Designing logos for the “Flat Craze”

Logos are important, we all know that. We take care of their design, color schemes, fonts and a host of other details to make for the most perfectly suited logo to match our brand vision and make customers recognize us more easily. But, while the things we need to care for haven’t changed when it comes to getting a logo designed, the platforms on which a customer is potentially more likely to interact with logo have definitely undergone a sea change. The most vibrant example of the platform is the mobile, where the number of people is growing each day.
People interact differently with mobiles as they are much smaller than desktops or billboards, so definitely the logos that we see on the mobiles look invariably small as compared to ones on larger platforms. And on this small scale, even the best of designs can look like muddled colorful gibberish on which people have to zoom in to see what it actually looks like. That doesn’t sound well for achieving the main aim of the logo, i.e. being recognizable.
However, there is a way to cater to this problem and big brands have already started to opt for that and the best way it can termed is the “Flat Craze” where logos are designed in a manner that makes it easier for users to identify and recognize the logo on smaller platforms like the mobile.

How are these logos different from others?

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Flat design or a flat logo comprises of using just simple and plain design elements like squares rectangles and others without adding anything that provides depth like gradients, shadows or hollowness. The problem with including the latter in logo design is that they make it difficult for the user to understand what specific function they serve. Facebook was one of the first pioneers of flat design and the flat logo and now more than a billion people who use it know that when they see a White “F” inside a blue box, it’s Facebook. It’s about making the logo that is easy to understand. The success of Facebook also gives you an idea of how successful this can be. Even Snapchat’s logo is a flat design, as it comprises of very little complexities and instead opts for a design that’s basic and vibrant.

Do users prefer it?

The shift in user preference is the reason why Flat Craze Logos began trending as they made it immensely simpler for them to navigate and recognize one logo from the other without even trying hard. The minimal use of complex design components like no shadows or inner strokes, make these logos look strikingly good when interacted with on a mobile. Instagram recently changed its logo to a more flat design. They previously had a skeuomorphistic design resembling a camera, which means that the design tried to reflect how a camera looks in real life, like the bloated roundness of the camera lens and the height and depth of the camera body structure. But things changed and Instagram opted for a much simpler, but more powerful, flat design that just had white lines simply drawing out the basic camera shape and not anything else.

How to get one designed for your brand?

It definitely looks simple to view but the design process needs to be meticulously executed to get what you exactly want out of that logo. When you are designing through a minimalistic approach, there is a high chance that you can go wrong and mistake a sloppy job for minimalism. Here are some elements you need to account for when getting your flat craze logo design made:

• Don’t opt for bright colors as when they become small, they can appear too radiant to hide the small details. Instead, opt for softer hues and colors but remember that you cannot use gradients if you want a flat design.

• It’s best to keep your text like the brand’s name in the center as it becomes perfectly augmented by the surrounding color. Remember, that in flat logo design, there is no background, but a flat palette and your brand name should look like its being accentuated by the surrounding colors, seamlessly blending in.

• In simpler and flat designs, it’s quite easy to start resembling some other logo out in the market. Exclusivity is highly valued and you need to thoroughly research that your design is unique and not previously covered by anyone.

Flat logo designs are trending and will dominate the upcoming future as more and more mobiles come up and even more people get accustomed to viewing everything on them and it doesn’t matter whether you are an online business or not; even brick and mortar stores are searched on Google maps and your restaurant gets reviews on Yelp. An easy to recognize logo can immensely benefit you, irrespective of the industry you serve in as it’s the consumer base who likes it and they haven’t defined where they would like to see the flat design, they just like to see it anywhere and everywhere.