Why does a brand need an animated logo?

Businesses, large and small, find themselves with multiple touchpoints and channels to reach their audiences. While printed communications still play a vital role, most of our daily interactions occur on a screen. This presents an opportunity to expand the narrative inherent in your logo design.

Considering animation as part of the logo design process can amplify your brand’s personality, emotion, intelligence, and distinctiveness. The trick to creating a memorable execution is to decide on what you are trying to communicate before you start, rather than just animating for its own sake.

What could an animated logo do for my brand?

As part of your brand identity asset pack, you should have a suite of logos in all the necessary file formats. In today’s communication landscape, adding an animated logo asset will serve you well, both from a business and practical perspective.

Amplify your brand’s difference
Adding motion to your logo can help you stand out from your competitors, creating a logo that is impossible to ignore and improving brand awareness.

First impressions count
Leaving a good first impression with your target audiences is vital if you want them to find out more. Animated logos can add delight and surprise to communications and demonstrate a business’s professional understanding of how to use communication channels effectively.

Convey emotion
All B2B and B2C brands should aim to evoke an emotional reaction from their audiences. Animation allows us to draw on those emotional responses to make our brands more memorable. Animation can help to convey any one of a whole range of emotions in a few seconds.

Brand storytelling
Using an animated logo can become part of your brand’s narrative. You can use it to communicate a unique aspect of the brand that we want our target audience to remember:  conveying a product USP like Nintendo Switch, drawing attention to your service like FedEx, or amplifying a personality like Google.

Combatting fakes and online imposters
Creating an appropriate and relevant animated logo requires some thought, time, and money – things a forger is probably unwilling to invest. Crafting an animated logo that is uniquely yours is another barrier for criminals to cross. It makes creating a convincing facsimile of your brand that much harder and helps to guarantee the authenticity of your messages.

Where and when could my brand use an animated logo?

It is likely that most of your communication with target audiences now happens on a screen. This allows you to take advantage of the possibilities for motion that digital media provides. If you have an animated logo, you should consider using it in any of these contexts:

• Video: Start and end frames to video make your content ownable and recognisable. They grab attention and set expectations within your audience for what they are about to see.
• Social Media: Adding animated logos to your social content can enhance your newsfeed stand out and encourage content sharing.
• Email: Incorporating animated logos into email marketing campaigns can help to engage the recipient and draw them into the content. Certain file formats can also be included in signatures, providing an extra visual hook at the foot of every email.
• Websites: Adding animation and animated logos to your website can reduce bounce rates, improve page dwell times, and even boost SEO. It also ensures continuity with what your audience has seen on other channels.
• Presentations or Webinars: Animated logos can hold attention before the action starts, indicate that something is about to begin or signify a pause or change in subject – all assisting the speaker by maintaining interest, pace and visual stimulus.
• Exhibitions and Events: Attracting visitors to your stand is crucial. An animated logo can be used as a wayfinding device to grab delegates’ attention at a distance and help them navigate in your direction. With digital displays now commonplace on exhibition stands, it is imperative to use your space effectively, supporting your brand story on as many levels as possible and providing relevant and well-branded content to inform and entertain visitors while they wait for face-to-face contact with your event staff.