Zaheer Dodhia, CEO of Logo designis an entrepreneur who has launched multiple startups including ZillionDesigns, PCStore, CashforUsedLaptop.
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The year 2022 is more than halfway through and with an eye to the future, it’s time to think about what’s to come. Perhaps you are an entrepreneur, a graphic designer, or someone with a personal interest in promoting a brand on social media or the Metaverse. Maybe you are all three.
One thing is certain, this is an important time to focus on accurate and memorable branding. Your audience needs to know who you are, both in the virtual world and in real life.
The problem with trends
As a serial entrepreneur and branding veteran, I am fascinated by the constant updates and trends in one of the most important parts of visual branding: logo design. The tricky part is that there are always plenty of trends to choose from. Half the time they are downright contradictory. So when it comes to pinpointing the key trend to watch out for, it can be hard to narrow it down to the details.
When sifting through trends to select what I think is the next big thing, there are a few factors I had to consider:
• How does this trend relate to our virtual modern world?
• How likely is it that this trend will really hold?
• How flexible is this trend? Does it work for any type or size of business?
• Will this trend reliably provide accurate, memorable branding opportunities?
After going through what seemed like dozens of predictive lists for the coming year, I had my answer: The next big thing in logo design will most likely be the in-motion logo.
In-motion logos are moving designs that can alternate between two or more iterations, giving the audience plenty of time to absorb the details of each variation. In-motion logos are also known as animated logos or dynamic logos. My preference for the nickname ‘on the move’ is because I think it best reflects the style. “Animated Logos” sounds a bit cartoonish; “dynamic logos” sounds like a value judgment.
Don’t get me wrong: you definitely want a dynamic logo design created by someone who knows what they’re doing. But not all in-motion logos are created equal.
As for examples, I’d pick Netflix’s (admittedly animated and dynamic) “N” especially since it’s accompanied by an audio logo, the “duh-thin” that tells your ears exactly which app you just opened, even if you operate your Apple TV remote blindfolded. The Walt Disney Company provides another famous example. Everyone recognizes the dramatic pan over Cinderella’s castle, be it the older (literally animated) cartoon iteration or the newer CGI flight.
Both are, of course, media companies. In-motion logos are excellent choices for media companies, guaranteed to provide opportunities to show the movement of their logo. But I note that both also have frame variants of the logo, which is absolutely necessary for the customizability of the design. For example, you may not show a moving logo in a newspaper or magazine.
However, you can display it on a TV, computer monitor, smartphone screen, website, social media platform, email, video billboard, or almost anywhere else used for advertising and branding outlets. Even some buses have video ads. This is a big part of why in-motion logo design is now more applicable than ever for any type of business.
Why In-Motion is so important
An in-motion logo is an excellent choice for any company or individual with a virtual presence, so basically any company or individual.
In recent years, as the coronavirus pandemic sent everyone to their rooms, we’ve seen an increasing emphasis on the virtual world. Innovations like the Metaverse affect how we communicate, do business and live our lives. In-motion logos are ideal for branding on a virtual platform, bringing clarity and clarity to businesses and individuals memorability of their branding.
Perhaps the biggest advantage is the versatility that in-motion design offers. Interested in a combination logo but want to save space? A logo displayed first as iconography and then as typography will give you exactly what you need. Do you have a simple logo and want to boost the eye-catching factor? Rapid movement attracts attention, and unexpectedly variations arouse interest.
In-motion logos can be adapted to almost any style of logo design, which is another big point in their favor. I might want a traditional buttoned-up subtle wordmark logo for one company and a loud, unique, infinitely memorable mascot logo for another, but in-motion will still give any design a serious boost in both rememberability and adaptability in the virtual world.
Looking to the future
It’s impossible to know exactly how much impact in-motion logo design will have on businesses in 2023 and beyond. To what extent will we embrace it? How exactly will it be used? But it’s not difficult to look at the value video has in advertising and extrapolate from statistics to predict that in-motion will be a huge success in the advertising, branding and design worlds. In the U.S, 83% of internet users consume online video content. In addition, statistics show that viewers remember 95% of video messages compared to reading them.
I can envision a world where video clips replace traditional logo design and capture the spirit of a brand in a dynamic, eye-catching movement. Will the old-fashioned methods of graphic design eventually be subsumed into small films instead of small squares of design? Or will graphic designers just keep adapting – as they always have – and incorporate aspects of this next big thing into logo design, creating static logos or dynamic logos with a version designed specifically for animation? It’s a brave new world out there, and it’ll be exciting to find out.
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