LOGO, global companies like Apple, Starbucks , and adidas, are seen by billions of people every day. But how do we accurately remember the features and colors of these famous LOGOs?
To find out the truth, we asked 150 Americans to draw 10 famous LOGOs from memory as accurately as possible. More than 1,500 artworks over 80 hours show that in our collective memory, most of these ubiquitous LOGOs exist in a blurred field of vision. One in five people think Foot Locker's referee is wearing a hat (not actually) and nearly half think Starbucks mermaids don't wear crowns. They just remember some simple appearances.
most design reminds you to pay attention to the last picture of each case, which simulates the situation of designing a brand LOGO based on Volkswagen imagination.
Apple
This is the apple they remembered by 150 people:
Apple device is in your pocket, on your wrist, and you have many opportunities to see it every day. Apple's simple LOGO should be drawn without thinking. It is not like Starbucks or Foot Locker, its name is the clue!
result, only 20% of people were able to draw the Apple logo almost perfectly. Perfection is what is said here means that all key features (such as bite, leaves, overall shape and proportion) must be accurately combined.
One of the three people drew the fruit handle of an apple
The most common mistake is that nearly one-third of the people, and when they were drawing, they included a fruit handle, but in fact there was no fruit handle. Of course, there is that leaf, 15% of people draw the wrong direction, and three quarters remember to put them together.
The evolution of Apple LOGO
The Apple LOGO we are familiar with was designed by Regis McKenna Advertising Company in 1977. At the time, the challenge for artistic director Rob Janoff was: to make the logo more vivid (the previous version was Newton sitting under an apple tree), as Steve Jobs asked: “Don’t make it cute.” This bite-in-one feature is the biggest feature of the apple LOGO so that it will not be mistaken for cherries (eat one cherries in one bite).
If Apple redesigns LOGO
Adidas Adidas
This is the adidas drawn by 150 people in their memory:
Although adidas is everywhere, in our study, only 12% of people drew the perfect adidas LOGO based on their memory. This means that it has three stripes (not composed of four or more stripes as 11% of them resembled), and the word “adidas” is completely lowercase (21% use a capital “A”). Moreover, the Adidas LOGO simply didn’t consist of a brown boot to the left as one participant thought! ! !
10% of people drew the Adidas Three Leaf logo
About 10% of people drew the Adidas Three Leaf logo, which was launched in 1971. Three leaves represent continents of America, Europe, Africa and Asia, and three lines connect them to represent diversity. Today, the Three Leaf logo is still used in the Adidas Originals range of products.
Adidas LOGO Evolution
Adidas LOGO is usually black, but 8% of people draw blue instead of the main color of the logo. Blue is mostly used in Adidas packaging, especially on blue footwear boxes.
If Adidas redesigns according to people's memory LOGO
Burger King Burger King
This is the Burger King in their memory drawn by 150 people:
Unlike the simple, monochrome apple and Adidas LOGO, Burger King's LOGO is slightly more complex, including three different characteristics: font, bread semicircle and crescent shape, and three colors: red, yellow and blue. Therefore, we expect participants’ memory accuracy to decrease. However, the extra color doesn't seem to put extra stress on their memory.
21% of people mistakenly think that Burger King's logo includes a crown
21% of people mistakenly think that Burger King's logo includes a crown, 18% can draw Burger King's logo almost perfectly, compared to 20% for Apple and 12% for Adidas.
The evolution of Burger King LOGO
One of the most interesting results of our experiments is that people often mistakenly believe that the elements of brand advertising are part of its logo . Burger King LOGO used "Sitting King" from 1957 to 1969. After that, characters and crowns never appeared again, but 21% of people still painted crowns.
Our participants were 34 years old on average and it seemed unlikely that they would not be impressed by the current version and recall a deprecated LOGO 48 years ago. More likely, they can’t fully remember what the LOGO looks like now, so they concluded that LOGO must have a crown based on the “king” in the brand name, the king’s character in the ad, and the paper crown provided in the restaurant.
If Burger King redesigns according to people's memory LOGO
Domestic pizza Domino's
This is the Domino in their memory drawn by 150 people:
Domestic pizza The three dots on the LOGO represent the top three stores owned by founders Tom and James Monaghan in the 1960s. The idea was to add a point to each additional store, but the rapid growth made the idea unrealistic, so these three points could only remain the same.
Domestic LOGO evolution history
28% of people can remember that Domino Pizza LOGO has three points and can place them correctly (two in the bottom square and one at the top). 37% include more than three points, while 14% forget the existence of points.
Overall, 16% of users are close to the perfect Domino, and 28% have made a lot of attempts, meaning their version is close to the actual LOGO with just a few minor errors.
14% of users drew Domino's old LOGO
15% of people drew this square LOGO, which was the old LOGO used in 1996 and 2012. Statistics on the colors of 156 artworks also show that the average memory level of dark blue used in old LOGOs is much higher than that of sky blue used today.
