20 Weird Logos That Work (and Why They Do)
Logos are everywhere. Because of this, only a few can rise among the noise — and often it’s the more unique logos that are most memorable. Sometimes to be unique, you’ve also got to be weird. In this post, we showcase twenty lovably strange logos that work.
Society 27
London Symphony Orchestra
The LSO logo uses a single flowing line to create the three initials of the London Symphony Orchestra. The semi-representational shapes are recognisable enough to be seen as letters, but also allows the logo on a whole to be seen as an elegant graphic.
I love NY
The simple yet highly recognisable mark of the I Love New York has been used to promote tourism in New York for years. Known as a Rebus logo, it displays a large red heart graphic to symbolise the word love, while representing the word New York with the two initials N and Y.
Museum of London
The new Museum of London logo first appears to be a collation of current logo design trends, but with deeper inspection and research the underlying meaning of the logo is discovered. The organic shapes that make up the logo represent the history of London, showing its growth over time expanding geographically.
Metroplex
The Metroplex logo by BrandBerry creates an excellent sense of depth with the use of three dimensional shapes. The array of cuboid shapes represent skyscraper buildings which make up the overall metropolis graphic, linking well to the meaning behind the name.
Cattleyard
Another logo that links well to its name and subject is that of Cattleyard Promotions. Being a music related business the logo uses various graphics of instruments but combines them to form the overall shape of a cow, bringing together these two inspirations into a unique mark.
CafeClick
The CafeClick logo uses an accepted icon of the internet, the mouse cursor and brings it together with a mug of coffee by replacing the steam. This cleverly links these two elements making a brilliant logo for an internet café.
Logo Motives
The Logo Motives brand that represents designer Jeff Fisher is an admirable collation of imagery and letterforms. The manipulation of the letters O and G allow them to fit seamlessly into the overall train graphic with perfect geometrics all round
Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America
The highly symbolic logo of the Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America logo communicates a complex message with just a simple design. Using the globally renown cross symbol to represent help and medical attention and the steps to reflect on the steps taken back to normal life.
Schizophrenic
Another logo that plays in representational symbols while relating heavily to the brand name is the Schizonphrenic logo. Being a medical disorder that often depicts split personalities the logo characterises this with simple shapes that depict a happy and sad face.
Curious
The word curious often goes hand in hand with questions, this is smartly represented in the Curious logo by Action Designer. Using the question mark symbol depicts this while being manipulated to fit into the logo by replacing the letter C
Modern Nerd
The Modern Nerd logo makes fine use of negative space to fool the eye into seeing the overall image of a figure, using just the symbolic shapes of hair, glasses and tie it links in well to the stereotypical geek/nerd image.
Time Watch
The Time Watch logo brings in elements from daily life to enhance the meaning of the logo. The colon is commonly used on digital clocks and watches, in the logo it is cunningly used to replace the letter I giving a great looking and representative mark.
Full Time
Taking on a more lateral depiction of the brand is the Full Time logo, this mark takes a clock as the symbol of time and uses it as a container of water to represent time being full.
Upside Down
The clever execution of the Upside Down logo maintains legibility by manipulating select letters to represent the brand name. By using alternate letters or flipping the orientation of a letter gives an unusual appearance despite being easily reabable.
Candy
The combination of two images into one is what makes the Candy logo so great. Using both a stereotypical sweet product and an illustration of a girl’s head link in well to the nature of the product. Even the wording blends in to become part of the artwork.
Seven and Six
The geometric layout of the Seven and Six logo creates a groovy looking mark that also acts as the graphical alternative of the brand name. Using the numeric figures and the ampersand reinforce the complete worded variations.
Studio Eight
The flowing lines of the Studio 8 logo create an illusion that allows both the initial S and number 8 to be visible in the logo graphic. Splitting the lines at the appropriate places stops the eye from following the curves in order for each symbol to appear.
Zip
The three letters of the Zip logo are blended together to form an almost solid shape. The centre graphic which represents the real life object also holds together the logo by breaking up the block allowing the letter I to be seen as well as allowing the Z and P to become legible.
