You’re in the entertainment industry because you have stories to share with the world. Whether you tell them through song or on stage, on comic book pages or on smartphone screens, whether they’re stories you’ve created or others’ you’re communicating on their behalf, your stories won’t reach audiences unless people know who you are.
So how do you connect with story-hungry audiences and tell them you’ve got what they want, and you’ve got plenty of it to go around? With an eye-catching entertainment logo. When your mission is to entertain and inspire, a boring logo just isn’t gonna cut it. Take a look at some of the most creative entertainment logo ideas below and let them inspire you.
What makes a good entertainment logo?
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It’s not enough for your logo to just be entertaining. Your logo has to communicate who you are, what you do and why your target audience cares. Once you’ve got your brand identity down, your need to flesh out unique ideas that will work for your logo.
Because you’re in the entertainment industry, you’ve got pretty wide leeway to get weird with your logo. Compare it to, say, the financial services sector. Financial services logos have to communicate knowledge of the best financial practices, trustworthiness and financial security.
As an entertainer on the other hand, your logo needs to communicate that you make audiences feel things. You might make them laugh, you might make them examine their lifestyles, you might make them cry, you might make them sit on the edge of their seat. You need to assure them that they’ll feel the emotion they’re after. A good entertainment logo captures that.
Study the logos used by other brands in your specific section of the entertainment map to see what might work for you. Take cues from them, but be careful not to stick to any of these logo ideas too closely—there’s a fine line to dance between fitting in and getting lost in the crowd.
You want to make your brand stand out from its competitors, but you also want your logo to make sense to your audience and to let them get a sense of what you do and what they can expect from your brand. Read on for some inspiration, so you can get it just right!
Amazing ideas for entertainment logos
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Punny and funny logos
Humor is one of humanity’s most enduring forms of entertainment. If it’s the kind of entertainment your brand delivers, make jokes in your logo. Get your audiences laughing, or at least exhaling audibly, the moment they see your logo because if that’s how your relationship starts, they’ll trust you to keep the laughs coming.
Logos that show off tools of the trade
Go literal with your logo by working your tools of the trade into it. This kind of logo is perfect if you’re a recording studio, an acting school, a shop supplying the tools entertainers use or a brand aimed at creative-minded audiences. It’s also perfect if your logo needs to fit onto a small screen and if you use minimal text, because these logos make your brand perfectly clear at first glance.
Starstruck entertainment logos
Everybody wants to be in the spotlight, even if it’s just for 15 minutes. And when our 15 minutes of fame are up, we keep chasing the high of stardom by keeping up on our favorite celebrities. Make every member of your audience a star with a logo that literally shines the spotlight on them.
This kind of logo is perfect for any entertainment business that focusses on people: recording studios, event locations, talent agencies or online platforms where up-and-coming stars get their start.
Gradients mimic the effect of standing under multicolored stage lights. Another way to get the spotlight effect is to design a logo that has its light source coming from one clear side, literally pointing the spotlight on the logo.
Avant Garde and unique artist logos
Not every brand has to have a wide appeal. Maybe you’re an artist or an entertainer and you want to emphasize your unique personality and style. Maybe your idea of entertainment has a narrow appeal and that’s the way you want it, because the more narrow your focus, the deeper you can go.
If you’re providing the kind of entertainment that’s made by artists, or for artists, create a logo that gets them… even if not everybody’s going to get it. Use this style of logo if you’re an arthouse theater, a personal brand, a funky underground film studio, an indie publisher or anything else that’s outside the mainstream.
Eye-catching… and eye-keeping entertainment logos
Even if you don’t go full-on avant garde, your logo should be visually intriguing—before you can entertain an audience, you have to pique their interest. A logo that provokes visual intrigue through juxtaposition, an attractive color palette or even just a cool graphic is one that’ll turn passersby into a captive audience who wants to know more about what you’ve got.
If your brand is all about delivering stories to audiences via books, movies, cartoons, stage plays or music, you can’t go wrong with an entertainment logo designed to make them do a double-take.
The fundamentals of logo design
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Designing a logo isn’t easy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a unique entertainment logo, even if you don’t have any design experience. Here’s a quick crash course in logo design, to help you get the most “your brand” logo possible for your business.
