Inspire Yourself: 58 Creative Logos
Logotypes stand for Corporate Identity. The better a logo is designed, the greater is the probability that your potential clients will remember your CI and get back to you once your service is needed. Consequence: designers have to be creative and put many efforts in designing beautiful, unique and catchy logos. And the results they come out with are sometimes stunning and spectacular. Both in graphic design and web design.
This isn’t just another collection of logotypes. These are 58 creative logos you can inspire yourself from. Nevermind how different the logos are – they show the current trend in modern logo design. The logos we’ve selected below have been created and optimized for Web. Links checked: August/19 2008 – meanwhile some sites are dead, their logos are not linked.
Brian
March 13th, 2007 10:43 pmWhaaat? These are some of the /least/ creative logos I’ve ever seen. I can’t even tell most of them apart.
John
March 13th, 2007 11:10 pmSome of these are really bad and yes, they all look too alike. Some of the fonts on these logos look like low quality free fonts. Too many betas as well – it’s almost as if they’ve built the ‘beta’ right into their logo.. like they’re never going to actually finish their product.
Awful…
firman firdaus
March 13th, 2007 11:34 pmsome pieces at the top is just mediocre. yet, another stunning post from you guys. thanks.
Greg
March 14th, 2007 12:17 amI agree … they look much alike.
Now, if the title was “58 logos that say ‘I’m a Web 2.0 Company and I fit in’ …
Ralf Schmid
March 14th, 2007 12:17 amMost of these logos are neither creative nor do they show a current trend in logo design. I would rather call them desperate attempts to paint me-too-logo-bullshit for web 2.0 companies. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter—the majority of them will disappear as fast as they popped up.
taoski
March 14th, 2007 12:17 amSome nice.. some poor – Skyblog=awful!
As always… very inspirational post!
Web 2.0
March 14th, 2007 12:20 ampaaaathetic.
mat
March 14th, 2007 12:31 amseriously?
please retitle this post to ’58 things to avoid in logo design’
to be fair, some are good, but the majority are plain nasty.
William Stewart
March 14th, 2007 12:36 amWith the exception of a few, these logos are horrid and very cliched.
Chaaban
March 14th, 2007 12:50 amThank’s A lot , keep insipiring us :)
great work .
add
March 14th, 2007 12:51 amsome of them are good. stop bitching!!!
add
March 14th, 2007 12:53 amsome of them are good, STOP b’itchin
CSS Layouts
March 14th, 2007 1:26 amDropsend’s is the best by far
Kris Gosser
March 14th, 2007 1:29 amA couple things:
1) I enjoyed alltunes a lot; ideabox, dropsend, quest, and netvibes only some. All others were pretty bad.
2) Logo critiquers need to remember sometimes that a logo for a website (where the business is nothing but a web site) can be different than normal identity. They aren’t going to have delivery trucks, lots of letterheads, etc. most of the time. They can be fun and not have to conform to normal identity standards.
With that said, all of these were pretty big copycat logos. And they have the same tactics:
- Ariel Rounded MT
- awkward colors
- signal lines (RSS style)
- some sort of flowery thing
- reflections
3) The one to me that truly just doesn’t get it is “Texticate”. Hahaha.
4) This post sucked, but I thoroughly enjoy all your other posts. One of the few aggregate sites I check regularly.
Taote
March 14th, 2007 1:42 amIt is simply a collection with a very ephemere feeling. Only created for work a few years on the Internet, on the “web 2.0″.
Not really nice collection. Sorry.
arley
March 14th, 2007 1:50 amworst… logos… evar
nick
March 14th, 2007 3:21 amyou guys are doing a really nice job but i’d rather you put 8 truely great logos rather than 58 arguably-creative-and-certainly-web-2.0 ones. quality over quantity, what do you think? :)
still, i appreciate your work and effort!
Carlos Eduardo
March 14th, 2007 3:58 amI think these icons are good examples to use on Internet… Offline, in some cases, they have to be modified.
Jeff
March 14th, 2007 4:02 amSorry, no dice.
Many of these logos aren’t even logos–they’re basic type treatments.
Bottletalk has a strong idea, lacking execution.
DropSend is great.
ALL THE OTHERS are crap. The only message they convey is “I’m Web 2.0. Give me VC money!”
Richard
March 14th, 2007 4:21 amYeah, what they said…
On the other hand, your scrolling list of Web 2.0 blah-ness helped me finally to name my feelings regarding this pervasive styling: “mushy”. They are all rounded edges and blue-plus-a-bright-accent and… mushy. I didn’t bother following any of the links, because frankly, I’ve seen enough Web 2.0 to know that Web 2.0 is to the Internet as Oakland was to Miss Stein: there’s no THERE there.
calenti
March 14th, 2007 4:30 amGods. Grow up. If you’re going to criticize, why not offer a positive counter-example?
