A Study on How Logo Designs Affect Brand Trust

While designing a logo, companies have to make difficult choices. What trends should they follow, what colors to choose, how to set themselves apart, etc? There are various factors that make a logo design better than others. The elements such as colors, font psychology, designs, trends, etc play a great role. 

Logos are used as a clever tool to make brands look trustworthy. Wondering how you can do that too? Here is a study on how logo designs affect brand trust.

Role of Logo

When it comes to logo design’s purpose in your business, it has a specific role. Studies have shown that the perceived trustworthiness of a business has more related to how much people trust the particular industry than the online logo design itself. 

The logos that are more trusted by people belong to industries like education and financial services. While the law firms, news, media, and tech logo designs are considered the least trustworthy. 

There is hard to come to concrete conclusions. People might be more inclined to trust educational companies as compared to media brands. Further, people want brands to be upfront. For law firms, news or media companies, or tech companies, the least trusted logo style was icon only. 

Do Men and Women Prefer Different Logo Styles?

Commonly, men and women prefer similar logo styles. The brands considered in the study by Surveymonkey were gender-neutral logos. The results can be different if the tested brands are gender-specific. 

Do Different Age Groups Trust Different Logo Styles?

Different age groups people preferred the same logo styles in the study. However, there is an exception for financial services and news media. In the case of new and media company logo, consumers of 60 and under prefer horizontal logos while 60 plus like filled logos. 

What Colors Do People Prefer?

When it comes to picking a color scheme for your custom logo design, the first thing to do is look in your industry. 

In the study, the customers were first shown various logos with the same color scheme by different design styles. Then they were shown logos with different color variations of one style. It is possible as the customers saw a logo they preferred and trusted in one color, they may get inclined to find similar colored logos more trustworthy. 

So, people might be inclined to trust logo designs with color schemes that match other logos they trust in the same industry. 

It is so easy to create a free logo design with logo makers. You can take the professional help from these tools are create perfect design for your industry. 

Testing Different Types of Logos

Here are different types of logos from different fields and insights on them-

1. Education Logo Styles

A large portion of respondents trusted education logos over other industry logo designs. The most trustworthy logo was the icon dominant style. The logo was described as knowledgeable, helpful, and professional. People associate logos with brands that they are already familiar with as students which increases the trust they put into the brand. Whereas, the least trustworthy logos were the filled style.  

The difference in preference was quite small though. So, it means that while icon dominant styles may look more trustworthy but filled icon styles can still work in the industry. 

In the case of color scheme, the more popular are black and blue. Blue is the symbol of calmness, tranquility, and trust. Many logos use black and blue which have a significant impact on the audience’s choices. 

1. Financial Services Logo Styles

Furthermore, the most trusted financial services logos were the ones with outline style. The preferences of people split over different styles. The most trusted logo design was the outline one. This means it is a simple logo design that feels more reliable to the audience. The tops words used to describe the financial services logos are modern, boring, and professional. These are the most visible characters seen in the financial services brand logos. However, the least trusted logo styles were horizontal. 

It is a little hard to figure out why outline logos are preferred over horizontal ones in this industry. This may be due to the gap between different logo styles. A few examples of financial services brands are MasterCard, Citi, and State Farm. 

Same as education logo designs, people are more attracted to financial services logos that are similar to the ones they are already familiar with and trust.

The most popular logo color for financial services is green. This is because green is associated with money. 

1. Law Firm Logo Styles

In the case of law firms, there is a wide gap between the most trusted and least trusted logo designs. The most trusted ones were filled with logo designs. It is noticed that all of the biggest law firms in the USA use a simple text-only logo design. This means that there is an opportunity for law firms to make themselves look different by using a simple images in their logo designs. 

The least trusted logos were the icon-only ones. This is because using only a symbol does not reveal or share much about the business as a filled design can. 

The most popular color scheme in law firm logos was blue and grey. 

The top American law firms are Kirkland & Ellis, DLA Piper, and Jones Day and they use similar colors, fonts, and compositions. 

1. News/Media Logo Styles

The most popular logo styles in news/media companies are filled ones. Text-only logos are considered better in this industry. Some most popular logos of this industry are Wired, Huffington Post, etc are text-only logos. So, people might prefer brands that resemble these brands and have similar logo styles. The most popular color schemes are red and black. 

1. Tech Company Logo Styles

In the tech industry, there were a huge variety of words used for logo description. Bold and saturated colors are the most popular these days. The typography-centric logos are also trending in the tech field. The most trusted logo designs were text-dominant ones. The words used were modern, innovative, and professional. Whereas, the least trusted logo designs were the icon-only ones as they did not offer many revelations about the brand. The most popular color schemes were grey and yellow.

1. Retail Jewelry Logo Styles

The jewelry business is one of the oldest ones in the retail industry. When thinking about a jewelry business, people usually picture classic fonts, jewel icons, sleek design, and a sense of elegance. The study suggested that customers look for something different in modern jewelry brands. The horizontal logo designs with supporting icons are the most preferred ones. But we must discuss the logo size and shape with the website designer also.

The most used descriptive words in this category are modern, fun, and innovative. This might seem surprising as people think jewelry is related to tradition. People might be looking for brands that set themselves apart from famous jewelry brands. The target audience wants something different with modern values and designs. The most popular logos in this industry are grey and purple. 

For instance, the brand Mejuri is a minimalist jewelry company. The logo of the company is sleek with elegant font style and has a symbol on one side. 

The results have revealed that there cannot be one perfect logo design in the industry. The choice of the perfect logo varies with the choices of different people. This piece of content should have provided you with much-needed insight into your industry. Follow this advice and then create a logo with logo design companies in very less time.