30 Logo Designs with Creative Use of Negative Space
One of the great ways to add an impressive style to a logo is to use Negative Space. Negative Space refers to the “white space”, or “paper color” that shows through a design. Negative Space creates an interesting visual effect. It adds a subtle 3rd dimension, giving depth and a layered look to the logo. It is much more interesting to the eye than just a “positive” only object.
By breaking up areas of solid color with negative, or white spaces a designer can ‘hide’ images, outline typography or create the illusion of shapes and objects.
This post brings together 30 examples of logos that creatively make use of negative space.
1. Kolner Zoo
The zoological gardens in Cologne are notable for their Asian elephant park, reflected in the logo with an elephant’s silhouette defined by a giraffe and rhinoceros; the negative space of the animal’s hind legs are cleverly shaped by the twin spires of Cologne Cathedral.
2. Guild of Food Writers
The Guild of Food Writer’s logo is a wonderfully simple design incorporating the essential aspects of the organisation: the nib of a pen representing members’ scriptural endeavours with a spoon in the negative space signalling their subject matter. The guild is a professional association linking food writers and broadcasters in the United Kingdom.
3. Wooden House
This logo is for a brand that designs and constructs wooden cottages for gardens. The clean, positive and negative forms create the house and tree shapes.
4. Egg ‘n Spoon
This logo for a courier service has the tagline, ‘Speed with Care’, the egg and spoon design acting as a metaphor of this ambition.
5. Adobe
Adobe is a brand synonymous with cutting-edge design software, so it is essential that the company has an instantly recognisable and superbly designed logo. Marva Warnock, wife of one of the company’s founders, designed the original logo, which has evolved into the current negative space letter A on a red background.
6. The Brand Union
Brand Union is another company whose branding is essential in maintaining its image as a global leader in creative design consultancy. The Union’s logo is a beautiful example of negative space typography; the black and blue shapes can be rearranged whilst remaining visually linked to the brand.
7. Fedex Corp.
International logistics company FedEx uses a wordmark logo in which the ‘Fed’ is always purple and the ‘Ex’ is a different colour for each of the service’s divisional units, and grey for overall corporate use. The logo has a ‘hidden’ arrow shape in the negative space between the letters E and X, representing travel and freight.
8. Carrefour
Carrefour is a French worldwide hypermarket chain whose trading logo contains a negative space letter C.
9. The Royal Parks
The Royal Parks is an agency that manages the eight Royal Parks of London and other areas of parkland and gardens around the city. The company’s role in natural management and conversation, and links to monarchical history, are reflected in its logo, with the negative space between leaf forms tracing the shape of a crown.
10. Girl Scouts of USA
Saul Bass was one of the greatest graphic designers of the 20th Century, also famed for his film title animations. In 1978, he created the logo for the Girl Scouts of USA, with girls’ profiles shaped in green forms and negative spaces.
11. Hartford Whalers
The Hartford Whalers were a professional American ice hockey team based in Connecticut. Graphic designer Peter Good, also from Connecticut, created their logo in 1979, cleverly combining a whale tail and the team’s initials, with the letter H formed in the negative space.
12. Animal Rescue Sofia
Animal Rescue Sofia is a charity founded with the aim of saving and caring for homeless animals around the Bulgarian capital, with particular focus on the problem of stray dogs. The organisation’s charming logo combines a dog’s face and a carer’s hand forming a heart shape.
13. Microsoft Mouse Awards
The rather lengthily titled Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions Creative Awards were re-branded as Mouse, with a splendidly executed logo that has instant associations with digital design.
14. NBC
Designers Chermayeff and Geismar created NBC’s current logo in 1986, as part of the broadcaster’s 60th anniversary celebrations. The peacock has six tail feathers in the primary and secondary colours, and a simple triangle of negative space creating the beak, and thus the bird, in one of the world’s most recognisable trademarks.