Why can’t any of you turn snark mode off for five minutes and say “I don’t agree, but here are some I think are creative” instead of turning into a bunch of YouTube-surfing middle schoolers?
“worst…logo…ever!!! ur log0Rehz hax0rs eth sux0Rz!111111!!!”
Jon
March 14th, 2007 4:31 amSome of these are nice but they all have that web 2.blow look. “I’m a wicked cool Graphic Designer, watch me design…”
Tim
March 14th, 2007 5:20 amMy Punch Bowl, Quest, and Bottletalk are notable for being clever and communicating clearly, the rest are simply somwhere lower down on the cleverness and clearness scale. The most important consideration with a new website identity though, is if the clients were happy and they fit the mental identity of the site(business). I’ll grant you, if they are just pretty font treatments they don’t belong in a list of traditional logo design “Best Of…” but these weren’t created to win awards, these were probably just created to win contracts and get payed.
Pedr
March 14th, 2007 5:23 amGot to say, what a weak selection. Conspicuous only by the abscence of real quality. Works brilliantly as a way of highlighting how hard it is to come up with a really nice logo.
matto
March 14th, 2007 5:24 amsry for off topic but old design of this site was better then now :(
Christian Watson
March 14th, 2007 6:01 amI have to agree with the critics, I’m afraid. Most of these logos are completely uninspiring. They follow the ‘web 2.0′ trend and are average at best.
None of them will stand the test of time – where’s the Cingular, the Fedex, the Apple, the Coke in this bunch?
thirstyrobot
March 14th, 2007 6:31 amSome of these are interesting but the point that most commenters are making is quite valid. Most of these logos follow a particular aesthetic and well…they kinda have the dull sameness to them especially when viewed together. And that doesn’t even begin to address that many of these tell the reader squat about the benefit or even function of the company they are supposed to be branding.
3stripe
March 14th, 2007 7:19 amThis link is typical of the same-old same-old “inspiration” thrown up by delicious. Web design is eating itself :(
DangGirl
March 14th, 2007 8:39 amAwful, no originality….they all look like they were created by a logo template with all of that glossiness and odd(but not interesting) shapes/icons that do nothing to suggest what the company does…The one I thought was decent was “Pathfinder” near the top. At least they took time to incorporate a “path” between the words ‘path’ and ‘finder’.
Nothing personal, I love your articles. Everyone has their own style, but I just don’t see these lasting more than 6 months before the trend fades.
digitalmonkey
March 14th, 2007 9:06 amthese could all be sketches for one logo. you need to work on the concept of the mark and look at type as a part of the mark. having two colors in your type only works in a few cases. You have the ability to draw and put together a concept, you just need to take a few more risks and push the envelope. many small companies would probably love to get these for free. But in all they are not thought out or pushed and refined. hey at least you had the guts to put your work out there, now take the next step, take the feedback and head back to the drawing board. The closest to becoming something but still far from being finished is the bottletalk. you have yet to incorporate anything about talking/speaking/communicating. pick up a copy of communication arts magazine and look at some of the logos presented there. you’ll find that they all work in black and white and each mark is there for a reason.
S.
March 14th, 2007 9:10 amWow, all of these seemed to be designed by non designers with zero education/background in real design, yet somehow downloaded photoshop.
grfx303
March 14th, 2007 9:57 amOne man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.
Honza
March 14th, 2007 10:13 amreally worst i’ve read seeen here… bad & sad :(
Dan
March 14th, 2007 10:31 amImagine if this article had been written 10 years ago. There would be nothing but swooshes!
The logos are nice, but … well, just that. Maybe they seem monotonous because they’re all from generic Web 2.0 startups. It would be interesting to see new, innovative logos from non-tech or non-Web 2.0 companies.
kamy
March 14th, 2007 4:47 pmThey are nice but corporate identity means so much more than a logo. You’re only about 5% done with the logo.
Neil Turner
March 14th, 2007 5:03 pmHow critical you all are. Quickly labelling everything web 2.0 just by looking at the logo is plain dumb. If you took the time to visit some of the sites you’ll see they aren’t web 2.0 at all. Granted – some are, but some aren’t. Nobody has really offered any good alternatives – apart from the highly original Coke, so get of your high horses and be constructive. Or are you all a bit jealous because your work ain’t up here?
