While there are plenty of people talking about design and logo trends for the year ahead. I find that the trends for small businesses, in particular, creative businesses are a little different.

Looking at logo trends, can give you a good gauge for what is popular, and what people are drawn to at the moment. But you shouldn't base your primary brand logo purely on trends.

If you are creating the main logo for your business you first need to consider:

• What you want it to communicate about yourself and your business and how you want to make people feel.
• Who your Audience/Customers are. Why they need your business and what attracts them to you.

Once you are clear about those things, you can then consider if using a design trend is suitable for what you want to visually communicate or not. You can also draw concepts from the trends, if the trend as a whole does not fully suit.

On the other hand, if the trend does not suit your business, or you are concerned about it not being timeless enough. You could utilise the trend in more fleeting things, like a special logo or headline for an event, workshop, program, product or course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXiaJHs9Ph4

What are the Logo Trends for 2019 for small businesses?

The overarching trend for 2019 is one of simplicity and elegance, primarily influenced by the art deco style of the 1920s.  The Art Deco style is characterised by the use of strong geometric shapes (particularly triangles), negative space, strong lines with thick strokes, patterns and a flat illustration style.

These are some of the ways this trend is showing up in logo design at the moment:

• Elegant, tall serif fonts.
• Partial Letter forms
• Mergin letters
• Use of line and shape
• Hiked up Letters
• Stacked Letters
• Rounded Stamp Feel
• Warm and Opulent Colours

So let's look at each of these in detail and how they are playing out in logo designs.

Trend One: Elegant Thin and Tall Serif Fonts

We are seeing a lot of very elegant Art Deco-inspired serif fonts at the moment. These fonts are very thin and fine, and have a very elegant feel. There are also a few sans -serifs with the same feel. These fonts don't feel dated, however, and take a clean modern approach to the deco style.

Trend Two: Partial Letter Forms

Going back to simplicity and elegance, we are seeing letterforms where part of the letter is disappearing, and just enough of the letter shows to make it recognisable. This is a very minimalist style, that has a very elegant high-end feeling. It makes the logo very custom and well-considered.

Trend Three: Merging Letters

This trend is closely linked to the last trend, and many logos use both. This trend also has a very custom high-end considered feel. Letters are merging and joining (not just ligatures). It makes the logo feel more like a complete logo rather than just the use of a font.

Trend Four: The use of Line and Shape.

Delicate lines, patterns and shapes, were a popular feature of the art deco style. It is a very geometric style but in a very delicate and opulent way. This same style is finding it's way into logo design. There is a lot of single stroke width shapes and patterns, geometric borders with a lot of detail and lines and the use of simple shapes and line.

Trend Five: Hiked Up Letters

This is where all the letters on the logo are not on the same baseline. Basically most of the letters are on the same baseline, but then a few are 'hiked up'. Often the letter, smaller and is raised to meet the x-height of the other letters. Sometimes it is designed to neatly fit the negative space of the letters beside it, and other times dots or lines are placed under the letter.

Trend Six: Stacked Letters

Rather than having a word/the business name on one line. This trend has the letters stacked or jumbled. Usually, the word is split over 3 lines, making the logo more square in shape. But it isn't necessarily always lined up, there are also examples of logos looking more jumbled or following a diagonal grid.

Trend Seven: Rounded Stamp

This trend is probably the least Deco inspired, but it still has a vintage feel. Moving away from the very structured and elegant feel of the other trends, this trend uses cursive fonts, and is very rounded. The fonts have a feel as if they have been stamped on paper and bleed a bit, with bleed in the corners, rather than sharp corners, and a very rounded finish.

The Colours to Compliment the 2019 Logo Trends

The colours that are commonly being used with the logos of 2019, tend to have a very warm, rich and luxurious feel.

These include warm colours such as creams, browns, gold, reddish pinks and oranges in desaturated tones.

As well as rich deep greens, blues, greys and black.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these trends, and any other trends you have seen emerging for small creative business logo design.