Financial companies rely on a reputation for trust and integrity. Everything from mission statement to the company logo needs to reflect this along with the company’s core values.

According to Edelman, trust is a foundation of banking. One small but powerful part of building a trustworthy image is the company logo.

A logo is a key component of company branding. Potential customers need an immediate, memorable, and positive view of the company.

Read on for five things to consider when designing a financial logo.

1. Identify Your Audience

Think about the demographics of your target audience. Age, lifestyle, and profession are some that pertain to financial companies. Also, focus on words or images that highlight those concepts that you want the logo to reflect about your company.

From there you can begin to formulate color schemes, fonts, images, and so on.

2. Find Your Inspiration

A financial logo should be unique. While you will study designs used by other financial companies, keep your mind and eyes open. Look into the company history or the biographies of the founder and CEO. Observe the architecture of the headquarters building.

Think of the company’s mission statement and image. What visual images does that inspire? There may be something in one of these places that inspire ideas.

3. Consider Your Color Palette

Colors impact the impression left by a financial logo. Bright colors tend to appeal to younger audiences. Then again, bold colors like red and orange are often associated with chance, which isn’t a desirable effect for a financial company.

The logo should have a no more than three prominent colors. You should be able to reproduce it in different formats for marketing purposes.

4. Design for Multiple Formats

Most of the time, people see the company’s logo online or in smaller formats like brochures and business cards. The logo design should still look good when minimized.

That said, the logo should also look striking at its largest scale, such as on the side of a building.

Finally, consider how the logo looks when reprinted in black and white. If grayscale obscures your logo, you may need something with better contrast.

5. Timeless Over Trendy

A successful financial institution becomes a mainstay. The financial logo should be one that will stand indefinitely. The logo should have a touch of class and avoid any trendy designs that may date it a dozen years from now.

Often the best logos are ones that feature a representative element of the company’s name. The industry will change over time, and the company will adapt. But its name and core mission will most likely stay the same.

While it’s not a financial institution, one logo everyone knows is the simple apple of Apple, Inc. And given the current rate of AAPL stock, this company certainly qualifies as a mainstay.

Another option is using an abstract design. Abstract images give off an air of elegance because they are visually like fine art. Since they do not depict actual objects or things, they do not become outdated.

Design Your Financial Logo

Most of the above tips have to do with planning and brainstorming a design. Complete that process, and you’re ready to create your logo. A quick and easy way is to use an online tool.

If you have any questions about using our logo design tool, please contact us.

How important is an effective logo to a financial services company?

The short answer is absolutely critical.

A useful logo has to be current, remarkable and eye-catching.

Creating a new logo doesn’t have to be difficult at all. You can easily create a new logo in minutes with a few simple tools.

Keep reading to learn more about crafting a high-quality financial logo.

Choose the Right Kind of Financial Logo

There are several different types of logos to choose from when designing a financial logo. Each has its own set of benefits and downsides.

Wordmarks work great for companies with a distinctive name that tells people what they do. If the company name includes several words or is a partnership name, wordmarks probably aren’t the best choice.

Lettermarks and pictorials share many traits in common. Both can make a bold statement and work well on a variety of marketing materials. They usually don’t include a company name, but make up for that with the power of the image itself.

Whatever a company decides on, they should check out their competitor’s logo to avoid being too similar.

Keep it Simple

Simplicity is king as far as logos are concerned. It needs to be easy on the eyes and instantly memorable.

Take a company like Wire Lend, their financial logo incorporates simplicity and uses a stark color palette in an effective wordmark. It tells a potential consumer everything they need to know about the company in one glance.

An effective logo needs to have the same simple appeal. Avoid using too many colors and clashing images.

Make it Stand Out

A financial logo needs to show what a company does for its clients. It also must be easy to remember.

Think about the iconic Starbucks logo. It’s eye-catching, instantly recognizable and evokes an almost physical response. You want a logo with that level of recognition in your industry.

Check out some of these tips used by other financial services companies. They all include clean lines, a lack of busyness and a clear identity as a finance company.

Think About Printing Conditions

So a logo looks amazing on a hi-def screen. It’s bright, it’s vibrant and it catches the eye from 20 paces.

The question is, how will it look in grayscale at one-quarter size?

A logo has to be remarkable and memorable in a wide range of sizes, forms and printing methods. It must look good on:

• Business cards
• Emails
• Buildings
• Promotional materials
• Etc.

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

No matter where it goes or how it is shown, a company’s financial logo will be their brand.

A company can have the best logo in the world and still fail at branding if they don’t apply it consistently. Every campaign and all marketing material has to have the same logo.

This can be painful and may force to dispose of a lot of old promotional items and forms. Applying a consistent branding approach with a logo will pay off in the end.

It’s Easier Than You Think

Creating a logo doesn’t have to be difficult or painful. Focus on the customer and keep the design simple, attractive and current.