Will
March 14th, 2007 5:55 pmNice collection. Its pretty easy to see that lots of these logos are for companies with primarily online products and an online presence.
80% of those wouldn’t work outside of the web (ie on a letterhead). The difference between logos for web and print is huge :P. Just my thoughts.
Ivan Minic
March 14th, 2007 6:39 pmwow :)
Aidan Jalali
March 14th, 2007 7:35 pmSo many f****ng ‘beta’s…….argh!
Terinea Tech Tips
March 14th, 2007 8:57 pmFantastic resource, I feel inspired to just to start up a Web 2.0 for no reason, hang on a minute most of them have no reason for there existence!
Athena
March 14th, 2007 9:23 pmThey are a bit samey…
however, to the bashers, who are numerous in number, how about you post a link to something you do like instead…
phplemon.com
March 14th, 2007 10:26 pmgreat stuff, thanks.
– Phil
LightandFire
March 14th, 2007 10:26 pmAbsolutely average!
a180
March 14th, 2007 10:28 pmjust because they are web 2.0, does not make them good.
the only ones i liked were: bottletalk, mypunchbowl, and quest.
Josch Raff
March 14th, 2007 10:35 pmI agree with most people here, that these are … just polished fonts. In fact most are just logotypes with a trendy fontface. The added icon doesn’t communicate much (even the praised dropsend thing). But they do communicate: I belong to the web 2.0. That may be enough!
I hope you smashingmagazine makers don’t expect some sort of this for your website.
Brian R.
March 14th, 2007 10:35 pmI am a designer. I charge 2500$ for identity design, including a style guide.
jimmy
March 14th, 2007 10:46 pmtypography certainly takes a leap on most of these logos. what ever happened to making sure the viewer could tell what letters they were looking at? diigo, digo, dngo… what the heck does it say? jarnon, jamon, jaman? podchairs? rqnkqo? rqnxqb? are these code or something?
Edward
March 15th, 2007 12:04 amWow. That’s pretty bleak. Another list of trendy crap.
A “great” logo:
1: Needs to have no name next to it
2: Can be recognized on something as small as a shoelace
3: Does not just come from good design, but great branding, advertising and consumer involvement
4: Should say something about the brand
5: Should have life past design trends 2.0
http://apple.com
http://nike.com
http://bahamas.com
http://www.laist.com/images/glaser.jpg
tobto
March 15th, 2007 12:14 amprimitive logos which have nothing close to Design, besides bright children colorish.
Michael Müller
March 15th, 2007 2:15 amIndeed inspiring. Bottletalk, awesome!
meizopan
March 15th, 2007 2:38 amagain great list
inspirationbit
March 15th, 2007 9:04 amOnly a couple of these logos were creative, the rest are standard Web 2.0 style decorated Company names rather than logos.
Want to be inspired, check out these 8 clever logos and compare them with this list.
BittBox
March 15th, 2007 12:24 pmIgnore all of these negative comments. Most people don’t even know the first thing about making a logo, yet they can comment and act like a professional designer.
This is a very nice, focused, list of logos and it has a theme or topic, so to say.
Some very nice type treatment that the rest of the idiots failed to notice.
I enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.
annoxero
March 16th, 2007 12:43 amSquiddo looks the best. The Motive interactive logo looks cool too. There’s a lot of crap in here though. Like say the Skyblog logo, which looks very ugly to be frank.
Ep
March 16th, 2007 8:52 amWorst logo list ever.
Han
March 17th, 2007 12:45 amI just wanted to thank you for posting our website logo and back link. We’re a very small site and were surprised that someone back linked’ to us. It sounds like not everyone agrees that the logos here are nice – but the fact you thought our logo was nice and posted a link has helped us generate traffic and we really appreciate that.
Thank you!
Han
(founder buddystumbler.com)
Jon
March 17th, 2007 7:04 amAll are beautiful, but creative is another thing… is the same style in the 58… almost the same type.
OverZero.it
March 19th, 2007 3:17 amWOW! Great list.
Some of them are very nice!
Thank you.
Spiros Denaxas
March 20th, 2007 7:03 amShame you took off the pathfinder.gr logo, I really liked it. I think the logo is the only thing worth about that site in the first place :-)
Johannes Reevius
March 20th, 2007 10:52 amGreat logos! My favorites are the Intervals and BottleTalk logos. They’ve both managed to go beyond the Web 2.0 stylings and created a timeless logo. Great choice of typography on both and good use of tying in the logomark to the logotype. Thanks for the inspiring post!
