The Verizon logo

How to improve the Verizon logo
By James Robert Watson, PhD

Background on logos
A logo is a company's personal signature and creates a strong visual image to establish company or product identity and recognition. Today, with thousands of messages bombarding the consumer and demanding attention, a logo must be a self-contained unified mark that is easily and quickly understood and easy to remember. A good logo should also have a 'barb', some element that sticks in the viewer's mind, to provide greater memorability. Great logos should meet these criteria:

Understandable: Readable, legible, and easy to comprehend.

Appropriate: Suitable for the company's audience and purpose.

Memorable: Impacts a strong lasting impression.

Distinctive: Unique from marks of other businesses.

Trendscendent: Will last over time and not be dated to one trend.

Well executed: Professional quality production.

Versatile: Adapts to a variety of uses, surfaces, and media.

Reproducible: Retains clarity in a variety of sizes and applications.

The Verizon logo

Areas of concern

1. Just too many different angles.

2. Too many different directions leading the eye away from the mark.

3. Different weights of the red lines.

4. Three dominant elements are too inconsistent.

Improved version
A simple adage to help improve design solutions is

Figure out what's working in the piece; exploit that and minimize the rest.

A mark is usually stronger with only one dominant unique barb. The red check mark and the red letter Z are fighting with each other to demand the viewer's attention. The red Z provides a unique identifier that exploits the unusual spelling of the name. The check mark has no positive value - it is not a symbol typically associated with cell phones and it is an overused cliche.

It is really easy to make the Verizon logo better - simply delete the check mark.
The unique red Z becomes the main visual identifier. The logo is now stronger as a mark to be remembered and is now more adaptable to a variety of surfaces.