The complete guide to social media design

Fifteen years ago, you may have gotten away with calling social media a fad. But these days, a social media presence is as essential as a telephone number—and a strategic approach to social media design is how you make sure your followers answer the call.

A strategic approach to social media design can make the difference between whether viewers follow you or keep scrolling. By OrangeCrush.

For businesses, social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest are excellent spaces to engage directly with the real people who support you. It’s where you create connections with content that entertains your followers while fostering brand awareness. As useful as social media is, it is also highly competitive. Once you publish content, it immediately joins an endless stream of content, where it will compete not only with the content produced by other brands, but also with the platform’s ranking algorithm. In social media, only the strong survive, but the good news is that standout social media graphics are the best tools in your arsenal to create memorable, engaging content.

This ultimate guide to social media design will walk you through the different kinds of social media graphics, how to use them and, most importantly, how to make them matter.

Social media design overview
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• Before you start your social media design

• • Plan your social media design strategy
  • List, brief and schedule your design assets
  • Keep a reference of the content sizes and dimensions for each platform

• Tips on designing your social media page

• • Profile picture design
  • Cover image design
  • Profile page layout design
  • Platform-specific profile branding

• 5 guidelines for social media content design

• • Design content in a way that is useful to your followers
  • Incorporate different types of design into your content
  • Balance individual content with your overall profile page
  • Design themed content and templates
  • Adjust your design based on analytics

Before you start your social media design
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Plan your social media design strategy

The first step in social media design is to create your strategy (or review your existing one). Design should act as an enhancement to your content, facilitating the messages you want to get across, so it’s essential to first create a solid messaging strategy in order to perform well.

1. Evaluate the audiences for your current channels. You may already have already conducted target audience research for your overall brand strategy, but the audience for each social media channel will represent a specific segment or cross-section of your larger audience. In order to create the most effective social media design, understand who is currently following your content and what they are looking for. Make sure this is backed by target market research—conduct interviews, surveys, use the platform’s analytics to find demographic information, notate the feedback or comments your followers leave. Next, create user personas for your existing audiences in addition to new audiences you want to reach. Personas are important because it’s much easier to design content for a person than for facts and figures.
2. Choose the best platforms to reach your audiences. Social media is necessary for businesses, but that doesn’t mean every social media platform is necessary for every business. For example, recipes perform notoriously well on Pinterest, so while it makes sense for a food brand to invest heavily in that platform, it won’t be as important for, say, a home security brand. Research your many options for social media platforms, and decide on a few based on what is popular within your industry and with your audience. Assuming that you should only use the most popular platforms may lead you to miss out on social media apps with niche audiences that might be perfect for your brand.
3. Evaluate the types of content that perform best on those platforms. Narrowing the scope of your audience and social media channels will allow you to focus on the kinds of content to create and eventually how that content should be designed. Some of the types of content you can create will be set by the platform (Instagram favors imagery and video, Twitter favors short messages and clips). Each platform should have a how-it-works page that will explain the media constraints. Other types of content will be based on common user trends: although people have the ability to create videos and written messages on Facebook, many users use the platform to share article links. Spend some time reviewing user activity, paying close attention to your competitors, to get an idea of how to best use each channel.

List, brief and schedule your design assets

Make sure you catalogue all of the design assets you need for every platform and screen size. Design by D C T A R S.

Now that you have a better idea of your audience and the channels you’ll be using, you can start mapping out a design pipeline with a series of briefs. This, along with a content calendar, will help keep you organized through the design process. Make sure to document the following:

• Upcoming content plans
• The goal of the content
• Intended audience
• Competitor content examples
• Design medium (photograph, video, illustration, animated gif)
• Caption or text copy
• Design references

Keep a reference of the content sizes and dimensions for each social media platform

A reference of social media content sizes and dimensions is must-have for any designer. This allows you to quickly size your canvases and to adapt designs across different platforms. Social media sizes tend to change now and again, so be sure to update this list regularly. As of June 2020, here are the sizes and dimensions for common social media platforms:

	Instagram image dimensions	Twitter image dimensions	Facebook image dimensions	LinkedIn image dimensions	YouTube image dimensions
Profile picture	110 x 110px	400 x 400px	180 x 180px	200 x 200px	800 x 800px
Square image	1080 x 1080px
Portrait image	1080 x 1350px
Instagram stories	1080 x 1920px
Cover image		1500 x 500px	820 x 312px	1584 x 396px	2,560 x 1,440px
Content image		1024 x 512px	1200 x 630px	1104 x 736px
FB event image			1920 x 1080px
Company profile picture				300 x 300px
Company cover image				1192 x 220px
Video thumbnail					1280 x 720px

Tips on designing your social media profile page
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by Nandatama

Now that you have a strategy in place, you’re ready to set up your social media profiles for success. Your profile is the homepage to your social media account. It is where users will go when they search your name or are otherwise directed via a link. It is also where the “Follow” button will live—a well-executed profile design can make the difference in whether or not they click it.

The goal of your profile page is to tell prospective followers who you are. While your bio should lay this out in a few concise statements, the design of your profile will do so visually, using color, shape and imagery to express your brand identity. This means avoiding graphics that are outside of your brand guidelines or pretty for the sake of pretty. The graphics should say something about you. When deciding on imagery for your profile page, ask yourself critically what story each graphic is telling about you and make sure that narrative is consistent across platforms.

>>Check out our guide to branding yourself on social media

To help you get the most out of your profile design, we’ll go through the common components of a social media profile and provide tips on how to leverage each for branding.

Profile picture design

Your profile picture (or avatar) is, along with your handle, your online identity. It is the part of your profile that will be seen outside of your profile page, acting as a signature for your posts. This is why profile pictures are generally small, to give more attention to your actual posts. With that in mind, focus your avatar on simplicity. Some brands can get away with using their entire logo if it’s legible at a tiny size. Many brands will instead opt for an abbreviated version (either the first letter in the brand name or the logomark by itself). Backing this version of the logo with a bold color or pattern can help it stand out. Also keep in mind that although dimensions are given in a square orientation, most platforms use circular avatars.

A professional headshot is the way to go for LinkedIn. Via Anjali Sud.

Cover image design

Although not all social media platforms include cover images, it is common enough that your design strategy should account for one. The cover image is the wide, rectangular banner that sits at the top of your profile page. It shares an intrinsic relationship with the profile picture—they are commonly positioned together. In some ways, you can think of your cover image as the expansion of your profile picture, the space in which you can fit more text, photos and graphics.

This cover image expands the logo into a full illustration. Design by olimpio.

Many cover image designs go as far as to have the graphics of each literally interact with the avatar, as in the line of color that is sustained from cover image to avatar in the No Co Facebook design. Just be careful with this approach—while clever, it can be a lot of effort for something that is essentially a gimmick and will break when your profile layout is rearranged for smaller screen sizes.

The profile picture and cover image can also literally interact with each other. Design by CREATIVE NINJA .

Although there is more space to work with compared to the profile picture, this is not an excuse to design a busy, over-the-top cover image. As a banner, your cover image does exist for visual impact, but it is also an advertisement, highlighting what sets your brand apart. It is also the perfect space to display additional contact info, such as your website address, phone number or other social handles. All in all, it should deliver a focused message about who you are, and clutter will dilute that message. Consider minimalist imagery that captures your brand values. For example, the Kathryn Mueller YouTube design uses bright and friendly pastel pinks, circular shapes, and a photo of the trainer in workout wear to tell you that this is a woman owned and operated fitness brand focused on wellness and balance.

by Sasha Design

Profile page layout design

Although the profile page layout is generally dictated by the social media platform and the day-to-day content you publish, you still have some control over how your page is presented. This part of the design process does not involve creating social media graphics, but it does involve the use of spacing and alignment to make your content accessible for users.