Two-thirds of the participants included the brand name in their LOGO, although not entirely accurate: 55% of users forgot the apostrophe, 11% of which included the "e" (the letter "e" is not included in the Domino's name).
If Domino redesigns according to people's memory LOGO
7-Eleven
This is the 7-Eleven in their memory drawn by 150 people:
7-Eleven logo has not changed much since its first appearance in 1946. Its main feature is that the number "7" intersects the English "ELEVEN" and is placed in a white trapezoid on the green base. The only change occurred in 1969, when the horizontal line above the "7" turned orange, while the lower part was still red.
7 Evolution of Eleven logo
19% of people draw near perfect 7-Eleven logo, 46% approach but with some minor flaws. The two most common mistakes are: write "ELEVEN" as a number (31%) and draw the word "ELEVEN" below "7" instead of passing through the number "7" (56%).
Only 1% of people correctly remember that "ELEVEN" is written as "ELEVEn"
7-Eleven logo One of the most subtle features is that "ELEVEN" is written as "ELEVEn" - except for the letter "n", the rest are capitalized. Of the 156 people, only two (about 1%) remembered this detail. We wanted to know if they were 7-Eleven employees, further inquiry showed that there was a person working in the retail industry, but they all said they were “very rarely” or “occasionally” to contact the 7-Eleven brand.
So it seems that although there has been little change in the past fifty years, the 7-Eleven logo has many elements to be confused or ignored in people's minds. It is just the fourth accurate brand of memory among ten LOGOs.
If 7-Eleven redesigned according to people’s memory LOGO
Foot Locker
Foot Locker is the world’s largest online retailer of sports goods, and is well-known in Europe and the United States. This is the Foot Locker drawn by 150 people in their memory:
Foot Locker and Starbucks are the only brands in our experiments that use characters to make LOGOs, and they are also the two with the least accurate memory. This shows that there are too many details in the LOGO that will make it difficult for most people to remember.
Foot Locker's LOGO has been in use since 1988, but it does not appear in every store sign. Although Foot Locker now has more than 3,300 stores around the world, only red brand font names appear on the head of Foot Locker's store, and the image of "referee" appears more in Foot Locker's shopping bags.
40% of people draw the referee's head in the wrong direction
However, 57% draw the image of "referee", half remember his hands on his hips, and 60% draw the "referee" in the right direction (emphasised, this ratio exceeds the person who remembers the penny coin on the face of Abraham Lincoln).
Only 8% of participants drew the near-perfect Foot Locker logo, the second-lowest memory LOGO of the 10 brands we tested. There seem to be too many ways to diverge people's memory, including adding a baseball cap (18%) to the head of the "referee", drawing a striped referee shirt without a "referee" (9.7%), or simply drawing only one shoe or foot (14%).
If Foot Locker redesigns according to people's memories LOGO
Starbuckshtml Starbucks
This is the Starbucks in their memory drawn by 150 people:
Since its establishment in 1971, Starbucks has used three LOGOs, each of which is a different interpretation of the two-tailed mermaid. The most important design should be added that the two-tailed mermaid can also be called the siren - the female siren in ancient Greek legend, who is a half-human and half-bird female, is accustomed to seducing sailors with beautiful singing, causing their ships to either hit the reef or sail into dangerous waters. In the first brown version of LOGO, the mermaid breasts were exposed, but in 1987, flowing hair covered her breasts and changed from brown to green, and LOGO was gradually simplified since then.
Starbucks LOGO Evolution
Starbucks' current LOGO was launched in 2011 and is a simplified version of the two-tailed mermaid. It no longer has the “Starbucks Coffee” text, the LOGO is pure green instead of the previous green and black two-color. Despite this simplification, only 6% of people can draw a Starbucks logo that is close to perfection.
There is no doubt that the Starbucks Mermaid is very memorable (90% of people draw it), but for most people, her body is so complicated that it is difficult to remember these details accurately.
45% forgot to draw the crown on the mermaid's head
Among the people who drew the Starbucks mermaid, 45% forgot to wear the crown, 16% of whom were able to draw her crown in the middle, 55% ignored that she was a double tail, and 31% remembered the Starbucks LOGO before 2011, which is the version of the brand name that circled around.
Overall, although Starbucks sells about 18 million cups of coffee every day, the details of the mermaid are the least remembered, which is the lowest among the brands we surveyed.
If Starbucks redesigns according to people's memories LOGO
WalmartWalmart
This is the Walmart in their memory drawn by 150 people:
Walmart is the highest sales company in the world, with more than 11,500 stores in 28 countries. Its first LOGO was launched in 1962 and was a very pure sans serif font with no symbols. In 1964, the font was changed to "lace font Frontier Font", and in 1981 it was restored to plain text, including the hyphen between "Wal" and "Mart". 10% of people used hyphen when drawing LOGO.
