30+ Great Logos with Smart Concepts

Sep. 16, 2010 | Compilation | 85 comments

A couple of months ago we posted a compilation of Smart Logos with Hidden Symbolism which was very well received.

Today, we’re showcasing another great collection of smart logos, but in this case, their meanings are far easier to grasp.

The logos featured here create the company’s name by combining intricate shapes made up of fonts and illustrations.

These are usually the kind of logos that make you take a second look and say “wow, that’s clever!”.

As usual, we’d love to have your input and feedback in the comments area. Also, if you know of similar logos like these, please add links to them in the comments area below.

We hope you enjoy this fascinating collection!

Art Farm

Eat Innovations

Freedom

The Color Cure

Culinary Zen

Human

Diamond Bookstore

Elena Alexxeva

CFO

CityCliq

LoveClip

Illusion

Steps

Water Drop

Big Shift

Enough

Antisocial Network

Fit

DJ Loop

Pause

Curious

Studio 45

Code Fish

Bsided

Lochness

Wave

Version 2

Blend

Coffee

Logotomy

Shift

Cinema Café

Twins

One To Love

Families

Zip

Wine Searcher

Elefont

Know of any other great and smart logos? Please share them below and let us know what you think of this collection…

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COMMENTS

http://www.webme1.com Webme1

A nice collection of interesting logos. Web Designer Depot often provide interesting, informative articles that I enjoy reading.

I like the Pause logo for its sheer simplicity.

The Coffee Cup logo is still a favourite of mine.

It is often interesting to see the process that leads to a finished work. http://www.janzabransky.cz/coffee-cup.html shows the basic design process of the coffee cup logo.
Tom Heasman

Great collection! love Lochness and the diamond bookstore! Very clever!
Ann

Very nice!!
http://www.urbanartcore.eu brenna

fantastic! nice collection…
I’m still on the search for a nice logo for my blog…
http://www.lunarfix.com Hugo

“Shift, “Freedom” and “Wine Searcher” are my favs (ones I haven’t seen before). Excellent collection! -Hugo
http://www.logofromdreams.com LFD

Cinema Café is lovely! Nice collection…
http://www.webdesign-bureau-of-mauritius.com Web Design Mauritius

These are great logos! The guys having worked on these have done a great job. I just wish I could find such great ideas.
http://akasunanosasori01.deviantart.com/ Abdou

Great ideasn execution in all of them :D
http://twitter.com/z0r z0r

Elena Alexeeva, not Alexxeva. Check please.

All in all, logos are awesome. The best were Diamon Bookstore and Codefish.
http://interactivestudios.blogspot.com Paul S

I wonder if they first thought up the name and the logo was designed later by a designer or that the design team created both logo and name.

If it’s the first option the result is even more impressive.

I really dig the “Diamond Bookstore” and “Lochness” logo’s
http://www.mikesh.ch Mikesh Vulco

some great ideas. the lochness logo is hilarious
lyricAL

Great logos! I’ve always liked that lochness logo. Even though there are good concepts here, sometimes I wonder about the convenience of logos like these. I tend to look up the logos to see if they are actual companies/businesses/organizations. 80% of the time they are not. When looking at logos, I always think about the difficulty factor that went into being given a name that a client has chosen versus having a name that a designer chose on their own because it had convenient shapes, letter combinations, or subject matter.

For example, if a professor gives you a certain company name and tells you what that company does, it forces you to push the envelope because of the constraints that you as the designer have no control over. And in many cases with clients, this is what happens. You can’t always change the name of a company because the negative space isn’t quite working or because you had a better concept for a company with a different description. The fact is that a business came to you…had their name already…and needs a logo to assist in the branding of their presence.

Dont’ get me wrong, these are all great logos. It’s just something I thought about one day while browsing online through logolounge. How much of it is actual conceptual thinking toward a great logo, or how much of it is a designer who thought it would be cool to have “this” shape inside of “those” words? Just a thought.
http://www.stefan-graf.com Stefan

really awesome!
http://reversenerd.blogspot.com Rapi Castillo

I think Eat takes the cake on this one. No pun.
http://computers.helpof.com gopal

Very beautiful & impressive logos. Especially, coffee, code fish & wave. Hats off to designers of these logos. Just want to know, can we use these logos on our website or these logos are under copyright.
http://www.zeroatoms.com Sean

Very nice collection, quite inspirational logo’s there.

