How I designed a run club brand with Envato, Photoshop, and Illustrator
From a simple logo to a full run club identity, see how AI tools, Illustrator, and Photoshop came together to build a brand system full of movement, warmth, and community.
What is the most valuable commodity in the digital marketing world? It’s not clicks or views, although those are important. The most valuable thing for a digital marketer is user attention. Brands all over social media and the internet are vying for user attention, and when they get it – they want more.
In the static world of branding, animated logos are a game-changer. They attract attention, improve brand vitality, influence consumer behavior, and impact decision-making.
Consider Zajno’s animated logo – while it looks static, the animation follows the cursor, making it interactive. It’s surprising, interesting, and makes you curious to see what else you can do with it. If you want to elicit these feelings of delight and interest in your audience, logo animation can be a great place to start!
What Is Logo Animation?
Logo animation is the process of adding motion to a logo design. Animated logos move, morph, and provide an interactive experience for the viewer. Designers may use traditional or computer-generated animation (or sometimes both) to create animated logos.
Animated logos are all about action and motion. In a sea of static imagery, a logo that jumps and somersaults can break through the haze and grab attention. Due to their engaging nature, animated logos are more memorable and engaging, translating to downloads, conversions, sign-ups, and subscriptions.
As a designer, animation is a surefire way to elevate your or you client’s branding game.
Which Brands Benefit Most From Animated Logos?
Although animated logos often have a strong impact, they do have their limitations. Not all brands gain value from animated logos, and a poorly designed animated logo could draw the wrong kind of attention to your business.
Short, simple, and slick animations garner the most love.
Complicated or over-drawn animations can wear customers out. They may even click off your website out of overwhelm or frustration, so tread carefully with your animation style.
To figure out if your business can benefit from an animated logo, ask yourself: is your brand and audience creative, modern, or tech-savvy?
Hallmarks of Effective Logo Animation
All good logo animations have certain characteristics in common. These include:
- They show build-up. ‘Easing’ is a key animation concept; it refers to the speed of animation. The way objects move in the real world is hardly ever linear—instead, they slow and pick up speed. Use easing in your animations to imitate that reality for the best build-up in your animated logo.
- They tell a story. If you aren’t telling a story with your animated logo, you’re not doing it right. Charm is important, but substance is more critical. Make your animation narrate the story of the brand.
- They introduce an element of surprise. Logo animations with an element of surprise are always crowd-pleasers. Make them more amusing by hiding the surprise and inviting users to stumble upon it by chance.
- They keep it under 10 seconds. Looking at animation or engaging with it demands emotional and cognitive resources. Be nice and keep your animations short and simple.
- They match the brand identity. The best animation is always one that the target audience can resonate with. Choose animation effects and styles that identify with your brand character.
4 Animation Techniques That Are Perfect for Brand Logos
Animation is a rich technology. You have several different ways to animate a logo. Below, we discuss four of them. Choose the one that works best for you depending on your brand goals.
1. Subtle Transitions
These are the simplest forms of animation and use brief movements repeated on a loop. Use these subtle transitions to give life to a static logo when elaborate animation is off the table.
2. Kinetic Typography
Kinetic typography refers to text animation. Animating the logo design or tagline text can emphasize key messages and guide the user.
3. Morphing
Morphing is a trending animation technique in logo design. It transforms one image or shape into another with seamless perfection. Transformations like these help carry the brand story forward with fun and charm.
4. 3D Animation
3D animated logos use digital 3D models to produce movement and action. This technique introduces depth perception in the logo, for a more real, interactive, and alive design.
How to Create an Animated Logo in 6 Steps
What goes into creating an animated logo? Let’s find out.
1. Understand the Creative Brief
Your client has some goals they need to achieve through their logo design. Perhaps they’re launching a new brand or revising the design to increase conversions or expand the user base.
It’s your job as a marketing designer to plan a logo that fits these business goals. A creative brief will help you clarify the roadmap and allow you to decide if an animated logo is the right solution for the project.
If it is, the brief will guide you toward the best way to design one—with the right style, the best effects, and a strong foundation.
2. Consider the Design Principles Relevant to Animated Logos
Begin by creating a static logo design that you’ll animate later. Follow your routine as you go, with one difference: consider animation at every stage.
- Choose elements and features that will look good when animated.
- Keep the original logo simple, scalable, and accessible.
- Simplicity will ensure that animation is light on the senses and great to look at. A complex logo may make the animation seem over the top.
A smaller color palette will help—and a smaller font palette too.
3. Select an Appropriate Animation Technique
Choose the animation technique (or effect) that fits your brand goals and character. The animation style that works for a daycare logo may look weird on fintech branding.
Remain on-brand as you explore the best animation technique for specific logo designs.
Basic effects like zoom, shake, or wobbles are great for a low-key foray into animation. So are motion design elements that play on brief, repeated loops.
But don’t limit yourself to the basics. Explore advanced animation techniques like morphing, splitting, claymation, and 3D. Interactive animation can be even better. Incorporate it in the design like an Easter egg (as the Zajno logo has done) as a delightful surprise for users.
4. Choose the Right Software
Depending on your skill set and the scale of the project, you have a few options to explore here. After Effects is a fan favorite for logo animation among designers. But it has a steep learning curve and is best suited for pros.
If you aren’t there yet, easy animation tools exist. These include SVGator, Animaker, and others. They let you create quick and spectacular animations that can win people over. Web-based animation tools like Free Logo Creator’s logo animator are even better. They offer a more user-friendly way to do things and are quick to get the hang of. Use any of these to animate your logo design.
5. Optimize for Different Platforms
Your logo animation must work perfectly across channels. This includes your website, social media, apps, and more. Optimize the animation for cross-channel efficiency.
Start by choosing the right file format. SVG and GIF are ideal for websites. SVGs are scalable at any size and offer the best consistency across environments.
MP4 or AVI will be your best bet for social media or app launches. Test all these logo variations on different devices to ensure consistency and compatibility. Cross-device testing will also help you see if the animation is accessible.
6. Seek Feedback and Iterate
Once you finish the logo animation and send it for feedback, it’s time to iterate. Even better, keep the client in the loop as you near the final stages of design. That way, there’s plenty of time to make changes without wasting resources.
For any last-minute updates, this is the ideal time to fix things before the logo goes out into the wild. Be sure to send a flawless design to the market so it can hype up the business with vigor.
Create Your Animated Logo Design Today!
Animated logos exist at the intersection of creativity and technology, offering a quick and easy way to help your client’s brand feel more modern and innovative.
For more inspiration, check out these top logo design trends. Or, start creating today with Envato‘s huge library of handy motion design templates, tools, and effects to make your brand come alive. Happy designing!