The evolution of Walmart LOGO
1992, the pentagram replaced the hyphen (7% of the participants this time still drew the deprecated quintile), until 2008, Walmart removed the hyphen to make the LOGO more friendly and added the "sunburst" symbol to the right of the font LOGO. 68% remember the symbol of "Rise of the Sun", although 42% did not use the correct amount of sunlight (six paths of sunlight), nor did they arrange it in an appropriate way.
42% of people use incorrect amount of sunlight
12% draw the perfect Walmart logo in memory, indicating that it is lower than the ratio of 7-11 (19%), which is comparable to Adidas.
12% LOGO Nearly perfect Walmart
In terms of color and text, Walmart's LOGO is simple although. However, this sunshine symbol makes it impossible for people to recall accurately. Remembering that sunlight is easy, but it still has some difficulty. Many people are confused by the number and arrangement of sunlight. This is the most common and important reason why the LOGO they draw cannot approach perfection, second only to the confusion between the old and new versions.
If Walmart redesigns according to people's memories LOGO
Target Target
This is the Target Department Store in their memory drawn by 150 people:
In addition to Walmart, Target Department Store is the largest mass commodity retailer in the country. Its LOGO is also one of the most recognized symbols. According to a 2003 study by Target, 96% of North Americans associate this eye-catching red bull-eye symbol with retailers.
The evolution of Target Department Store LOGO
In our experiment, one quarter of people drew the near-perfect Target LOGO based on their memory, becoming the second most memorable brand. 52% of people can draw very well, with only a few minor flaws.
41% of people draw the wrong circles
Target Department Store LOGO's main characteristics are its color (100% of people know that the bull's eyes are red) and the number of circles in the LOGO. 59% know that there is a solid circle in the center of the LOGO and a ring is wrapped around the outside.
59% of people drew the brand name "Target", which is very common in stores. However, those who don't draw the brand name are not completely wrong, because Target has separated the graphic LOGOs from the ads and flyers from the names since 2006, which is believed to be known to most people familiar with the brand.
If Target Department Store redesigns according to people's memories LOGO
IKEA
This is the IKEA in their memory drawn by 150 people:
For these 156 Americans, the most accurate LOGO is the Swedish company: IKEA! ! !
The evolution of IKEA LOGO
Those who draw IKEA LOGO can reproduce almost perfectly their combination of text, shape and color, compared to 25% for Target and 20% for Apple.
14% of people forget that the brand name is all capitalized
IKEA LOGO is the letter, which is the most important element of IKEA LOGO, it is very simple. 88% of people remember that letters are capitalized. You remember the IKEA LOGO with a yellow oval or not depends on whether you think of the IKEA storefront, which displays yellow letters on a blue background, and prints and TV commercials also displays the oval LOGO. 41% of people draw a brand name with an oval logo behind it.
If IKEA redesigns it according to people’s memory LOGO
Summary The core question of this experiment is “How do we accurately review the LOGO we see every day?” The results show that most people in think of brand color most—about 80% of people draw the correct colors, and the shapes and elements in LOGO are harder to recall.
Brand LOGO has changed over time, and a small number of people have confused the old version and the new version. Similarly, when super symbols that are not used in ads (such as Burger King), LOGO memory will drop.
Overall, 16% of people reproduced the perfect LOGO, and 37% did a good job of drawing.As we expected, the more complex LOGO is, the less likely people will be to remember it.
To make each LOGO memory more accurate, we asked 156 participants a lot of questions about themselves, including their age, gender, occupation, and their relationship with 10 brands (such as whether they own Apple devices or regularly shop at Target, etc.). The survey found that men and women had almost the same memory level, and no difference in their ability to accurately recall LOGO regardless of the degree of brand participation.
However, ages vary. On average, people who are younger than the elderly can recall LOGO more accurately. This is the case for almost all brands, especially for 7-Eleven, Burger King and Adidas. Wal-Mart is least affected by age, and there is no difference between young people and older people.
All participants drew the LOGO twice. The first time the participants were scored by themselves, and the second time the participants were scored by an independent assessment team. The independent group consists of five professionals from the design and advertising circles who evaluated the main features and sizes of the LOGO, as well as the colors used. There are a total of 1,500 artworks in this survey, which allows us to compare the accuracy of people's self-perception with the actual accuracy of others' judgments. In other words, we can know the difference between inconfidence and overconfidence.
70% of our participants overestimated the accuracy of their restoring LOGOs. The average score for participants’ self-assessment was 5.3 points, while the average score for the independent assessment group was 3.8 points. Confidence varies with accuracy, and while people generally overestimate their accuracy, people who can think of more LOGO characteristics also draw more accurately.
's original text is signs.com's research report, translated by AD518.com, welcome to forward and reprint!
