Sight bites: A study of viewers’ impressions of corporate logos in the communications industry

Logos (logotypes) are corporate emblems or symbols of identity that are designed to convey an organization’s identity to its members and to outsiders. Current postmodernist influences, involving aesthetics of ambiguity and playfulness, have led to recognizable influences on the design of certain logos and may have influenced the public’s impressions of the organizations that they represent. Design companies either do not carry out empirical impression-formation studies of logos or, if they do carry them out, do not generally publish their results. This study shows that the logos of six (tele)communications organizations create distinct impressions, and that these impressions are only sometimes of the type and quality presumably intended by their designers.