What are benefits of Logo Animation
An animated logo is at its core a composition of the same elements that your static logo is made up of. The main difference is that the animated version will be put in motion with a bit (or a lot!) of extra flair. The design of a logo animation can be as subtle or as spectacular as you wish, depending on how flexible your branding style is.
You can reap all the benefits we go over in this article with or without reaching for complex motion graphics – as long as the final product is consistent with the rest of your brand identity.
While there are some “bigger picture” factors to consider when deciding how tame or unconventional you want the animation to be, the skill factor is a non-issue when you’re working with the right tool.
Logistics aside, let’s delve into the benefits of an animated logo!
1. Grab People's Attention
Attention is the first element of value that you can gain from your customer base – way before conversion, customer satisfaction, and established brand loyalty, we need to zero in on grabbing attention. And there’s no doubt that movement gets the most attention, no matter what type of media consumption we are looking at. Motion in branding has the same focus-holding effect!
Once you take up center stage in a prospect’s view, seize the opportunity to make a smashing first impression with motion graphics. Compared to a static logo, an animated logo will stand out with a clearer display of your brand’s personality, more information expressed, and a glimpse of interest that sparks a desire to find out more about the brand.
2. Better Storytelling
Video content is clearly becoming paramount to a successful brand strategy – from explainer videos to video testimonials for social proof and short-format videos that have become the norm on most (if not all!) social media platforms. Animated branding assets are following suit, and allowing designers and marketers to become better storytellers.
Motion design can be a total game-changer for your brand. And you can continue the storyline in countless other ways, via animated iconography, onboarding screens, infographics, ads, process walkthroughs, etc.
3. Evoke Emotions
If there’s one thing that logo animation excels at, it’s the ability to display a composition that plays on a viewer’s heartstrings. As long as it comes from a genuine place of support and awareness, you can animate any logo to stir positive or encouraging emotions.
Countless brands did just that in 2022, to show their solidarity with Ukraine in the context of the difficult times that the country’s population was entering, morphing their legacy logos into blue and yellow logo marks.
LA28’s unveiling of the official logo for the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games is another excellent example of branding that strikes a chord. This dynamic logo features 32 different versions of the “A” wordmark, each inspired by athletes, artists, and cultural advocates who are linked to Los Angeles by their life stories. A true testament to the power of an animated logo to encompass the fondest emblems of an entire community!
4. Encourage Consumer Engagement
Now that you know you can tell a good story and get an emotional response from viewers, it’s time to use your motion design skills to attract the main factor needed for community building and brand loyalty establishment: engagement.
A dynamic logo will drive more engagement than a static logo by default, being capable of calling attention to your brand’s humor, wit, or any other trait that the audience can easily resonate with. These are great lead-ins for an audience to share or talk about a change in branding!
It’s worth reiterating that you should only branch out into animation effects that are compatible with the rest of the brand’s style and tone of voice. That’s not to say that a fintech company cannot tap into the benefits of logo animation just because a more somber approach to motion design is required.
As long as your design stays on the same wavelength as your prospects, the push to engagement is a feasible outcome. But realistically, a snazzy animated logo like the one for Toonie is much more likely to also make a lasting impression on anyone!
5. Humanize a Brand
By now we’ve settled that a dynamic logo has the upperhand on static logos, thanks to their flexible nature. The same fluid form of logo animations can also substantially contribute to humanizing a brand by showing an audience that there are good-natured aspirations behind the company mission.
The shift to brands aiming to give themselves a human face, if you will, has a strong Gen Z vibe to it. We’re seeing more transparency from companies in their online presence, with less preference for over-polished content. By the same token, animated logomarks are a loophole out of ultra minimalist logo design, and gateways to authentic and heartfelt branding.
6. Undeniably Distinctive
As much as we don’t like to admit it, it’s hard to create new visual identities without being tempted to trend-jump or let inspiration drawn from other logo artists seep into our designs. That’s the reason why it seems that logos start looking all alike. Just think of how many gradient logos we’ve seen pop up since Instagram and Firefox rebranded to gradient logomarks.
Investing in a custom logo animation is an excellent strategic move no matter how saturated your particular field appears to be. Animation effects can help your logo outrank competitor logos – in distinctiveness, for starters! For an uptick in ingenuity as well, explore handwriting logotype animation, or take a swing at creating an anthropomorphic animated logo.
7. Brand Awareness Step Up
Although we can’t accurately quantify brand awareness the same way we do other KPIs, branding strategists target and look at metrics like brand visibility and brand recognition to determine success. And what better visual identity asset for the job than a memorable and easy-to-recall animated mascot logo?
Without a doubt, more goes into boosting brand awareness than simply having an animated version of your logo. Most of the benefits of logo animation rely on your determination to broadcast this powerful attention magnet as part of a consistent brand image strategy, across as many communication channels as possible, and at various touchpoints between your brand and its audience.
8. Cost-Effective
Brands spend a hefty part of their marketing budgets on video content production, but your logo animation doesn’t have to set you back more than any other vector motion graphic.
By using the animated version of your logo to brand other forms of content, you can turn over all the benefits of logo animation to said content formats. Companies use animated logos as intro/outros for video tutorials, for consistency across all content posted to social media, especially where video content is the status quo (Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.), in animated PPC ads, etc.
9. Interactive Asset
Giving your logo interactive SVG animation superpowers only amplifies this asset’s ability to prompt customer interaction and add another layer of interest. There are infinite opportunities to increase brand recall when you throw interactivity into the mix.
Transition from static to animated on click, use it as a mobile app splash screen triggered on load, or have customers interact with your animated emblem logo with hover effects.
10. Positive Impact on SEO
Optimizing graphics on your website by switching to SVG for both static and dynamic visuals is something we’ve always advocated for. Even in our “Improve Page Speed Insights Score” optimization guide we talk about how important it is for both Google rankings and your website’s visitors that your UX be smooth. And logo animation can help in this scope as well!
For starters, replace a heavy hero section video with a lightweight hero section SVG animation that features your logo in motion to keep page load speeds lightning-fast. Or influence two other essential interconnected metrics (lowering bounce rates and increasing time spent on page!) with an interactive animated logo. Every extra second spent on-page counts!
Conclusion
All benefits considered, and with animated logos having a pretty solid case when put up against their static counterparts, it’s clear you’re in for a win with a logo animation in your portfolio.