Bison
The Bison logo by Seamus Leonard is an excellent example of how letters of a word can be distorted to create a completely different shape to reinforce its meaning while maintaining readability.
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Schizophrenia has an illness separate from multiple personality disorder. It’s a common misconception that schizophrenia == multiple personalities, but putting it in a logo? Sheesh, that’s just terrible.
Action Designer’s logo for Curious seems to have been, ah, inspired by the logo for Curious Pictures - have a look own in the footer. I believe they’ve been using that logo since they were founded in 1993.
The London Symphony Orchestra logo forms the shape of a conductor with his baton.
I used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now I am a world class magician !
Well the LSO is also a conductor holding his baton. Did you miss that?
Thanx for sharing and explaining insights behind this — the Metroplex logo resembles the Wacom one: http://www.r-pc.jp/hiraoka/img/osusume/wacom_logo.jpg
Two things:
LSO also shapes out the conductor, not just an elegant graphic.
upside down logo actually is ALL upside down characters: umop episdn
the schizophrenic logo is actually kinda evil, since it just perpetuates the notion that schizophrenia has anything to do with a multiple personality disorder
That Bison logo was lifted from the University of Manitoba Bisons logo. They’ve been using that badass piece since forever and a day now.
Great logos and descriptions. The logo for ‘Schizonphrenic’ is based on misconception, unfortunately. Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. That logo would be more appropriate for Dissociative Identity Disorder or Bi-Polar.
I find only half of these logos have any real merit. Let’s take a look at why some FAIL.
Cattleyard, Bison, Seven and Six, Logo Motives: These suffer a very basic problem that logo designers often fall victim to. The brand or company name is very hard to discern and requires far too much effort. This is really not desirable by small companies trying to get noticed. Try figuring these out on a passing truck, or a billboard, walking briskly down the street or even flipping through a book. A logo that requires more than .5 second to comprehend is an advertising failure.
Modern Nerd: One thing you don’t want is to have to explain to people over and over and over how to spell your company name. Is it “Modern”? “Monerd”? “Moderd”? “Monern”?
The rest are pretty decent. With maybe exception of the “Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America”. While the logo indeed invokes the idea of a hospital, it really will be confusing until you see it associated with the name. This would be a logo for a company well entrenched in their market where it would be instantly recognizable. Kind of like the AT&T deathstar took over by itself after many years of a logo with “AT&T” in it.
Reparate me for the mindgames that these logos play. Brilliant use of imagery and imagination. Great creativity.
About half of those logos were (are!) indeed cool; the rest are “meh” or “bleah” — I understand the explanation, but they fall down somehow. Looking over the list of what I like and what I don’t like, the critical theme seems to be simplicity.
Or, the busier the logo, the less it “works”.
Thus, LSO or Studio 8 (simple curving lines) “works” while Logo Motives doesn’t, despite being an excellent visual pun.
Of these, I really like the Cattleyard and Bison logos, they are incredibly strange yet still appropriate.
The NY logo is so classic and well-known that I hardly even think of it as being “weird” anymore.
I think you should note the lettering in the Modern Nerd logo. The D’s in Modern and NerD are open at the bottom, but hooked so they can be either an N or D. This can spell the word “Nerd” in the logo. Pretty neat!
Thanks for the inclusion of my own logo in your collection. I’m pleased to have it considered a “weird logo that works.” The process of creating the image stretched out over a ten year period - and I have now used the image to successfully identify my business for over a decade.
The 6 & 7 logo is great.
This was great fun to look at. Although truly the only great ones here are the ones that you can identify at a glance what the company is? Which i believe is really only I love NY, Museum of London, and clickcafe. I had no clue what the others were without reading there descriptions.
Great blog. thanks for posting
“…and often it’s the more unique logos that are most memorable. ”
Just to pick nits, there are no ‘degrees’ of uniqueness. Something is not ‘more’ unique than something else. It is unique or it isn’t unique.
Nice post, though!
Hey… Nice collections of the Logo …
second one look like some arabic letter
Of all of the logos here, it’s the upside down one that impresses me the most. The fact that it’s legible despite your brain telling you that there’s something wrong with the letters is a cleverly achieved effect.