Thanks for the post, good job!
http://www.volkanerdogan.com volkan

perfect logo collection! thnx :)
http://Www.perphic.com Perphic

Good collection of fun and witty logos. Some better than others but nice find. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.realerhq.com Jonathan

These are fantastic. I don’t know why but the Shift logo sticks in my head the most. One of the most obvious ones I know is FedEx with the arrow to the right being created in the negative space between the “E” and “x”. http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/logo/fedex-3
http://www.mographer.com The Mographer

Great list!
http://www.dotworks.pl dotworker

i like smart concepts – and see few new designs here . nice cool-lection
http://www.chrismower.com Chris Mower

Nice logos. Some are a little hard to read. My favorite… I think it’s the City Cliq.
http://www.childmonster.com/ Childmonster

Really nice list logo
http://www.designcrumbs.com Jake

Nice collection. Where do most of these come from? I have a few I’ve done that I’m proud of.

http://brandstack.com/logo-design/details/14055
http://brandstack.com/logo-design/details/13050
http://marilynadorno.com Marilyn

Love them all…!
http://www.pingvps.com Steve

Zip and Diamond Bookstore… gotta love em!
ram

Awesome ! :D
http://icecoldwebdesign.comli.com Brian

Very nice collection!!
http://www.nichterdesign.com Ed

Big Shift is terrible.
http://www.chrismauck.com Chris Mauck

These are great! Thanks for the inspiration. ‘eat’ has a great one and for some reason I just like the City Cliq.
Rishi Arora

great collection here. thanks for the inspiration.
http://www.thefreelancegeek.com/ The Freelance Geek

Love the human one!
http://whoiskaho.com KaHo

Great collection.. That really inspire me in designing =))
http://www.justgraph.com MyLogo

Good collections. Congratulatios!!!
http://www.chadritchie.net Chad Ritchie

Nice collection!
http://www.012485.com Anthony Lane

Thanks for featuring my “illusion” design. Cheers.
- http://www.psyched.be/wordpress Darkened Soul
  
  your AL design is neat as well though ;) will keep my eye open for more of that :d
alvin

lochness! It made me laugh when I realized it. Very good execution.
http://www.creatuswebdesign.nl/ Gert van den Brink

Just amazing these logo’s, very creative. Thanks for the inspiration!
http://rolling-webdesign.com Theo

Some really stunning logo creations, lochness and freedom are my favourites.
http://www.scottcarmichael.co.uk Scott

Great collection, I think “anti-social network” and “lochness” are really clever.
http://www.empfehlenswert-wien.at wien

great ideas, thanks for this post
http://www.psyched.be/wordpress Darkened Soul

Seen most of them already but they are indeed clever designs ( i mean, “eat” seems to be made for the spoon ;) )
either way, great showcase here
Erik

Really nice and inspirational collection. I like this logo of a friend of mine who is a DJ, Dr Neman: http://drneman.com/images/27/logo-dr-neman.png
http://www.singingtips.org Albert

Nice collection! Illusion is my favorite.
http://ibrandstudio.com Eko

Amazing, really useful for me to get the inspiration
Thanks..
http://kholdesign.com raymond

some of them kind of remind me of a basic design school assignment: especially ‘steps’, ‘freedom’, ‘coffee’, ‘zip’ and ‘illusion’. Are these all being used by companies?
http://www.jaywdesigns.com Jason Williams

It’s amazing that people can brainstorm and come up with these ideas. It must take a lot of time and sketching to get it just right. Some people see a logo and being something small and easy when it’s truly the opposite of that.
http://webdesigners.ca/ Web Designers

These are so unique and creative. I’ve always been interested in logo design. Thanks for posting
http://www.gradeawebsites.com GradeAWebsites

Great collection again!
http://2oolbox.com jDesai

Brilliant ones.. Especially the “Freedom” one..Hat’s off.
http://loneplacebo.com Tony

