Graphic Design Logo - Linear Logo Types

if you visit other online logo websites, they'll generally tell you about three different logotypes - illustrative, text and iconic. Fair enough. But The Logo Factory has a fourth category - namely graphical logos - and you're probably wondering why the difference. Many of our logo treatments are full-blown illustrative productions (probably due to my background in illustration and my penchant for hiring designers will appreciable illustration skills). While many purists will argue that illustrative logos are ‘too complicated’ for many types of reproduction (which is a valid point - and something which usually requires a discussion with clients prior to project start), it is also an area where designers at The Logo Factory shine. In theory anyone can throw together some shapes to create something that is (in the loosest definition anyway) a ‘logo’, it takes some real skill and talent to pull off a successful illustrative identity. So that’s the logo illustrations. category of logotype. A more common approach involves the development of icon design - simple shapes and images that portray a concept or abstract idea, usually in flat shapes (or if blends and/or gradients are used - they are used sparingly). That leaves us with logo fonts - custom typography (favored by large corporations). You can see samples of these various logo types in our logo design gallery.

When we fired up The Logo Factory in 1996, we attempted to categorize logos so that clients would find it easier to work remotely with our designers while dealing with the inherent issues of submitting project profiles via the internet. After messing around for weeks, we finally narrowed the definitions down to the three categories outlined above. We defined them as follows:

Text: Text based logos are the simplest (and favored by Fortune 500 corporations) but can be enormously difficult to design - the graphic designer is limited in the ‘tricks of the trade’ that are available. A memorable text logo can help ‘brand’ your name and is generally easy to reproduce on a wide variety of promotional items.

Iconic: Iconic logos generally feature simplified graphics (symbols) that reflect an aspect of the company and/or product portrayed. They can be used solo, or with text. This form of logo is the most common, yet often the most difficult to design.

Illustrative: Illustrative logos are usually more complex than iconic, and are a pictorial (illustration) representation of some aspect of the company or product portrayed. This can be the name, the business concept or a character/mascot that can be developed. Illustrative logos require more designer steps (preliminary sketches) time and any major modifications generally involve starting from scratch. There are pros and cons for each logo type…

This also helped us set up structured pricing menus that would be equitable to clients, while allowing us to budget enough design time to make projects practical. Those three definitions have served us admirably over the years, but - as a result of one of the gang’s regular think tank sessions - we recently decided to expand our definitions by one category. And the best we could come up with is ‘graphical logo’ - now officially added to The Logo Factory lexicon.

While there are no absolutes, (for example a text based logo can also feature a removable icon) it’s generally easy to understand which type of logo is which. Until we get to the illustrative category. Full-blown illustrations are one thing (and quite easy to identify), but over the years we’ve created many logos that could be classified as ‘hybrids’ of iconic and illustrative logos. Not quite full-blown illustrations, but too complex and illustrative to be considered iconic. We’ve found that this vague category has been quite confusing to clients (especially since some of our pricing is based on the ‘type’ of logo that a client wants). In order to clarify this, we have decided to expand our accepted categories so that we’ll be talking about text, iconic, graphical and illustrative logos. We’re still working on the final definition but it’s along the lines of this -

Graphical: A graphic design logo uses a bold linear style to create the essence of an actual object without the detail and resultant reproduction constraints of a fully illustrative logo. This type of logo allows for a more realistic portrayal of an item, theme or concept than an iconic logo while still remaining easy to reproduce, scale, etc. Almost the best of both worlds. By adding this category into our studio parlance (and factoring it into our pricing menu) we should be better to equipped to ascertain clients needs and budget requirements for their particular projects. As is often the case, it's easier to show you what we mean than explain it verbally, so we've included a sample of graphical logos from our main portfolio. There are no pricing restrictions with iconic logos which are available through our Entry, Professional and Gold design packages.

Graphic design logos - examples from our galleries.