The best design inspiration for financial and banking logos

Logos are at the forefront of your brand campaign serving as personifications of your vision and ideology as an organization but each different sector in business serves a different purpose, does that mean there should a different set of rules and niches for designing a logo in a certain domain?

The answer is Yes! Different sectors invite diversity in the logo domain and designing a logo for a certain sector requires the designer and the client to follow the well-defined guidelines on how to make a logo work perfectly and suit their domain. One of the most well-defined sectors that logos serve is the banking and financial sector, where the design gains much more importance than in other areas due to the nature of business.

Trust, commitment, balance, insight, integrity are all different types of strong emotions that logos from this sector need to elicit to successfully serve the business. The logos here can neither be too funky nor too sedate and serious; they have to strike just the right balance. Simplicity is the main tool to focus on here as in this sector the name of the business is an integral part of the logo, which makes it harder to initiate another sort of bright and loud designs around it.

The best logo designs in the financial and banking sector which have served their businesses and have become hallmarks of these institutions have subtlety at their command. Here are some great design inspirations that will work great in the financial sector:

The Merill Lynch Logo

This logo is intensely powerful as it contains the name of the organization and uses a bull as a side graphic. The bull signifies a powerful market in financial terminology as it’s connotation is with rising prices indicating profits.

The bull has its front leg and its tail up signifying an aggressive stance that goes perfectly with the company’s work of providing the best of profitable investments to its clients. Simplicity is of high significance here.

Barclay’s Logo:

Barclays has been a highly trusted and well known financial institution for many decades and its logo which shows an eagle alongside the text, represents being high and powerful. The eagle is also shaped like a knight’s armor shield which gives it the provocation of power and protection making Barclays gain a reputation for being a company that is head and shoulders above its contemporaries and provides financial protection to all kinds of investment in its foray.

Deutsche Bank:

The logo here is one of the best examples of innately powerful simplicity and utter creativity in a minimalistic design. As I told you earlier in the post, the text is immensely important in financial logos but the accompanying image, if any, should be intrinsically beneficial to the cause of the logo without overdoing it.

Here we see a square with a diagonal line going in the middle which subtly represents the “D” of the Deutsche brand and the easy feel of the look make for great brand recognition making for an instantly recognizable logo.

Off Market Design Inspiration:

If you want to veer off the serious minded track in logo design for your financial concern and are looking for a more colorful and vibrant design which doesn’t go over the line, then this design inspiration is for you.

The Design shows a tree growing amidst the pebbles, signifying growth in the real estate opportunities the business offers. Considering the fact that people invest in real estate in the hope of leveraging their money for high returns, this logo has the perfect symbolization to serve that purpose. A must consider for those who like to go offbeat and break from the norm.

Off Market Design Inspiration:

If you want to take your logo a more upbeat level that portrays less seriousness as compared to other financial logos then this logo design is a must-consider option for your business. Firstly the color purple is a paradigm shift from the dominating palettes of blues and greens in the financial world and secondly the circular design gives a feel of a “Smiling Face”, which other financial institutions won’t opt for, giving your logo its own identity.

Logo designs are at your discretion as a business owner and depend on the initial brief you give to your design team about how you want it to look and feel like. It’s your call at the end of the day, but it would be advisable to look for sustainable designs according to ongoing trends and previous preferences across your industry to have a fairly good idea of what will work and what won’t for your brand.