Company logos are an essential part of marketing strategy. They are fundamental to give customers a positive impression of the company and are, therefore, designed very carefully and carry a lot of subliminal messages.

Many businesses use an ideogram (sign, icon), an emblem (symbol) or a combination of sign and emblem as a logo. An effective logo may consist of both an ideogram and the company name (logotype), but symbols may be more effective for logos translated into many alphabets in increasingly globalised markets, because they can remain the same worldwide.

People recognise and react to colour, shapes, lines, fonts and other symbolic forms with different emotions on the basis of their experiences. Colours have a broad range of meaning according to different nations and cultures, as we have already blogged.

Let’s look at some interesting examples. The logo of Formula 1 has the number 1 in the space between the F and the red stripes, and it conveys an idea of speed.

Amazon’s logo doesn’t seem to hide much at first sight, but it is a symbol of the company’s philosophy. First of all, the yellow arrow looks like a smile, which means Amazon wants to have the best customer satisfaction. The arrow also connects the letters a and z, meaning that this store has everything from A to Z.

Sony Vaio is a well-known brand of laptops. The first two letters of *Vaio*’s logo represent the basic analogue signal. The last two letters look like a 1 and 0, representing the digital signal.

The arrow is a symbol of movement, and it suits to a logistics services company like FedEx. Have you ever notice any arrows in their logo? There is one. Where? You can find a white arrow between the E and X, in the background.