GoPro organizes its YouTube profile page layout with an important video at the top, blocks of carousel playlists below, and related channels arranged on the right

YouTube is an example of a platform that gives you more tools to customize your profile page. One convention is to pin a channel trailer to the top (explaining what your content is about), following that with a feed of recent uploads and following that with blocks of curated video playlists. Similarly, Pinterest is built on the ability to organize content through boards (and sub-boards). Whatever the platform, take the time to arrange your page so that the most important content is up top and that featured images (if applicable) convey the nature of grouped content.

Instagram layout by JayJacks0n

Even with platforms like Instagram and Facebook that display your recent posts in chronological order, with no options for customized profile display, you can still plan ahead for how your day-to-day content will display on your page (more on that later).

Platform-specific profile branding

The great thing about social media is the amount of versatility that exists between platforms. Each social media app has their own unique approach to design and the way they distribute content. So while most platforms share common design categories such as avatars and cover images, each individual platform might have extra profile designs you’ll need to account for.

Wendy’s uses the linked thumbnails on Twitch’s about page to display coupon codes and brand these with a Nintendo Mii version of their mascot.They also get bonus points for customizing their avatar for this channel to include a gaming headset. Via Wendy’s Twitch.

For example, your social media branding for Twitch will include an offline image (a static graphic that is shown on the video screen when you are not currently live) and screen overlay images (branded graphics that are overplayed on the screen when you are live). On YouTube, you will need to plan for a channel trailer, branded video thumbnails and lower thirds. Make sure to spend some time testing out the profile pages and reviewing those of your competitors on the specific platforms you plan to use ahead of time, and take advantage of these extra branding opportunities.

5 guidelines for social media content design
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Content is what social media is all about—it’s where you share media and engage with your followers on the day-to-day. While it is worthwhile to give your profile page design plenty of attention, all of that effort will be wasted if your content designs fail to impress.

The nature and design of content will vary depending on who your brand is, what your business does and what your goals are, but the following are general guidelines to help you create social media graphics to earn you followers—and keep them.

1. Design content in a way that is useful for your followers

You would think that tailoring the content to your audience would be a no-brainer. But given that social media is designed for publishing your words and your pictures, it can be tempting to make it about you: consider the criticisms around selfies and projecting a curated life. Your audience chose to follow you for a reason. Whether it’s for information, entertainment or inspiration, your job is to give the people what they came for. Content design, likewise, must be more than visually appealing—it has to be useful.

by I am a sinner

Here’s an example: you know that most people are following your brand to be notified about sales and promotions. You decide to make a social media event out of a promotional campaign with a special logo, content and ad designs, as Del Marva does with their blood drive. In their case, the bright orange and cascading pineapple pattern make it clear that this is a celebratory event (while also helping the content to stand out in the feed). But Del Marva also uses clear, bold typography supported by bright banners that contrast the background to highlight pertinent information such as the date and how to participate. This is a post that is designed to not only be eye-catching but to compel a viewer to save it or share it with a friend.

2. Incorporate different types of designs in your content

Content variety has to start with your strategy. Your posts should cover various topics (such as behind-the-scenes business content, customer highlights, promotional materials, etc.), but you should also look for and create opportunities to accommodate different design styles to keep your feed dynamic and engaging.

Even the first few Pinterest boards Chobani shows design content that ranges from photography, flat illustration, infographics, and typography overlaid on imagery

It helps to know what different design styles excel at. Flat design characters and colors are useful for infographics (the vertical or swipeable variety) that convey information or tell a story.  Hand lettered typography can be great for inspirational words that people might be compelled to share or for questions that people might be compelled to comment on. Photography is a chance to showcase real people and real products—you want photos to look professional, but resist the urge to over-filter and lose that authenticity.

Photo collage design can be a great opportunity to liven up images without resorting to filters. Instagram content design by FranB.

One of the best ways to create variety is to involve your followers in your social media strategy. Consider crowdsourcing methods, like hashtag contests or social media takeovers. This might result in content that is visually inconsistent, but it will be consistent with your brand because it stems from your customers, whom your brand ultimately serves.

