Advantages and Disadvantages of Animated logo

Imagine going to a market having all kinds of faces all around you where you seldom take another look or turn around to see a guy or a woman. Of course, who has the time to and what is there to notice? They are busy doing their usual chores which can only be described by the Newton’s law of Inertia.

All of a sudden you notice in your peripheral vision a guy running around and you turn to see him unintentionally overlooking whatever piece of grocery you were checking on. Not just you but everyone is watching him carefully checking him out trying to figure out the reason behind his athleticism. It’s not your fault; it’s just your natural human curiosity.

But that’s not the point. The point to ponder is why didn’t you notice hundreds of other people walking around you and blazed your eyes on this one running around? The answer is surprisingly simple. The guy was noticed because he was running and he broke the established inertia making himself unusual in the given situation and atmosphere.
Animated logos are just like that. In the ever expanding pool of static logos and static web designs the probability of getting noticed can be increased manifolds by using an animated logo. According to researchers “Moving stimuli force attention on us; they take us by storm and we can offer no resistance”.

Now it’s pretty obvious that using an animated logo would bring you and your business more attention but one still needs to see what Pros and Cons it would bring with it because there always are pros and cons. So let’s have a look.

Grab the Attention

Animated logos can grab the attention of the readers simply because they are moving. When a potential customer is reading your page and if there is an animated logo his peripheral vision will certainly notice it. This will make them look and analyze what the logo has to say.

Get Multiple Messages Across

Animated logos as compared to static logos have the added advantage of getting more than one message across the board although some expertly designed static logos can do that too. These multiple messages are ideally arranged in a logical order. For example the first image tells them about the product, then some special ingredients of your product and then some special discount offer. It can also be followed by a coming up product or package. Best thing is that it isn’t done once or twice but for the whole time span the reader spends on your page.

Leave a Comparatively Memorable Impression

Even if does not click on your animated logo or is not convinced there is a higher probability of remembering your logo more than the static one. This will give you an added advantage of having yourself on the mind of the potential customer more than those competitors of yours who fashion a static logo and the next time he has to buy something related to your product line you will be his first thought. 

Increased CTR

Although the concept of CTR is generally associated with Banner designs it can be equally functional for Animated logos. CTR (Click through Rate) is one of the most widely used methods of measuring online marketing success and comparison studies indicate that when animated Logos were tested against static ones animated logos had a higher CTR. In this way one can understand the fact that by having an animated logo you are already increasing your branding exposure which in turn is likely to increase your sales.

Size

Animated logos fail terribly when the need is to customize the size of the logo because mostly GIF images are used in the animations which are much larger than the similar images in JPG formats which make the final image a lot more complex and larger than any other file formats. So animated logos are usually not recommended for larger sizes because of the simple graphical nature of GIF images.

Color

GIF images being the basic ingredients of an animated logo are limited to only 256 colors which make them seriously inappropriate for animations which require smooth gradient shift and multiple color changes often appearing extremely pixilated and uneven. This limits the animated logos to the use of single color themes and simple designs such as vector designs.

Consistency

Again the need to use GIF images in animations limits the concept very much because GIF images lack consistency and do not always display these animations correctly subjected to different browsers damaging the playback and the messages incorporated badly. The internet connections of the users also limit the display characteristics because of the prevailing slow speed dial up connections even though they are mostly replaced by the faster ones.

So before you choose to go for an animated logo, make sure you know what you want and what you can afford to compromise on. The safest way is to discuss the idea with your professional Logo Designer who can give you expert advice on what you need.