15. USA Network
USA Network is a cable network owned by NBC, which also has a strong brand represented by its logo. The letter S is formed from the negative space between the U and A.
16. Ryan Biggs
Ryan-Biggs Associates is an American structural engineering consultancy. The company’s elegant letterform logo uses negative space to shape the initials.
17. Formula 1
The logo of the Formula One World Championships employs a letter F and dynamic arrow forms to envelop the negative shape of the numeral 1.
18. Keep Open
KeepOpen.com is a web hosting and content management company, offering a platform for those without web design skills to publish their sites. The company’s logo uses elegant geometric forms to conjure an open book or folio in negative space.
19. Galant Shoes
Bulgarian shoe manufacturer Galant has a logo with a circular black crescent and stiletto silhouette creating a strong capital G in negative space.
20. 1234 Club
The 1234 Club in Montreal uses a stylish numeral-form logo with negative space numbers. The club’s branding uses the logo in a number of different colour schemes, but always using the boldly designed numeric shapes.
21. Fat Cat Productions
If you notice clearly, The letter ‘F’ has been designed cleverly to use the negative space to depict a cat.
22. Fish
This logo is clearly an example of brilliant typography rather than negative space utilization but however I think the designer has beautifully used the shape of the fish by warping the alphabets
23. My Fonts
At first glance, it may look not so impressive, but if you observe, the letters ‘My’ shows a Human Hand.
24. Negative
I don’t think I need to explain what this logos means.
25. E.C. Engineering
This logo symbolizes the rudimentary tool used in Engineering studies, more of civil engineering than anything else. A clever use of negative space to depict a spanner
26. ED’s Electric
ED’s Electric Company’s logo is a mixture of the letters E and D to give the illusion of a Power Plug
27. Treacy’s Shoes
The hidden shoe cleverly hidden between the company initials conveys the company message in a very stylish and interesting way
28. Mouse Universe
The Mouse has been designed in such a way that the letters M and U are creating a boundary. This may not be a perfect usage of negative space but it surely adds up to the design
29. Down
The two arrows signify the meaning of the name ‘DOWN’ and also uses the negative space to hide the letter ‘W’.
30. Black Cat
The negative space letter ‘C’ in both the words have been used to show the eyes of a cat.
As can be seen from these examples, creative use of negative space in graphics is one of the best ways to produce eye-catching, memorable and inventive logo designs. So, which caught your eye the most. Feel free to share any more such logos with us.
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Rochester NY Printing & Signs
Can’t go past the classic FedEx logo.
Being a big F1 fan, huge fan of that one as well.
Thanks for these!
.-= Logobird´s last blog ..13 Must Follow Logo and Brand Identity Design Blogs =-.
Fedex is forever a classy logo. It can never be excluded :D
F1 is pretty cool. Big fan too :D
The “Egg & Spoon” logo is great :)
Great collection.
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nice post Rich i havent seen many of these
I like how you haven’t just given us 80 or 100 – less IS more
cheers
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Well… quite frankly, there aren’t 100 of such awesome ones. Also, the lesser the number… the better you will appreciate the design :D
beautiful logo designs.
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I absolutely love “Black Cat”!!!
Hehe, i like the Carrefour logo design :)
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Food Writers and Black Cat!
I hate the FedEx logo! Most punters can’t even see the freakin’ arrow. It’s always been a designers’ jerk-off. Too clever for its own good.
Haha, Well,….. Once you see the arrow in the logo, you will definitely have to feel that way. :D
Fedex logo really is a stunning design..
Adobe’s logo alongside Fedex’s as an example of incredible logo design? Are you serious?
The logos have something in common, if you haven’t noticed… and that is… usage of negative space..
It may not be incredible, but thats not what the article is about, right? :D
Anyway, thanks for reading the article :)
Being from the midwest and all I never see the Big Ten logo on any posts like these but obviously it is a clever use of negative space!
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/big-10-logo.jpg
While it may not be as iconic as FedEx its worthy of the list :)
Thats very clever usage of negative space.