3. Balance individual content with your overall profile page

Even as you vary your design content, keep in mind that for many platforms a chronological feed of your recent posts will appear on your profile page. As mentioned in the previous section, your profile page needs to be visually consistent in order to function effectively for branding purposes, and your posts shouldn’t detract from that consistency. It all comes down to a balancing act: your content must be individual, with its own goals and targeted segments of your audience, but it must also contribute to the collective whole of your social media design. The key is branding—design varied content but keep each piece in line with the core principles of your brand guidelines.

Although National Geographic’s Facebook feed (gathered in the Photos section) is largely photo and video related, a consistent look is achieved using a similar blue, green, and white color palette.

Some brands go as far as to plan their chronological content in a way that it connects to form a cohesive page layout. This works especially well with Instagram which reliably arranges content in three-column square grid on the profile page. By publishing designs with similar styles every three posts, you can set up columns that create a cohesive aesthetic when people are viewing your profile page. On the downside, this method can restrict the types of content you are able to post, lest you break your overall page design. For the most part, you have more design options and opportunities for expanding your content by letting your feed be organic but visually on-brand.

Posted content comes together to contribute to your overall profile page. Social media design by Daylite Designs ©.

4. Design themed content and templates

Although it might seem ideal to have all of your social media content be surprising and original, often this is not practical or even necessary. Designing templates for some of your posts not only allows you to create content in a speedy and scalable way, it also establishes easy visual cohesion. This convention can be especially helpful for recurring design images like YouTube’s video thumbnails. On the one hand, you want the thumbnails to be unexpected and to make viewers want to click on them. But because the meat of the content is the actual video, it doesn’t make sense to spend time and energy crafting unique thumbnails from scratch every time.

These Instagram templates by JayJacks0n account create a cohesive and engaging design

’Template’ can sometimes be a dirty word in design, synonymous with boring and generic. Think of these instead as design roadmaps that allow you to skip some of the brainstorming, sketching and trial-and-error of the design process. And you can still vary the templates with each post by changing up the specific imagery or color. At the end of the day, there are times when templates are important for speeding up your design pipeline so that you can give more important content the attention it deserves.

5. Adjust your design based on analytics

Social media moves fast. The minute you post something, you are sending it into a stream to sink or swim with other content posted every other minute. The good news is that the speed with which social media moves gives you fast results. Most content has a lifespan of a few hours to a day or so at most (in which you get the bulk of your impressions, likes and comments). With this in mind, you can test, quickly know which designs work and don’t work and adjust your design strategy accordingly.

Analytics are an important consideration in social media design. Animation by Adam Muflihun.

From a numbers standpoint, what defines a successful post depends on your own particular following. It is helpful to create benchmarks based on your best and worst performing content to have a sense of metrics that indicate success or failure within the context of your other content. Keep in mind that there can also be other factors in poor content performance—such as the time of posting, the ever inscrutable algorithm, real world events that might have your followers’ attention elsewhere, or plain bad luck. A/B testing is one useful tool that can help you rule out flukes or decide which design variants are the best option. In addition to the platform specific analytics (that usually reveal things like impressions, views and watchtime in the case of video), tools like UTM codes added to your CTA links will let you know which specific posts earned traffic.

The power of social media design
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Social media is a highly competitive arena, and it takes a great deal of planning and hard work to succeed, both on the content and the design front. But the results are worth striving for. Not only is social media excellent for attracting leads, converting customers, and all around brand awareness, it’s where you get to have real interactions with people. At the end of the day, it’s called social media because it’s supposed to be fun.

The best way to ensure your social media presence is primed to spark a conversation is to work with an expert designer. Good design can convince followers to stop scrolling and pay attention to what you have to say. It can make your messages useful and easy to digest. It can demonstrate your professionalism and commitment to quality. If you want the kind of social media graphics that get your followers talking, an expert designer is only a click away.

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Product branding 101: help your product stand out from the crowd

People love Coca-Cola, but they don’t often have a strong opinion about the other brands their local supermarket sells, even when they taste exactly the same as Coca-Cola and cost half the price. Why? Two words: product branding. Coca-Cola isn’t just soda; it’s Americana and polar bears and Santa Claus. It’s iconic red and white script and six-ounce glass bottles. It’s comfort and familiarity. These perceptions of Coke (as something so much more than carbonated sugar water) is successful product branding in action.

