Inspiration: Colorful and Vivid Logos
The world as we see it, is populated by colors. Every day we see brands and businesses using colors to define their identity (for example, the famous "yellow M" of a multinational fast-food chain). Although logos are traditionally made with minimal colors, the shift towards full color is unmistakable. In fact, a recently published article by Logo Lounge states that, for many years logos have been designed with one or two colors and recently designers have begun to look at the actual surface of the shapes as an entirely new canvas and the use of color is unrestrained. The article goes on to say that, rainbow-like color is often used to represent the concept of a full spectrum, more choices, or additional capabilities. In this compilation we present to you a selection of colorful and vivid logos that are fresh, inspiring and push creative boundaries.
Colorful Geometric Logos
Circles, ovals, squares, and triangles are very effective in logo design. These shapes can be combined with each other and beautiful colors to achieve unique and attractive designs. You may notice, many of these logos use almost all of the seven spectrum colors.
Renda
Autentika
Star Creative
Agent Orange Logo
Signalnoise.com Logo
Common Wealth Development
Cecif
Colourspace
Tyze
Socialimagineers
Vithree
Metroplex
Fundacion ADAR
Konzentrat
Good Together
Solarswipe
Samarras
Mirapolis
Brite Click
Collective Feedback
Hudson & Hobson logo proposal
North Color
Colorful Text and Text-Shape Logos
Text-based logos are the logos made form words or letters. Below you will see a selection of text-based logos with attractive colors that go beyond the text itself and make them visually appealing.
Beyond Media Inc
DLUX
Qwell
Instituto Portugues
Browsera
Maya
Michael Spitz V2
Vivid Ways
Odigo
Along with attractive colors and type, the Odigo logo is also an awesome ambigram: turn this logo design upside down and you will see that it reads the same both ways.
Brillio
Fete Event Marketing
101 Princess St
Colorful Illustrative Logos
Illustration-based logos are often complex, and require a full color palette. Here you will see a selection of lively and engaging logos that use vivid color combinations and are a feast for the viewer’s eyes.
Discrete Idea
Andy Fiord Studio
Foto Skrydis
MSDN TV
Media Factory
MyStockLogo
Art Hive
Koloroo Logo
Creative Atelier
DoDo Birdy
Tullamore Estate
Retrozebra
Illusion Studio
Creative Dog
CSS Cat
Bigcolors.com
Web Designer Wall
iDream Images
Lullaby
Liga Podarkov
Semisture
MonkVibe
Avenue Interactive
Talk City
BigSiteCity Logo Design
Artvolens
Salomon Urraca
Exadrop
Attractive colors combined with gradients and transparency in Exadrop logo evokes a sense of space and gives it a 3-Dimensional look.
Creator Lady
Travel World
Captivid
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Incredible talents
Colors and Coffee in the morning… perfect.
i like bigcolors.com
wow all of these are brilliant
Surprisingly, despite all the color, just about all of these logos are pretty generic and interchangeable. Very few of these have any identity of their own. They seem to copy each other’s styles and work together as a group nicely, but as an individual identity for any discrete product or company, I don’t see much originality or staking out of individual territory here. Disappointing.
I agree. The logos look cool but generic and standardized at the same time. These logos seem to all follow each other–certainly due in part to the fact that the post author is showing one type of logo–but I’ll take an educated guess and say that the similarities also are due to the fact that colorful logos are a trend.
I have to agree as well. All of these logos are simply part of trends and are not unique at all. Read further http://www.logolounge.com/articles/default_comments.asp?ArticleID=782
All of them look great, but I wonder how many of them really bring out the true meaning and message of the company.
I said something similar, but my comment wasn’t posted. Odd.
The first time you comment it’s held for approval, this helps us keep the spam out.
My bad.
That’s OK, we really appreciate a good conversation about illustration and design. Thankyou for sharing your opinion. I’m surprised by the number of “clever” logos I see online, quite a few of them have been designed around an idea (and as folio pieces) and not for a client, I’m not saying this is a bad thing, it’s just making it hard to make the distinction between folio piece and client based design. I’m guessing the popularity of the multicolor logo is because these businesses don’t deal in print and will only use the logo online or that designers are making their ideal logos but for folio use only. If I wanted to make a logo that used a rainbow of colors when I was studying design my teacher would have killed me and then lectured me on how hard it would be to make a style-guide around a logo with more than 3 colors. Imagine the astronomical cost of Pantone printing a specific set of colors for a rainbow logo?!
Agreed. My teachers would have been aghast as well… a good rule of thumb when designing is “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.” Restraint is a powerful tool.
Well said. One of of my favorite rules of thumb.
I think that’s a poor rule of thumb for someone who works in a creative field. If you really restrain yourself from trying new things just because others might look down on it, then you should probably find a different career.
Design should be about finding new limits. If you never come out of your comfort zone, then how will design evolve? New ideas can come out of bad ones. Its same rule as success is a product of failure..
Great examples of logo’s. It’s funny how a similar palette can make a lot of these logo’s so similar, despite the actual design. Goes to show you how important a role color plays in design.
I especially love Discrete Idea.
Some famous logo designer suggest us to design the logo in black and white. What do you think of that?
These logos are great in screen but I’m not sure they will do the same on paper.
I think that’s a great idea! For a logo to truly work, I think a designer should first resolve the forms in black & white, and then as a finishing touch, then the designer can add gradients, dimension and colors.
