Logo Design Trends of 2010

Every year new trends develop in logo design while others fade, some stay around year after year. While the word 'trends' can often have a negative association, it does not necessarily mean that a design trend will not have the staying power to still be here in 20 years. Good design is good design, trend or not.

Transparency in logo design is a good example of what once was a trend but has become a bonafide design tool, like type or color. It no longer makes the "trends" list because it has become part of most designers toolbox, something used almost as regularly as type and color.

Another example would be "Greenness" or "Green" is still used frequently but it no longer needs to be represented by the color green. Any fresh palette will do when matched with the appropriate imagery or type.

With that said, let's take a look at some of this year's biggest logo design trends.

• Cubist: Inspired by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque founders of the Cubism movement. (1. Gardner Design, Graphic Impressions)

• Spores: Scaled back version of a radiant star, typically with three-dimensional qualities.
• Ghosts: Gaussian-like logos compel the viewer to take a second look. However, this “fuzzy” style must be obvious enough through silhouette that the viewer is now left confounded.

• Tendrils: Far from being drafted with geometric perfection, these tendrils have a natural gnarl to their wandering, like a real vine with a touch of whimsy. (2. Dale Harris, Blank Expression)

• Shift: Transparent overlays of color often resembling misregistered CMYK or RGB letterforms are the hallmarks of this trend.
• Parts: From a distance, the image is the large whole. But on closer inspection, the image is revealed to be an amalgam of molecular images.
• Pixels: Taking what on-screen images are comprised of, the pixel and enlarging it. Often used with digital product logos.

• Hexahedron: Transparent cubes in various arrangements and color with an implied sense of space. (3. Doyle Partners, The Cooper Union)

• Peepshow: An image inside an images outline, often with minimal contrast levels to avoid making the fill area visually jumpy.

• Festoon: The tapering of a graphic element to a diminishing point and also the overlapping of colored streamers, generally these are transparent so there is a color change where they overlap. (4. BrandBerry, TravelWorld.su)

• Stains: The use of wine stains, dirt stains, coffee rings, etc. to create a new image beyond the blur itself.
• Wallpaper: A shape filled with a colorful wallpaper-like pattern instead of a solid color.
• Box-up: A capture of both the wordmark and the symbol together in a literal box.

Logo Design Trends List courtesy of LogoLounge.com