If you’re developing a product, you should be developing its brand. Clearly identifying who the product is for and how you want the world to perceive it will guide the decisions you make through its development. These understandings may even fundamentally change how the product works or how it’s made.

But what is product branding?
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Product branding, put simply, is the process of branding a product. It’s the identity you give your product so it stands out in a sea of competitors and connects with the people it meshes with best. That unique identity is your product’s brand, and each of the tangible aspects of that brand is your product’s brand identity.

Confused? This should help:

• Your product’s brand is how the world perceives your product
• Your product’s brand identity is the collection of things that comprise its brand, like the font and colors in its logo and the way it’s packaged
• Branding is the action of creating a brand identity and from it, a distinct brand

For some products, the branding is loud and clear.

With others, not so much.

The degree to which you brand your product depends on your type business and on the product itself.

Because let’s be real here: when you’re building a shed, you probably don’t care much about the brand of nails you use. You might care a little bit more about the brand of hammer you use, and you probably care more than that about the brand of paint or shingles you go with.

Branding takes on greater significance for certain products than it does for others because things like perceived quality, sourcing, perceived value and functionality simply matter more with certain products. You don’t care about a nail’s brand because that nail is going to get hammered into a 2×4 and never seen again. In contrast, you probably compared two or more brands of shingles to find one that’s durable, waterproof and attractive—because going with an inferior brand could mean spending more money and weekends repairing and replacing that roof.

They’re nails. Their boxes tell you everything you need to know, but there’s no brand engagement beyond that. Via Home Depot.

When you were choosing between available shingle brands, each company’s branding helped steer you toward your final decision. Branding differentiated the shingles rated for rainy and snowy climates from the ones that weren’t and the shingles that are designed to last more than 20 years from the ones that might not make it past one.

Define your product’s unique brand
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Defining your brand accurately requires some self-reflection. Take some time to dig into who your product is for, where it fits into its unique market and which characteristics make it unique. Explore these factors to find concrete answers about:

• Your values. Are you an employee-owned company that prioritizes responsible labor practices? Maybe environmental sustainability or making high quality products accessible to lower-income buyers is a goal for you and your company
• Your buyers’ values. What do your customers care about? What are they looking for from a product like yours?
• Where your product fits into its market. Is it priced higher, lower or about the same as competing products—and why? Is it available on every store’s shelf, in select boutiques or from your online shop exclusively? Is it meant for a specific demographic among your buyers?
• The characteristics that makes your product unique among its competitors. Is your product the only option in its category that comes with customer support for life? Or is it the only one they can get without having to leave the house? What differentiates your product?

You can demonstrate all those points through thoughtful product branding design. Effective product design (and by extension, product packaging design) starts with visual choices like:

• A color palette. Take a look at our guide to choosing brand colors to learn more about how the colors you use in your product design impact how buyers perceive your product (and by extension, your company).
• Fonts. Just like your color choices, your font choices determine how your brand is perceived. Read more about different fonts’ effects in our fonts guide.
• The shapes you use in your logo and product branding design. Shapes, too, convey personality traits and steer viewers’ perception of your brand. Rounded shapes tend to feel softer and more inviting, whereas squares evoke a sense of security and triangles can create feelings of movement, urgency and drive.
• The design styles and imagery you use in your product branding. For some brands, simple line illustrations say it all. For others, photos are a must-have. And for others, abstract 3D graphics capture who they are perfectly.

But that’s not all; branding goes beyond visual design. Branding touches every interaction the customer has with your product, like the packaging your product arrives in and the way they interact with your customer support team. You can take branding in a ton of different directions to build a stronger relationship with your audience, like collaborating with another product or service that’s on your buyers’ shopping lists or creating a totally unique buying experience through omnichannel shopping.