Logo design is a specialized type of graphic design. To design a logo that works, the designer has to have an understanding of branding, composition, color theory, typography and aesthetics… and of course, artistic skill. For an in-depth look at everything that goes into designing a logo, check out our free online guide How to design a logo.
Your brand drives your design. There’s no one type of logo that’s better than others; a successful logo is one that effectively represents its brand. Think of how intrinsically linked Disney is with its castle logo or how your brain goes into fun mode when you see the Nintendo logo. Both of these brand logos were designed with young and young-at-heart audiences in mind, and the elements that make them so successful wouldn’t necessarily work for more adult-oriented entertainment brands, like a political humor website.
If you don’t have a clear view of your brand identity, you’re not ready to design a logo yet. And that’s okay! We can help. Read our Guide to brand identity to learn everything you need to know about the elements that make up brand identity and how you use these building blocks to create your unique persona. Get started by answering the following questions:
- Who are you? Are you a small record label that helps indie musicians launch their careers, or are you a large, well-funded regional theater that puts on multiple blockbuster musicals every year?
- Is your brand casual and playful, or are you a serious platform for serious art? Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle, or a little bit quirky or totally avant garde?
- Earlier, we talked about the stories you tell. Who are these stories reaching? Entertainment targeted primarily at women is branded differently from entertainment mostly for men. Likewise, logos for kids brands are a lot different from logos designed for adult consumers.
Colors, shapes, fonts and images create logos. Once you’ve got your brand identity figured out, you can start working out how you want your logo to look. Think about the emotions each color provokes and how different fonts and art styles can communicate who you are. For example, yellow is a fun color and blue is a calm one. Fonts with serifs look sophisticated while sans serif fonts feel approachable and accessible to all. Use our guide to get a stronger feel for the nuts and bolts of logo design.
How to get a logo
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There are four paths you can take to get a logo. They are:
- DIY logo maker. Using a logo maker or entry-level design software, even somebody with zero design experience can create a simple logo—however, the quality of the result may be questionable.
- Design agency. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you can outsource your logo design project—every aspect of it, from ideation to split testing—to a team of specialists. This is typically your most expensive option, but it’s also your most comprehensive one.
- Hire a freelance designer. If you don’t have the budget, or the need, for the full suite of services an agency offers, work with a freelancer. By hiring a freelance designer, you get to tap into the design skills and creative talent a professional provides.
- Commission a design contest. Another option for getting the logo is creating a design contest. This is the ideal choice if you need help with ideation and want to see lots of different interpretations of the logo ideas you have. With this option, you create a brief that explains your visual preferences and business goals for the logo. Then, dozens of designers submit logos based on your brief and you can choose the one you like best.
We don’t recommend DIY’ing your logo unless you’re working on an incredibly tight budget or need the logo like, yesterday. Your logo is one of your brand’s most important assets, and cheaping out on it can hurt your business in the long run.
Get a better understanding of what it costs to commission a professionally designed logo by reading our logo design cost guide. In it, we break down all the options available for you, what you can expect from each of them and what you can expect to pay for them.
For the highest quality logo possible, go with an agency. Agencies have teams of specialists working on every project. The main drawback to working with an agency is the cost; it’s a great choice for big brands with big budgets and big projects, but it might be too expensive for a smaller company to justify.
Between logo makers and agencies, you’ve got design contests. They’re popular because they give brands the ability to leverage multiple designers’ creativity to find logos that fit. Sometimes, it’s tough to know what style logo is best for your brand and when that’s the case, a design contest is the perfect way to see your idea taken in a variety of directions and choose the one that feels right. When you choose that winning design, it’s the only one you pay for.
Learn more about logo design contests →
If you already have a pretty clear idea of how you want your logo to look, skip the contest and work directly with a freelancer who can bring your vision to life. Browse logo designers’ portfolios on 99designs to find the one whose style meshes perfectly with yours, then work with them to get exactly what you’re looking for.
Browse designer portfolios →
Are you ready to get a standout entertainment logo?
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Your job is to entertain your audience, so your logo needs to promise that you’ll deliver the entertainment they’re looking for. What that means depends on your brand, so if you don’t have a solid brand identity, work that out first. Then, find a designer who speaks your brand’s language and can use it to compose a logo that’ll be a smash hit.