Simple, yet incredibly powerful messages in each logo. Great collection!
http://www.laurencecaro.co.uk/ Laurence Caro

Some great logo designs here!! Very clever work
http://awesome.hu/ adikahorvath

Nice, expressive and inspirational pack
Karin Freymann

Great collection! Very inspiring!
Dissenter

How many of these are actually real logos for real companies though? A few, at best. Yes, they’re really clever design exercises and I’m all for being creative for the sake of just being creative. But a logo created around a made-up name that fits the visual metaphor isn’t really a real logo, and it’d be nice if for once sites like these actually showcased real-world logotypes rather than made-up ones. They might not be as clever in the real world, but they’d be far more educational to what a real logo is, which is more than just clever wordplay.
- http://www.pingvps.com Steve
  
  I think the fact that the word “concepts” is in the title might suggest they are not all real company logos.
  
  That said, just enjoy them for what they are, is there really a need to over think it?
gretzki

some of the logos are just amazing. really great collection.
http://www.securityking.com Craig

These are great logos with smart concepts, and are another brilliant compilation you have brought together, couldn’t pick a favourite!
http://www.dtx.in/ DTX Studios

Lovely logo designs.. Very creative and smartly designed.
http://maakent.com Althaf

I just love it. Real creativity. No favorite. Love em al!
http://www.stripeyhorsecreative.com/book_graphic_design_1.html Graphic designer

I think the Lochness one is the best.
Jason

Meh. A lot of these seemed hokey and too blunt. Not emotive enough. When you think about the best marks they all are more emotive and less direct. They are entertaining though. The illusion one was great just for good use of negative space.
http://www.e11world.com e11world

Studio 45 and big shift are the least favorites for me here.. I would think to make the work BIG bolder instead of shift..
One of my favorite collections for excellent concepts here!
http://www.khwebdesign.net Kent

Truly great logo design is tough to find but these are all stellar examples!
soraya

it’s really amazing, it’s the first time i make comment , really interesting, i love freedom logo
gina

This logo is a little more direct than a lot of these logo ideations, but it’s also really being used.

http://www.canteenshop.com
http://www.micheldesign.com Nekoda

WOW… I never thought that I would love them ALL…
http://www.advitum.de Lars Ebert

A great collection. Most of them made me ‘Wow’! Thanks!
http://www.egasoftware.nl/webdesign_enschede.html Webdesign Enschede

Wow, inspiring logo design’s
http://www.freeipadforever.com Salman Aslam

The Pause logo have always been my favorite :) Great collection
http://www.craigpennings.com Craig Pennings

Wow, impressive logo work!
http://ghassemi-s.blogspot.com Salman

Gr8/.
http://www.logotreasure.com Logo Treasure

This is a great source of inspiration. The lochness logo blows your mind away. That’s my favorite ;)
http://www.webrecurso.com Carlos Luna

Wow… awesome logos… very nice
http://sitereviver.com SiteReviver

Very interesting logo concepts, simple and elegant designs. The most I like the WAVE logo, what is your favorite?
http://designparticle.co.cc AJ Barayuga

Wow! These are amazing! Really creative use of typography and imagination!
http://www.metrodesk.com.bd Metrodesk Clipping Path services

hooo!!! its really great collection.
http://- KUNJAN VIRANI

this is vary good collection …
medmuf

Nice! But DL loop is a copy of Italian famous supercenter COOP. Plz check it out.
http://www.hexfx.com.au Jade Colley

Some great ones here! Excellent collection!
Vesi K

Such an amazing collection! Some of them are just genius!
leanderbraunschweig

thanks so much for sharing those, great inspirational character!
http://www.logodesain.com logodesain

it was great logo, I found some inspiration after seeing the logo, very helpful at all as a reference to create a logo!
Kevin

Here’s a great logo!

http://floatograph.com/floatcom_logo_mstr.jpg

	Positive. Without the web many businesses would have gone under.
	Negative. Without the web many business would still be open.
	Inevitable. It was coming, like it or not.
	Negligible. If it hadn't filled the gap something else would.