique motion design stands out as a popular and powerful solution for telling an innovative and interesting brand story. You’ve likely noticed a growing number of companies are using an animated logo to attract customers within digital environments. The daily Google Doodle, when animated, is an excellent example of this.
Logo animation can present a brand and its services in a dynamic way making it a powerful advertising tool and a brand positive way to attract customers’ attention.
The logo may involve a simple effect, like Simon Pengelly’s brand below. This shows the layering of plywood through adding lines or layers, which includes elements of the brand’s products.
Animated logos have many benefits in comparison to static logos.
Whether or not you’re consciously aware of it, there are numerous logos around us everywhere we look. You can easily find more than 10 logos that look similar to one another. The motion design can make your logo stand out among those similar ones and catch users’ attention.
An animated logo can also promote your brand awareness. People can be attracted by interesting and dynamic images and content easily. It can help customers to remember your logo, increase your customers’ engagement and grab their attention for longer.
Logo animation can communicate a good story and evoke customers’ emotion. Having an animated logo can show a more detailed explanation of a company’s message and mission.
This animation may give rise to joy, excitement, and other positive feelings, enabling the viewers to be more easily convinced of your products and services value as their affinity for your brand rises.
A good example of this is the below logo for Sello. It’s simple, yet effective and visually pleasant, and it quickly informs the viewer of what industry Sello is in —platforms that have the ability to sell a multitude of product categories.
Logo animation is a new way to communicate your products and services in a creative way. You can elevate the perception people have of your company by showing you keep up with the latest trends.
While an animated logo doesn’t make sense for every platform or use case, there are a few instances in which it can be especially effective.
Social media posts that include visuals earn 94% more views. Motion design will not only make your post stand out but also help to catch users’ attention for longer.
In 2020, 92% of marketers say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy, compared with 78% just five years ago.
Logo animation can be used in your brand's video to help you look sharp and professional. By ending your videos with your animated logo, you can encourage customers to take that all-important next step.
If you’re developing promotions or paid advertisements, logo animation can show off your brand and encourage viewers to take a second look. It can also increase the ad’s engagement and bring in a higher click-through rate.
A good logo animation on your website can make a strong first impression for visitors and capture their attention for longer. It can also convey more information about the company than a static pic.
This can encourage visitors to stay on your site longer and — if it’s tied to a clear call to action — help them take the next step in contacting you.
Email is one of the most widely-used communication methods but simple sender’s information may not catch a recipient’s eye. An animated logo can help draw the recipient’s attention and drive them to take a second look.
To make your logo animation work effectively, you need to first analyze your business and think of your brand message. The risk of logo animation is that many will use motion design without a clear purpose, but rather just to attract attention.
By identifying your brand’s mission or goals, you can ensure that your logo — and the animated form of it — is purposeful.
If you have an internal team member responsible for brand design or if you yourself are looking to learn, there are many tools available for getting started with logo animation.
Adobe After Effects provides a relatively user-friendly platform for simple animation.
New tools such as Maxon’s Cinema 4D are more complex, requiring an experienced designer to use it properly. But it can allow you to make incredibly unique 3D logos.
Canva is another tool marketers can take advantage of if you’d like to create very simple logo animation — you're limited to 10 "Animate" effects — and aren’t as concerned about it being very technical or customizable.
Regardless of which tool you choose, ensure your logo animation makes sense for your company, and that it still uses your brand colors, shapes and fonts. For your customer, a comprehensive brand experience is key.
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