Create your product’s brand identity
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As we mentioned above, your product’s brand identity is the collection of tangible “pieces” that make up its brand. These include:

• Logo
• Website
• Social media presence
• Product packaging
• Product labeling
• Taglines
• Copy voice
• Product names
• Email/messaging design templates

The color palette, the imagery used and even the shape of the bottle are components of this product’s brand identity. Logo and product packaging design by brilliant__.

Take the visual design elements you identified for your brand and use them to design the components that make up your brand identity. For example, the Nature’s logo is the primary focal point of its van wrap design, which uses the brand’s color palette and includes its tagline.

Your brand identity can include anything you decide to brand, like a vehicle wrap! Vehicle wrap design by Priyo.

Chances are, you’re probably not going to find some super designer who can create all of the above for your brand. So to avoid having your logo designer create something that says “we’re as transparent as taut cling wrap!” create a comprehensive brand identity guide. A brand identity guide is an in-depth guide that lays out everything your team needs to know about your brand, like its color palette, fonts, logo variations and overall voice.

Map out your brand plan
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Once your product has a clear, consistent brand, it’s time to get that brand out everywhere. Everywhere it makes sense for your brand to be, that is. Nowadays, everybody must have an online presence. That means a website and social media. But which social media platforms you promote your product on depends on what your product is and which demographics it’s meant for. If your product is a line of ergonomic office furniture priced for Gen X and Boomer c-suite executives, don’t promote it on TikTok because Gen X and Boomers aren’t on TikTok. But Facebook and LinkedIn? Yes.

Take time to find out where your audience hangs out most online. Facebook cover design by BryanMaxim.

The same goes when you’re choosing where else to maintain a brand presence. For some products, print ads make sense. For others, they aren’t very effective. Similarly, some products have audiences that connect really well with influencers, so getting your product into those influencers’ hands and onto their platforms is key to reaching your ideal audience. If you go the influencer route, make sure you take the time to find influencers who have the same values as your brand and your target audience. Otherwise, you can end up with an ineffective campaign at best, and an embarrassing nightmare at worst.

Then there’s the way the venues selling your product fit into its branding. Does limiting availability to your website give it the exclusivity it deserves, or should the product be available on every big box store shelf across the country? There’s a lot of room to fit in between these extremes, like making it available only through select retailers, either online or in brick and mortar shops.

Maintain your product’s brand
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Product branding doesn’t end when your product hits the market. It continues through your interactions with buyers, any new products you release and business pivots you decide to take.

A few examples of actions you can take after your product launches to build and maintain your brand include:

• Supporting specific causes and charities
• Running promotions, giveaways and contests
• Collaborating with other brands to create new products

One famous brand collaboration in the sneaker world is Nike and Off-White. Via StockX.

Just like you carefully vetted the social media platforms on which you maintain a presence and which influencers you work with, think carefully about the promotions that are most on-brand for you. For a pet food brand, donating products or a percentage of every sale to animal rescue organizations is a good fit. For a fashion brand, it makes sense to collaborate with another brand that your audience buys regularly—maybe a beauty or footwear brand.

For a beauty brand, a raffle for free products can be a great promotion. Product label design by ve_sta.

Product branding also extends to how you interact directly with your product’s buyers. If your product’s branded as simple and hassle-free, a no-questions-asked return policy maintains that brand persona. Similarly, a friendly beauty brand might start every email to its subscribers with “greetings, beautiful babes,” while an auto parts brand might answer commonly asked questions on its website FAQ-style with “hey, gearhead.”

Brand your product, be successful
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Your product may be the best in its category, but if you don’t put the work into branding it effectively, it will get lost in the sea of options your buyers must consistently wade through. And if it isn’t branded appropriately, the right buyers can miss it—and other buyers may initially be interested, but turn away when they realize it isn’t what they need.

Even if your product is in its earliest developmental stages, now is the time to start creating your branding strategy. Read our guide to the process of branding to get an in-depth look at every step of the branding process. It’s never too early to set your product up for success!

Get your product branding off to a strong start with an awesome logo.

