BrandCrowd, the online creative marketplace that helps start-ups, businesses and entrepreneurs find and create their perfect logo, has today unveiled data and insights that showcase the impact of the pandemic on logo designs.
The data compares sales of 44,000 logos from March 2021 to March 2022 in a bid to paint a clear picture of how businesses are adjusting their branding to keep up with evolving expectations of Australian consumers.
The pandemic catalysed a significant shift in herd mindset towards more eco-conscious shopping, and the data shows that businesses are listening. Demand for logos depicting grass, forests and leaves has spiked by 60 per cent, plant pots by 158 per cent and those featuring nature more broadly by a huge 188 per cent.
The focus on nature extends to outdoor recreation, with BrandCrowd’s data showing a 443 per cent increase in sales of logos depicting the outdoors. After two years of on-and-off lockdowns and restricted travel, businesses specialising in outdoor recreation have been reaping the rewards of recent freedoms, with sales of surfing logos increasing by a whopping 1515 per cent, hiking and fishing logos by 950 per cent and 705 per cent respectively and camping logos by 437 per cent.
With one in five Australians experiencing high or very high levels of psychological distress in June 2021, wellness businesses cropped up around the country to help counteract the effects.
During that time frame, BrandCrowd saw a significant increase in sales of logos that were tied to mental wellbeing, including those depicting meditation which rose by 310 per cent, therapy by 228 per cent, and the mind by 51 per cent.
Physical wellness was also bumped up the priority list as more businesses requested logos that featured a barbell (43 per cent) to attract avid gym-goers and bodybuilders, while logos for massage businesses shot up in line with the increased focus on exercise (46 per cent).
Many women took lockdowns as an opportunity to realise their entrepreneurial dreams, resulting in ‘feminine’ becoming the fastest-selling logo tag on BrandCrowd’s marketplace by March 2022.
Logos depicting a woman increased in sales by 61 per cent and those depicting a girl increased by 30 per cent. Demand for logos in female-dominated industries such as beauty and fashion saw significant spikes, with lash logos rising by 74 per cent, fashion by 51 per cent and jewellery by 196 per cent, making it the seventh most popular category of logo on the site.
Interestingly, sales of pink and floral logos decreased by 70 per cent and 52 per cent respectively, with many female founders choosing to communicate femininity through less conventional motifs such as monograms and calligraphy (337 per cent and 300 per cent respectively).
“Each new business that emerged out of the pandemic faced the very real challenge of having to market to their customers almost entirely online,” said Josephine Sabin, Head of Marketplace and Community at BrandCrowd. “As the first touchpoint between brands and their customers, logos needed to be attention-grabbing and translate their business’ message to its audience in milliseconds, or risk losing out to the competition.”
“To achieve this, logos have had to become much more literal. For example, in plumbing logos, we’re starting to see more pipes, cleaners more vacuums and mops and hairdressers more scissors. This method of visual communication has blown rigid corporate lettering out of the water, and its success through lockdown will cement its longevity of use for months if not years to come.”
