If you want a logo design that’s easy to manage and speaks volumes about your brand, you can’t go wrong with a square logo.
Square logos are versatile, which means you can use them to represent strength, organization, reliability, and discipline.
But why do shapes like squares have such a strong psychological effect on your audience?
Keep reading to find out!
Just like colors have meaning in logo design, the same is true for shapes. It’s important to learn the psychology of logo shapes before creating a logo design yourself.
Circles represent harmony, wholeness, and a feeling of completion. Triangles, on the other hand, give off different meanings depending on which direction they’re point to; those that point upwards represent direction, force, and power, while downward-facing triangles create a sense of instability and sometimes even decline.
Psychologically, squares are powerful shapes that represent positive ideas and feelings: Reliability, robustness, stability, and a sense of order. All of these are excellent characteristics to associate with your brand (although you’ll want to first make sure these traits are relevant to the things your brand offers or sells).
All of that said, don’t be fooled into thinking that your whole logo needs to be a square. You’ll see in some of the examples below that you can incorporate square icons inside of your logo to create positive feelings about your brand.
So, enough talk about that! Let’s get your creative juices and check out 17 famous logos that use squares to make an impact.
The British Broadcasting Centre (BBC) has a remarkably simple yet effective logo design. But it wasn’t always the classic design we’re all so familiar with today. In the 80’s, they modernized their logo with a sleek, fresh look. It was an excellent decision, too!
Their new design has three black squares with a white letter inside. Because the BBC advertises and broadcasts on so many mediums, having a simple design allows them to adapt their logo easily to different situations and sizes.
If you’re a financial company that wants to express how safe and secure your customers are with you, it makes sense to use a shape that communicates those values. That’s exactly what American Express did with their logo. They use a blue logo that contains the brand name with a sans-serif font—all wrapped up in a square.
Did you notice that the 3 main design elements all represent solid traits like reliability and strong foundations? The color blue, the square design, and a bold, modern font all come together to create a cohesive brand message.
Gap’s familiar square logo is so iconic that when the company tried to rebrand it in 2010, there was such a huge backlash from customers that the new logo was scrapped. It only took one week for Gap to read the writing on the wall and revert back to their much-loved logo.
And—you can see why customers love it. The spire typeface manages to straddle the line between modern and professional, while the dark blue background lends a serious tone to the overall design with a hint of fun.
We’ve all played with Lego at some point in our lives. It’s such a well-known brand that its white, yellow, and red logo is instantly recognizable by both children and adults. Lego’s logo (say that 10 times fast) uses shape and color to show that their toys are safe, robust, and fun.
Microsoft combines square elements with their brand name to showcase its branches of business.
The red is for Microsoft Office, the green is for XBOX, the blue is for the Windows operating system, and yellow is for Bing.
Symbolically, the logo is packing a lot of information, but because the squares are symmetrical, it’s easy to combine them to form eye-pleasing shapes. The end result is a clean, recognizable logo that has deep meaning, thanks to the multiple colors used.
Just seeing the Domino’s pizza logo makes my mouth drool. That’s the effect great branding can have on you.
They’ve used their logo consistently on their stores, packaging, delivery vehicles, and promotional material; so, it doesn’t matter if you view the logo upside down, sideways, or back to front—you know it’s pizza time when you see the Domino’s logo.
The brand name Uniqlo was supposed to be an abbreviation of “Unique Clothing.”
But someone swapped out the C for a Q, and instead, Uniqlo was born!
Even though they’re a Japanese company, they’ve managed to gain a massive share of the global clothing market. Their eye-catching red square helps to create trust and reliability. Red logos are an excellent choice, as it’s a passionate and dominant color.
While it may not be the flashiest or most upmarket store, 7-Eleven is undoubtedly dependable. You can waltz in at any time of day or night and pick up snacks, beverages, and food.
The logo combines multiple design elements to draw your attention, and even though it’s inside of a square, the curve of the 7 and lower-case ‘n’ help to create a softer tone.
A lot of the logo designs we’ve seen have been inside of square boxes. T-Mobile does something different to make an impact. The small squares create a bridge between the letters, emphasizing T-Mobile’s ability to connect people around the world.
In fact, the logo has become so recognizable that often they’ll only show the T surrounded by two squares.
The iconic black-and-white Cartoon Network logo wasn’t always so simple. Previously it comprised of 3D cubes before they simplified the design.
Today, it has 2 contrasting black-and-white squares with the company’s initials. The playful font style helps bring the logo to life and make it friendly to kids.
Created as a social network for business, LinkedIn’s online portal allows professionals to speak and get in contact with each other around the globe. Unsurprisingly, you can tell that the logo is designed for the digital age.
The ‘in’ is inside a blue square by itself, which allows LinkedIn to separate the logo and use it in smaller spaces— especially useful for displaying your logo on a smartphone.
The Swatch logo has two elements: The name Swatch, and a square Swiss flag. Switzerland is famous for watchmaking, and the flag acts as a stamp of approval, letting customers know it’s a high-quality watch they’re buying.
Love it or hate it, Instagram’s logo is a great logo design that uses minimalism to show off the brand’s main feature—taking pictures—while its gradient color scheme mimics a sunrise.
The Home Deposit is a no-fuss home improvement retailer that will have what you need if you’re looking for tools or construction equipment. Their no-nonsense logo design looks like something you’d see stamped on crates, and that’s not by accident. The orange background helps to convey a message of action and affordability.
As you can see, both Goldman Sachs and the Weather Channel have similar-looking logos that use a square background with white lettering. Both companies want their audiences to know they can be trusted, and blue symbolizes strength, reliability, and excellence.
It’s hard for a bank to create a fresh logo, but Bank of America’s stunning new logo uses a square to represent the American flag and bring it up to speed with modern logo design.
We collected the examples on this page from all kinds of different industries to show just how versatile a square logo can be. Here are some bonus tips for you to take into consideration when designing your square logo:
Depending on the length of your brand name, you may want to shorten your logo to just the initials. Otherwise, it may be hard to fit into a square. If you’re leaning toward a wordmark logo, then experiment with different abstract square icons to create something unique that will help you stand out from the crowd.
Many of the above examples fill the square with color, but you don’t have to. Try leaving an outline around the square and filling it with white space for a clean, minimalist look. Or, if you want to create an eye-gripping logo, fill the square with a bold color.
In most industries, you’ll be facing stiff competition, some of whom will have established themselves way before you. In cases like this, check out the history of your competitors’ logo designs and see what they changed vs. what they kept. You can learn a lot by looking at how a company’s logo has developed.
Wow, that’s a lot of squares! With all the tips, advice, and examples on this page, it’s pretty obvious that you should include squares in your design if you want a robust and trustworthy logo.
Why not play around with our automated logo designer. It will generate hundreds of unique square logo designs that you can experiment with in minutes.
The information provided on this page is for information, educational, and/or editorial purposes only. It is not intended to indicate any affiliation between Tailor Brands and any other brand or logo identified on this page.
Carly Miller is a freelance content writer specializing in all things branding related. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her traveling, playing with her dog, or reading a good book.