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3D logos: 34 eye-popping examples to inspire you

A great logo should catch your eye, illustrate your brand story and be memorable. What better way than for your logo to literally jump off the page? 3D logos add an extra “dimension” for getting noticed and they work extremely well on platforms such as television and online. Compared to more traditional 2D logos, 3D logo design stands out and is easier to remember, not to mention it’s a great starting point for animation.

3D logo design by Mitch.

So why doesn’t everyone have a 3D logo? Despite the advantages, there are plenty of drawbacks as well. Because of the intricate detail that goes into the optical illusion, sometimes it can be difficult to translate a 3D logo onto marketing materials, like embroidering your logo onto a cap.

On the bright side, you can avoid all these issues through smart and slick design, and that’s precisely what we talk about below. In this article we’ll take you through the various elements that make up a great 3D logo and share some of our favorite 3D logo examples to inspire you along the way.

Use shadows, gradients and highlights to create depth
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The first port of call when considering 3D logos is how shadows, gradients and highlights create depth. A clever blend of these three elements can take a flat image into the third dimension. Whether it’s adding a simple shadow to give the illusion of hovering or adding highlights to suggest depth, these effects are the bread and butter of 3D design.

WAO’s design by ultrastjarna uses detailed shading and highlights to give the optics of light catching the metallic design at different angles. How strong or soft your lighting should be depends on the brand, but you can see some varying degrees in the 3D logo examples below.

Trick the eye with realistic 3D elements
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Another fantastic way to create a 3D optical illusion is to incorporate realism. In the real world, we rely on visual cues to tell the difference between flat images and actual 3D objects that we can touch. By replicating these visual cues in your logo, you can trick the brain into thinking the images have more depth than they really do. You’re more likely to double take at a logo that feels like it is jumping through the screen.

Bo_rad uses gradients and shading to create the illusion of a sticker peeling away to reveal the ‘e’ of evenico, while ludibes recreates a charity ribbon with a realistic dimensional shape. You could even go one step further like goopanic’s Iron Man design emerging out of the logo to create a futuristic cyber feel.

Create depth in a hand-drawn logos

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When we think of 3D logos we envision slick digital design, often on Adobe Illustrator. But although this style of design has endless qualities, hand-drawn 3D logo design has a warmth that digital work often lacks—sometimes all you need is the humble pencil to create dynamic three-dimensional designs.

A detailed and realistic drawing style, often coupled with a proper use of perspective, can create just as much depth as a digitally rendered 3D logo. Yakaona uses a variation on perspective and overlap to create depth to her 3D logo design: some flowers sit behind the banner and some sit in front.

The arts-and-crafts nature of a hand-drawn 3D logo can also signal to consumers that the product is artisanal or owned by a small business—large enterprises tend towards more polished and digitally rendered logos, so hand-drawn logos can be a great fit for SMBs. Just look at how Agi Amri‘s realistic, hand-rendered cocoa beans perfectly match the artisanal quality of the brand.

Add textures to build 3D narrative

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In graphic design, texture adds not only depth, but also narrative to the design. For example, Freshinnet uses the texture of mud splatters for an outdoor adventure company logo, while DSKY subtly hints at the grainy texture of grip tape for a skateboard logo. In another example, goopanic illustrates Keith Haring’s famous patterns within a contemporary gallery logo to create a memorable story for the viewer.

Go even further with animated 3D logos

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3D logos already do a stellar job of grabbing attention, but why not go further still and animate your logo? Using software such as Adobe Animate, you can create jaw-dropping animations by moving elements of the logo.

This can be achieved subtly, yet effectively, by adding small gestures of movement across the logo. By separating elements of the logo design you can reassemble them in a bold and creative way like ultrastjarna’s animations, or do something more playful like Sheva.

3D logo design by Ian Douglas

Stand out from two-dimensional brands with your own 3D logo
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Whether using subtle shading to create depth or going all out there with bold graphic animations, 3D logos are the perfect way to grab people’s attention and shout your brand across the rooftops.

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Our designers can take it to another dimension.

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The post 3D logos: 34 eye-popping examples to inspire you appeared first on 99designs.