Loughlin
March 22nd, 2007 12:19 amThe Bottletalk logo is pretty clever but the rest are a bit rubbishy in my opinion
Frank
March 26th, 2007 3:46 amWell well well…
I think there are 2 angles from which you can look at these logos:
1) From a professional designer’s point of view most of these logos suck bigtime.They won’t print well or only at significant costs, most of them don’t give you the slightest idea about what the company’s core business is and they all shout “web 2.0 !” which might hurt when the 2.0 hype is over and rebranding is on the shedule.
2) Then again, if you take off the pro designers glasses you’ll see that indeed most of above listed businesses are completely web based, meaning their products are digital, they’re intended to go with the web 2.0 hype and they’re not meant to be there forever.And it’s in the nature of these businesses that some functions a “normal”/Print logo has to have like a hint on what they do or that the logo will work in b/w don’t apply here.Simply because these functions are not needed in this environment because they are replaced by viral marketing, blog mentions, digg.com and whatnot.Meaning those companies don’t have to rely on their logo to say *anything* because the “spread the word” is done by literally word of mouth on blogs etc.
As i consider myself a professional freelance (logo) designer i do say these logos suck from a creative point of view as well as seen from a strategic angle but honestly they’re probably not meant as “real world” logos and most of them won’t ever see the light og a print house.
Now, as some people here have asked for money where your mouth is feel free to head over to my little portfolio site:
http://logo-design.info
Far away from being completed but i do think you might find a few samples there that indeed could be considered “creative” as i always spend lots of time to implement a little twist here and there when designing logos.
As said, probably most above listed companies don’t need that twist though as long as they’re fully web-based.
Ben Parsons
April 3rd, 2007 4:09 amThe buddystumbler logo looks a lot like the Gnome foot, just the other way around.
clem
April 3rd, 2007 5:02 pmRubbish all absolute tosh, if they aren’t already similar to another with the usual san serif ‘modern’ font – they borrow, steal, plagiarise from other logos. No originality or thought went into any of these that I can see. Dropsend is the only one that I’d class as half decent, it does what it says on the tin (great app by the way Mr Ryan Carson).
The rest are half designed by ‘designers’ (i use the term of a person with a craft there quite loosely) who have obviously no desire to make something unique and different from the rest of these stylistically sick, bland and half-arsed web 2.0 logo sets.
Go back to your design history books and take a look at Paul Rand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_rand
Mario
April 10th, 2007 9:00 amI like DropSend, Quest, AllTunes and Vision Media (hey, can we do that? ;-) ) logos.
Listible and Skyblog logos truly sucks, eeeggghh.
Other ones are good intentioned but boring and unmeaning at all, and worst of all, most of them lack on font, drawings, colors or I-didn’t-need-you-at-all effects (or all at the same time) and even on the realization.
Inspire Yourself: 58 Creative LogosInspire Yourself: 4 Creative Logos ant 54 things not to do on deign.
Malcolm
April 19th, 2007 11:37 pmToo Good
DesignGuy50
May 11th, 2007 4:33 amThese are HORRIBLE. What makes you think these are creative? These kids have no design education, experience and are powered by CS and a Adobe Type account.
Kevin
May 18th, 2007 5:40 ami love that there is so much passion on this site.
here is my deak:
i am about to start building a new online business, i know. I know.how novel right?
what i need is a new logo for deign purposes before i start the build. i need the look and feel of the logo’s design to reflect in the entire site.
i would love to start a logo design contest.
does anyone know of a site that would aid me with this?
and who would up for the challenge?
thanks,
kev
Sick
May 21st, 2007 3:16 pmdon’t mind the remarks… some are good and some are bad.. sometime is the client fault … sometime lack of inspiration… but keep going – is the only way to get somewhere :)
Jeremy
May 21st, 2007 11:28 pmKev,
If you want a good logo, you should hire someone to make it for you. Good designers won’t waste their time on a contest, especially for a company they know nothing about.
gabriela
May 22nd, 2007 9:50 pmKNEXUS logo already exists, since several years ago.
Check it:
artnexus.com
.
Tom
May 23rd, 2007 2:05 amThey remind me of the late ’90s, when every logo had a “swoosh.”
Fernando
June 8th, 2007 7:57 amWhat?! Creative logos? Dude, please… What the hell? These are terrible. C’mon!
Steve
June 8th, 2007 9:45 pmUnbelievable, everyone is complaining “Web 2.0 logos” and yet if someone clicks on your comment’s username link it goes to sites with terrible or no logo at all! Be responsible. The logos designs above follow the trend.
