Throughout my design career, I have never been particularly drawn to using yellow in my artwork or designs. I haven’t actively avoided using it but it tends to feature only when the image dictates the colour or when a client requests it. When creating digital artwork or a logo, my first thought when thinking about colour is not yellow. It’s not even my second, or third.
Yellow is such a standard colour that sometimes designers will overlook it or deliberately make more complicated or less obvious choices. Designers like to be seen to be ‘thinking outside the box’.
However, it seems that I (and many others) have underestimated the power of yellow. The colour instills a feeling of warmth and happiness. It literally is sunny and bright and draws the eye. It’s a colour we trust and is valued. If we need to create a cheerful atmosphere or persona, we use yellow. Even children are drawn to yellow. They use it a lot in their own innocent renderings and advertising aimed at children is frequently yellow.
Despite the fact that I have underestimated yellow, there are many logo designs out there that feature this colour prominently and many have become household names. Logo’s that we see so frequently and brands that are so deeply embedded in the psyche of the western world that we fail to realize just how significant those brands are to our lives.
Below are 30 iconic logo’s that appear to us almost every day. I defy anyone to be unable to recognize most of them.
In summary, I have to say that, until I did my research for this article, I didn’t realize quite how significant some logo’s can be in our day to day lives. For so many iconic brands to feature yellow so prominently, it makes me realise that, to underestimate yellow in the design process is a mistake and I will endeavor to think a little more about this cheerful choice.
Do you know any other yellow iconic logos we might of missed ?
About the author
Cinami Grafiks is a freelance graphic designer from the UK listed in DesignCrowd’s Graphic Design UK directory.
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