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Interbrand in conjunction with Business Week has just released the best global brand rankings of 2009.
The Top 10 Brands of 2009 were:
- Coca-Cola
- IBM
- Microsoft
- GE
- Nokia
- McDonald’s
- Toyota
- Intel
- Disney
>> View the full 100 best global brands on the Business Week web site.
What can we learn from looking at the logos of these top brands?
Based on the 2007 top 50 brands, the % below identifies the percentage of the top 50 brands that hold to this view:
- The name does not describe the product sold (94%) (ie. in most cases a logo is used to identify a company, not describe what it does.)
- The by-line tag is not included in the logo (90%)
- The font style is clean and clear (84%)
- The logo design uses one colour only (74%) (white & black not counted as a colour)
- The logo design uses letters only without the symbol (74%)
- The logo design is a made-up name or ACRONYM (72%)
- The logo design is rectangular in shape (66%)
- The logo design is one word only (62%)
- The logo design includes the trademark symbol (54%) and is placed in the top right (48%)
- The name is 6 letters or less (52%)
- The name uses upper & lower case (44%) (excluding ACRONYMS)
- The background is filled and solid. (52%)
- The pronunciation includes three sounds/syllables (44%)
- The predominant colour base is blue (40%)
You can also download a poster (PDF) of the 2009 top brands as seen above.
There is also a video to watch regarding the top brands list.
(I apologise for the auto play – I couldn’t disable or link to the video any other way.)
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September 28th, 2009 at 11:35 PM
Nice! yet I’m surprised that Coca-Cola is number 1 ..
September 29th, 2009 at 1:57 AM
I’m surprised a couple of these companies are still in the top 10, I wouldn’t be surprised if they fall in 2010.
September 29th, 2009 at 6:03 AM
Always offering great 101’s, Jacob. I know this will be a great little lesson in the co-relation of logo design simplicity and big brand success. In that relation, you have also underlined the most common request from clients to ‘make my logo cooool’ and hopefully somewhat of an answer to that statement’ importance.
Regards,
Raja Sandhu
CD
RajaSandhu.com
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 AM
I hope this will be useful as an answer to all the “please make my logo cooler” requests…
October 19th, 2009 at 5:51 PM
Huh, I never really thought about it like that. I like the way you broke the features down into percentages. Gonna print that off and keep it by my desk for the next week. I have a feeling I might be breaking a lot of these guidelines without even knowing it, hehe.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:32 AM
IBM? GE? Wow.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:58 AM
I figured Nike would have been higher. There’s not many brands that can be represented by a symbol only. Maybe Apple and a few others.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:32 AM
Great post! I think everyone should read this when looking to either design or pay a designer to design a logo for them!
February 4th, 2010 at 5:12 PM
Hey Jacob!
I like the observatory list you have created for a closer look at logos of these top 100 brands.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:55 PM
all the above brands logos are really cool. did like their font style and color, the most.
April 14th, 2010 at 1:50 AM
IBM? I do not expect that..
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:18 AM
yes! I think so Coca-cole is namber 1 !!!
December 21st, 2010 at 9:56 AM
It will be interesting to see the 2010 list!
April 13th, 2011 at 4:57 PM
Most sucessful logos are in rectangular shape!
July 12th, 2011 at 8:10 PM
Dear business week guy,
Microsoft is in communications making them the #1 brand in that industry. Not Nokia
Thanks.
August 13th, 2011 at 7:42 AM
The best thing was your take on all of these 100 logos. Really enjoyed reading the unordered list and the summary of what you think works best.
Good one! :)
February 21st, 2013 at 1:38 AM
Interbrand released the Best Global Brand list of 2009 the other day, and probably to no surprise, Coca-Cola again tops the list. IBM, Microsoft, GE, and Nokia rounded out the top 5. As a designer, I feel this list is a very important one to study??…
May 17th, 2013 at 11:11 PM
A lot of these area pre-2009 created, I enjoy seeing the start-ups, and the new branding they have created when I search for lists like these! ;)