Steve
Penguin Pete
June 9th, 2007 4:42 amAlways, without fail, without exception, any posting of logos will draw 100 people complaining about them. Surely, for a blog this popular, the author must have *some* good taste!
Here’s a new idea: since obviously any blogger who posts something as an example of an art form will get clawed up by the catty queens, why doesn’t Smashing post a logo beauty contest? Vote for a week on your favorite logo, and post the best ten at the end of the week.
Then, more importantly than what a blog considers best, we’ll have what the public considers best.
tom
June 28th, 2007 7:46 amjust terrible. I’m so pleased I thought they were all completely lacklustre before read to other negative comments. Who selected them?
Webee
August 3rd, 2007 9:29 pmGood web 2.0 logos
Hernan
August 31st, 2007 10:41 amwow!! This is exactly what I was looking for! thanks for this page! beatiful logos!
Jason
September 22nd, 2007 4:44 amI love the amount of web 2.0 logos there are here!
Jake Fields
September 29th, 2007 5:40 amThanks for including the Motive Interactive logo in your collection, while it was hard to stay away from the shadows, reflections and shades these days we think we developed something that can help extend our brand.
Jeetlo
October 16th, 2007 2:02 amThis great!
This is what for which I was looking. Thanks!
SURESH
October 26th, 2007 12:36 pmCreative Logos…Only Pathfinder and Bottle Talk…..all others are crap…….
Joefrey Mahusay
October 26th, 2007 4:30 pmVery nice logos. Thanks!
stretx
October 26th, 2007 10:41 pmI don’t you upload your own logos? bet that you can’t do better than those who designed that ‘horrible’ logos. Some are good some are not so good, some suck – criticism does mean nothing untili you prove you can do best. ;) And if so you can upload to imageshare or stuff like that for the community to judge it… Bet most of them won’t like it…
Why? Free quality fonts… Why a Free Quality Font’ed Logo has to be cheesy fishy? You couldn’t paint a DaVinci even if you’d had the best quality inks of the universe… Shut up and upload your logos…
Kypp
November 23rd, 2007 3:18 amThe first couple are ok, the rest are very uncreative and semi professional.
Stuart
January 2nd, 2008 2:35 amEven I, a 14 year old boy can see those are some of the most uncreative logos I have ever seen! Not to say that they are that bad, just not creative, although I do like the path finder logo.
amber mabe
January 12th, 2008 12:07 pmI have to concur with stuart – these are pretty bland logos. Not bad logos per se, just not very creative. They look like they have been designed by the same person. Also, being trendy is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to logo design.
-amber
dan
January 26th, 2008 3:19 pmquite a sad collection.
2.0 should not be a “look”, that’s the problem in my view. 2.0 should be a new way to make the web WORK a certain way…not LOOK a certain way. Many seem to have forgotten that.
Mike
January 30th, 2008 4:53 pmBottleTalk is actually the only one here thats creative and interesting. The rest are so, so and all get lost , I actually have forgotten about them. too web2.0ish. many more creative logos out there.. keep looking.
jmart
February 13th, 2008 4:54 pmdamn.
id like to see what all of you haters have come up with…
a few were clean, a few that weren’t.
but it seems like if you keep bustin em out, your only gonna get better. (well i hope)
ha
peac.e
Logoblink.com
March 22nd, 2008 5:08 am“Inspire Yourself: 58 Creative Logos, FOR NON-DESIGNERS ” ? ;)
excuse me, but most of these are pity samples.
denker
April 6th, 2008 7:05 pmexcellent, collection of logos.
s_k_design
April 15th, 2008 8:09 pmThese logos are lame. Very few of them would actually print well and all of them look like they came out of some logo generator or some free vector shape website.
Knexus logo is a complete rip off from artnexus.com
Ananya Roy
April 19th, 2008 6:04 amExcellent!!! Just too good.
Purpletrail.com
May 13th, 2008 8:44 pmthis is a great collection of logos… Thanks For sharing… Squidoo logo definitely stands out
destroyer
May 21st, 2008 6:01 amI don’t like it.. at all
PRAKASH KOTHANDARAMAN
June 20th, 2008 8:43 pmvery nice, and very usefull to creative idea and good collection
jameslh
July 9th, 2008 12:21 amyes, some good some bad – but all inspiring. Could you make another list to keep everyone happy, as this was useful?
ameha
July 15th, 2008 12:01 pmMost of these logos look very derivative….few of them are trully original
jon
August 16th, 2008 12:34 amDoes anyone know if there is a font I can download/buy that will produce similar results to the 3rd logo text – ‘fabra’?
Thanks