But if the logo doesn’t hold up on it’s own in black & white, all the dressing up in the world isn’t going to fix it or give it an individual identity.
Well although traditionally, logos are supposed to be done in minimal colors but nowadays many designers are making logos using multiple colors and if done well full color logos that use a large range of colors can also look really great. Also if taken care of, they can work fine in black and white also, for example, Tullamore Estate logo as featured above. A lot of above logos might have primarily designed for the web usage only rather than for the print but many would work great in print as well given the fact that there has been quantum leap and advancement in print technology.
You put your finger on it: “if well done.” None of these examples is particularly well done. As one commenter noted, The Altria and old Apple logos are good uses of lots of colors, and with an actual reason. Another recently revised logo that was just discussed today here: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/technically_this_is_very_colorful.php is that for Technicolor, and, although not the best logo ever, uses color well, and for the goal of the product. So, too, does NBC Television’s logo.
Some really beautiful logos there and magnificent use of colour. Great collection!
Brilliant!
Very very very beautiful collection. WOW!!
This just came in time, I need to create something of this type because it’s been on my mind for a while now and after this inspiration, I’M IN THE ZONE!
Wow, they just look delicious. I just love colourful organic shapes like in Vivid Ways or Vithree.
And they remind me a tutorial I just wrote about creating stylish colourful 3D objects in Illustrator:
http://pixelrockit.com/create-stylish-3d-shapes-with-adobe-illustrator/
Altria (formerly Philip Morris), the old Apple logo – just to add to the rainbow logo list we have here.
http://bebenciukas.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d289c7c
the MSDN tv logo is unique
WOW! Social Imagineer is great ! Love it !
hey man from where u get the portrait
Lullaby and iDream are nicely done
Veerle’s logo should be on here. I really like it.
http://veerle.duoh.com/
Gooooood logos
i have to upload some drawings and logos
love the style of logos here! A good blend of color, depth and simplicity shows you can create really nice designs. loads of inspiring logos. thanks
p.s Bartosz Oczujda your tutorial on 3d objects in illustrator is awesome !
Luv Colors , Luv it
I really love it. I would like to add http://www.mobily.pl here. It should be on this list.
I love many of the logos, and the talent is amazing. The only concern I have with some of these logos is a) Are they scalable and b) Is there too much going on in the logo?
Thanks for posting my Talk City logo with all these other great logos.
Best,
Tom
Absolutely marvelous.. a sure retweet and gonna spread thsis.. gr8!!!
Wow~ I love it!
Great collection of logos. Looking forward to see some more soon. Can you suggest me some more resource for logos?
What an honour to be listed here among such talent! Also an honour to be featured on the spoongraphics blog which i have read religiously since it started! I like almost all of these examples, but have a few things to say about the negative comments left here.
Firstly, I see a few people posting their usual “too many colours, these won’t work in black and white” etc etc. All valid arguments. However these days with so many different mediums, logo-design is really about context. Alot of these “colourful” style of logos are web based companies. If a large majority of your marketing will be on the screen why would you be too concerned if it didn’t look great in black and white on a fax.
A good designer will design a logo with purpose and context in mind, and more and more these days you will find simple versions of logos for print and more “fluffed up” versions for the screen. One of the first questions on my logo design questionnaire is “where will the logo be used”, and i design accordingly.
Secondly, i think it’s a bit unfair to say these all look the same. Of course they all share the vibrant bright colours, that’s the purpose of this post, so yes alot of them get lost in this collection. But how many logos like these do you see around your city? would they stand out in that context?. It’s also unfair to say they don’t do anything for brand building. You have only seen the logos alone, no marketing etc. So of course you have no idea what these businesses do, and no it won’t be obvious from the logo alone. If you had never heard of or knew of apple computers, would it be obvious what they did from their logo? The brand makes the logo recognisable, not the other way around.
And lastly i thought i would share why i chose the colours and style of my logo, so you know at least of these had a good reason for being designed as they were. My business name is “colourspace” a common term used in my day to day work as a graphic designer. The logo is a stylised colour wheel, symbolising the CMY and RGB colour models coming together, in turn symbolising thati design both for web and print. It also serves to attract attention, and works well with the name “colourspace” to make a mental connection between the symbol and name (again think of apple). It also seemed like a good way to let potential customers get an idea of my style of design before they even know it. AND it is completely different to any other designers in my area.
So it serves it’s purpose VERY well and it indeed looks great on my letterheads and business cards as well. I’m sure it would look like rubbish on a fax but i never fax anything. I’m sure it would lose it’s lustre in greyscale in a newspaper or phone book ad, but my 3 local papers and phone book all have full colour ads, not that i advertise in any of them anyway.
I loved almost all of these logos, I love the spoongraphics blog, and i love design!
Thanks for the excellent article and for bearing the brunt of my long winded comment!
I must apologise for my error. I came to this article FROM the spoongraphics blog and in my late-night-blog-reading mode failed to remember i had clicked an external link! Please be kind!
In all fairness i also love vectortuts and the whole plethora of envato sites, which i have also read religiously since the first post on psdtuts. Please forgive my error!
I think the collection of logos above are exceptional, the use of rainbow colours and dynamic designs.
Great collection. Really interesting to look at, and all so colourful yet clean and simple.
Quite colorful. Nice compilation.
Great collection
This is one seriously nice collection of logos, I think “Lullaby” gets my vote! Thank you for sharing
very pretty designs and colours, really cool
what a great collection, this would help a lot for an aspiring artist as myself… thanks and good work.