5 Big Logo Design Trends for 2020 to Ignore

A recent article on logo design trends asked, “What will logos look like in the year to come? Design experts share their predictions.” 

These 5 big logo design trends per this article are:

• 01. Simple and minimalist
• 02. Authenticity and narrative
• 03. Playful simplicity
• 04. Clean typography in luxury
• 05. Brand mascots

What The Hell Are We Really Doing Here?

The above list is a list of descriptions of design attributes.  

Branding is the art of differentiation.

Design supports that. Design and branding don’t exist to “copy what’s popular.” 

That means some trend that has already become more common than not will violate what Phil Knight of Nike said so well, “Our job is to wake up the consumers. If we become predictable, that’s not waking them up.”

Trends are noise.

Trends come into being because they’re “seen by everyone.”

So why would anyone in their right mind want to have a list of design trends (other than to ignore them)?

Logo Design Trends To Ignore 

A brand uses design to support a concept and strategy — an idea — and isn’t merely some cosmetic exercise which the above article sadly omits.

This type of approach is what gives design (and designers) a bad name and punches up a more fundamental misconception of what design is supposed to do:

Design (which only exists to serve branding and the customer’s experience of the brand) is there to differentiate amongst the existing noise, whether for a product, a service, a company, a person, a cultural event or a movement.

Want to follow trends? That’s great for fashion. Or shoes. Or food if you want to “fit in a category” that’s hot and rising in popularity.

But that notion applied to design is shortsighted and lacks the long look one must take when developing a brand.

What to Pay Attention to (Instead of Trends)

I tackle this point of “swimming in the sea of sameness” in this week’s One Minute Wednesday:

Trends, when they reach a certain saturation point, become branding’s biggest problem: a cliche.

Cliches will kill more businesses faster than a roomful of partisan politicians whether you’re a startup or initiating a rebrand.

Want to succeed in business? Then turn to design driven by branding, and not driven by “what everyone else is doing” which is a short-sighted approach to copying what’s been done.

• Clients deserve intelligence.
• Clients deserve insight.
• Clients deserve judgment to know what to do as well as what to ignore.
• Clients deserve maturity that knows when to say no and when to break new ground.

If you have a great company, product, service, or innovation that would benefit the world, don’t shortchange it with “design solutions” not backed up by the core principle and reason for branding: differentiation.

Wake up your customers and shine a light where it needs to be. Need help? Then let’s talk. 

Trust me: both shyness and “marketing by telepathy” let everybody down.