Logo Design Principles

1. PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
BY ANDREW MCNALLY

2. Balance is a key component in
most logo designs. It is an
equilibrium that results from
looking at images and judging
them against our ideas of
physical structure.
BALANCE

3. The Chanel logo demonstrates
balance because its
symmetrical both vertically and
horizontally. This makes the
logo “feel” very even and
weighted correctly.
BALANCE

4. The Harley Davidson logo shows symmetrical balance because the outline of
the whole logo is symmetrical over a vertical axis. The sizing of the letters is
also symmetrical.
BALANCE

5. This logo logo shows symmetrical
balance because it is symmetrical
over a vertical axis. It is also square
and even and the lettering is evenly
spaced.
BALANCE

6. This logo shows symmetrical
balance because it is symmetrical
over a vertical axis. The colors also
match each other nicely and the
shape of the letters look similar.
BALANCE

7. Rhythm creates a sense
of movement as well as
patterns through the
repetition of certain
elements.
RHYTHM

8. This logo shows progressive rhythm
as well as regular rhythm.
Progressive rhythm is shown in the
progression of the guitars and regular
rhythm is shown in the spacing
between the guitar strings.
RHYTHM

9. The Portland Trail Blazers logo
shows regular rhythm because the
lines are evenly spaced around each
other.
RHYTHM

10. This logo shows flowing rhythm as
well as regular rhythm. The lines
above cisco are evenly spaced and
show regular rhythm as well as
flowing rhythm because they change
in size.
RHYTHM

11. This logo shows regular rhythm
because the slanted lines in A and M
match up and are evenly spaced
apart.
RHYTHM

12. Proportion is the relationship in scale between two or
more objects in a design. It can create a sense of
depth as well as dominance.
PROPORTION

13. This Logo shows proportion
because of the increasing sizes
of lines above the adidas name.
PROPORTION

14. The thunderbird logo
shows proprotional
contrast because the
letter is much smaller than
the bird which puts more
interest and importance
on the bird than the letter.
PROPORTION

15. The green mountains (triangles)
are different sizes to give the
illusion of depth, a great use of
proportion.
PROPORTION

16. This logo shows proportion through the A being
much larger than and surrounding the M. This
shows the importance of the A over the M.
PROPORTION

17. Unity is the interaction between
parts of an image and how they
interact as a whole. There are
different factors of unity such as
continuance, closure, similarity,
proximity, and alignment.
UNITY

18. The Unilever shows Unity
because although it is a bunch of
different objects put together, it
looks like a U.
UNITY

19. The WWF logo shows unity
because although it has a few
spots missing on the panda and is
not one whole shape, it still looks
like a panda and your brain
connects what's missing.
UNITY

20. Hemisphere manages to show
unity by creating the image of the
top half of a sphere through many
different unconnected circles.
UNITY

21. This logo shows unity because
although there are gaps in the tops of
both the M and the A, they both like
like an A and an M.
UNITY

22. Dominance is what determines
where the eyes land first based
on visual weight were certain
aspects of a design are dominant
over others.
DOMINANCE

23. The pepsi and the circle it is in is
proportionally much larger than
the background which shows
dominance. This is what draws
your eyes to the pepsi name first
before the rest of the logo.
DOMINANCE

24. The fox in the firefox logo is in the
foreground and is very big. The
blue earth is in the background
and takes up much less space
which draws your eyes to the fox,
showing dominance over the blue
earth.
DOMINANCE

25. The Pawn collection logo has one
pawn in front of the rest which
shows dominance. This brings
the eyes to the front and makes
the logo much more interesting.
DOMINANCE

26. This logo shows dominance because
the A is much bigger than the M
showing more importance while also
creating contrast and bringing
attention to the M.
DOMINANCE