The hot trend in ultra-minimalist logos goes exactly against what makes people want to buy stuff

 It turns out the on-trend logos are, the research says, getting it wrong.

We’ve become used to seeing simple, elegant logos for many companies in recent years (think Mastercard, Dunkin’, or Slack). But as new research suggests, many minimalist logos aren’t effective because they don’t indicate what the company does. An effective logo hints at what product or service is being offered. This translates to making a brand more profitable.

“Logos are symbols that are a collection of impressions about the brand,” Debbie Millman, brand consultant and host of the Design Matters podcast, told Business Insider. “And we’ve been doing this now for 10,000 years. We create a symbol to signify something else. And then we agree that that symbol means something.”

Researchers found that descriptive logos make money.

The original study, which was published in the Journal of Marketing Research, examined 597 logo designs with the help of 2,000 participants.

The logos were split into two categories. The first, descriptive logos, denote what a company does through its imagery. For example, the Burger King logo is shaped like a hamburger. The second category, non-descriptive logos, are more abstract in nature, like the McDonald’s logo, which makes no reference to fast food.

The researchers, who were marketing professors from Canada, England, and France, found that 60% of major companies use a non-descriptive logo, while 40% use a descriptive logo.

Participants were given descriptions of various companies and then evaluated logos on their authenticity and likability, and they gave higher ratings to the descriptive logos in every category….[Read More]