How hip is your logo?

We spend most of our day looking at logos from companies and organizations around the country. So naturally, we wanted to share some of the top trends:

• Gradients: "In a number of logo designs, a gentle linear gradation is taking hold--just a modest tweak to a flat, single color solution. The color gradation may be no more than a ten percent shift of color value, or it may be more dramatic."
• Vibrate: "What was a mark of poor printing craftsmanship for generations is now rearing its head to remind us of the medium. That slight misregister that caused visual vibration that could blind a reader halfway through a paragraph is now a confusing part of some logo specifications."
• Monoline: "There is a certain elegance in an ultra-thin line, and this has never been lost on designers. Challenging as these may be on aging eyes when designed well and not under-scaled, they will coax a pair of readers from the viewer's pocket."

• Dandruff: "Any of these logos could survive without the dusting of white, but it is what helps set these marks in a hand-crafted genre and makes them more approachable."
• Concentric: "Yes, they are pushing the boundaries on acceptable levels of detail and reproduction challenges. But this crop of logos has an almost hypnotic optical mystique to charm the consumer."
• Comma: "What is it about this shape? It continues to reoccur in broadly differing incarnations. It's an unexplained obsession, like when Richard Dreyfuss tries to craft the alien landing site out of mashed potatoes in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.'"

So what does this mean for you? It's tempting to chase the latest trends, but a logo redesign should be undertaken with care and consideration. Your brand is your identity. It should communicate 1,000 words worth of information about your organization. Every time someone sees it (on your website, on a brochure, on a business card, or on that spiffy polo shirt we embroidered for you), they will get the message you're sending. Make sure you're sending the right message! The Gorilla Marketing art team has this to say about logo design:

We like bright colors and recognizable symbols, so even if they don't read the company name they immediately know who the logo belongs to. Single-color and multi-color are both great, but it depends on what you're going to do with the logo. On the web, you can throw in as many colors as you want. If you're going to print the logo frequently, even on letterhead, it's better to stick with spot colors as they print much clearer.

Our art department stands at the ready to provide logo-design expertise.