As far as my knowledge goes, The Big Ten group had 10 members before and later another one was added.
They liked the earlier logo so much that they didn’t want to change it, but found a clever way to hide the number 11 in the logo.
Thanks for the mention, though :D
http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/8508099e04_b05110b124_ltpFidelity_logo_%28color%29.jpeg.jpg
Fidelity Investments did a good job with theirs.
Thats a pretty good one, Robert. Although, it might take a deeper observation to get the idea. Thanks for sharing it :)
My employer, Cessna Aircraft Co. has a logo using this technique.
http://www.epicaviation.com/images/cessna_logo.jpg
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Great showcase!
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Well Simon, FedEx’s Logo Design is really one of the greatest.
Very nice collection and I admire that Fedex is the best! :D
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Great collection :)
Excellent collection to pass to my nephew for inspiration for his design classes. He’s currently stuck on creating a simple logo for one of his assignments, and negative spaced logo design just may fix some of his concerns :)
-dee-
.-= Dee´s last blog ..How to Increase Performance in WoW and other Online Games =-.
Nice logos, good article! thanks alot.
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That’s why logo design is always the favorite part of my work. You get to really think and have you mind go in all different directions in order to arrive at your final design.
Great list here, I’m really liking a lot of these, especially the Royal Oaks one,… never have seen that. Really sharp, thanks for sharing.
Thanks a lot for dropping by, Sean. I am a fan of your logos. Especially the one in your gravatar. Thats a clever use of negative space too :D
You have posted such a nice article. Thumbs up! Very nice article.
great collection, liked it!
This is marvellous…inspiring and distinct… Eyes of imagination open on the fly now….! Visit us at http://www.scalablevectorgraphics.info
beautiful logo designs..
Such a great sharing.
Interesting read thanks. Some great logo’s. (for inspiration!)
Very creative and inspiring. thanks for sharing. :)
.-= Vincent Hadi Wijaya´s last blog ..Koleksi Desain Inspiratif Dengan Helvetica =-.
Great collection.These logos tell us how effectively we can use negative or empty space.
Thats very clever usage of negative space.
As far as my knowledge goes, The group had 100 members before and later another one was added.
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thnk u admin for this site..there are very good logo
Wow, I can’t believe I never noticed the hand figure in the “myfonts” logo. Some of these logos are pure genius. Thanks.
I like logos using negative space, you have provided really nice collection. Ornela from cheap hosting
Animal Rescue Sofia using negative space too?
Jamie, Detox diet
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thnk u for this good post
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the goodwill logo is great too
That’s why logo design is always the favorite part of my work. You get to really think and have you mind go in all different directions in order to arrive at your final design.
HGH
very impressive collection…
check my “PencilHouse” logo here http://www.behance.net/gallery/logos-07-10–PAl/733927
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Excellent collection and I am forever a fan of negative space designs and logos. Thanks!
Excellent collection and I am forever a fan of negative space designs and logos. bonjour
I like the NBC logo. Thanks for the post!
free RPG´s last [type] ..Vindictus
Excellent collection and I am huge a fan of negative space designs and logos. Thanks for posting!
Tina from send flowers cheap and cheapest flower delivery
is it really tough to do 3d logo designs?
What a creative work you have posted there in the blog. I really liked all the designs. They are very attractive. Best wishes to all of you. Thanks for sharing the hard work.
A very good 3D design and good looking site.
It’s amazing to see this kind of creativity in logos and white space.
I admire all these designs and logos. They are great piece of creativity. Keep doing good work and stay in touch.
Thanks
thanks mate, now i have understood how to use negative space, i hope i will never make mistake while creating logo
Vivek´s last [type] ..How to add Custom Resolution in Windows using PowerStrip
Now I understand why a lot of logos are designed like this, specially the big international companies, I get it now, thanks for educating me on this method of making logos.
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Love these logo designs. Thanks a lot for sharing Tom.
- Robert