As long as the advice above is followed it’s easy to create something that provides a valuable return.

Check out our tutorial to learn easy and effective ways to improve your logo.

If your brand is a face, then your logo is the eyes. As a financial services firm, when people look into that logo, how do you want them to see you?

You’re within an industry that relies heavily on gaining customer’s trust. They need to feel safe and secure working with you.

The best way to communicate that through your logo is by creating an elegant design. You want to make someone stop and think, “Wow, they look credible.”

They say it only takes 10 seconds for a person to form an impression of a logo. Use these 5 elegant logo design tips to send the right message the first time.

1. Choose Symbols Carefully

The symbol you incorporate into your logo is its backbone. In the financial services industry, you have to be a little more cautious with what you choose.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to pick something totally overused and redundant. Check out Intrinio Fintech Marketplace for example. Their logo is an eggshell that is held together by graphical lines.

2. Keep it Simple

This is such an essential element to not just an elegant logo but to all logos. Your design can’t be too overbearing for your reader to look at.

When your logo is too flashy, you’re removing the message it’s trying to speak.

A good way to see if your logo is too out-there is to test it on a duo-tone background. This will show your logo in black and white, where you’re more likely to notice an error.

3. Create a Timeless Design

You want your customers to know you’ve been there in the past, present, and future. So, to show your company’s longevity, go for an elegant logo design that’s timeless.

Don’t go along with trends just because they’re popular right now. They will fade and depreciate over time. Instead, go for icons that won’t become outdated.

For instance, pick up on lighter versions of bold colors. For instance, light green, blue, and red are all colors that resonate well over time. (Just ask Coca-Cola.)

4. Show Welcoming Side

A great way to build trustworthiness is to show your caring side. One route financial service companies could take is to add a human element to their logo.

You could incorporate an animated figure in or personify other items. For instance, Hands on Banking shows a figure-balancing money, work, their home, and degree.

5. “Conservative Animal”

A highly popular trend in financial service logo design is to use animal imagery. You’ll see lions, bulls, deer antlers, etc. which usually communicate strength.

The key is to give it a modest look. You can use contrast colors and geometric shapes, or insert the animal into the typeface.

Need an Elegant Logo Design?

Our online logo maker is fast and easy for anyone to use. Simply create your design and save it to your account for later access to unlimited downloads.

Oh, and did we mention that it’s free?

So, let’s get started! Click here to create your new logo in under 5 minutes.

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Actually, it’s worth 60,000.

Since our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text, your company logo is a chance to portray pages worth of information in one compact package.

So how do you make the best insurance logos? With easy to use tools like Online Logo Maker, it’s simpler than ever before.

Use this go-to guide to discover the best design tips for insurance logos of 2017. Read on for the top five trends.

5 Great Design Trends for Insurance Logos

Your logo is a chance to convey a message to consumers that they can understand at a glance.

You want it to be unique enough that it helps consumers recognize your brand, but not so complicated that they can’t make sense of it.

Let’s dive into the trends.

1. Shadows

The use of shadows can make a simple, two-dimensional image leap off the page. With a basic understanding of how to imagine and replicate a light source, it’s easy to achieve a logo with depth.

Shadow breaks have been featured in many new logos in 2017, particularly in overlapping elements to show a line break.

Utilizing this technique can take your logo from basic to superior.

2. Simplicity

Some of the most recognizable logos are the most simple. Think of the logo for Twitter, for example.

The simple white and blue bird logo evolved from much more complicated designs. For a company as iconic as twitter, simplicity is all you need.

If you’re not already a multi-billion dollar social media company, you can still harness the power of a simple logo.

3. Straightforward Text

Check out the example of the Insured ASAP logo.

It features the full website name, which helps customers retain the information.

It uses the colors red and black, which are colors that represent power and strength, and a white background which represents faith, meaning their customers can trust that they are in good hands.

Even further, it showcases the image of a shield to communicate that their customers are protected. Nothing is hard to understand, and everything subtly evokes a feeling they want to communicate to their customers.

Even with text as the central feature, this logo still does a lot to represent the company message.

4. Overlays

Overlays are a great way to represent unity and transparency.

Overlays are also easy to achieve, and a great way to play with color mixing and create shapes that help to communicate your message.

Two or more elements combining in overlapping sections convey the company’s willingness to work together for the best results.

This is a powerful symbol for insurance logos.

5. Multi-centric

Concentric circles represent impact (bullseye), wisdom (the rings of a tree trunk), and harmony in relationships.

Plus, in today’s visual vernacular, concentric arcs have come to be a common symbol for wifi, making them also represent connectivity.

That is probably why multi-centric round stripes are such a hot trend for logos of 2017.

With color combinations, overlapping images, and graphic techniques, this symbolism can be easily incorporated to represent the harmony and strength behind your insurance business.

Now You Know!

Get more design tips and inspiration from the Online Logo Maker blog.

Questions? Get in touch with us by clicking here.