Design a Car logo

You’re lucky if you’re into cars because creating car symbols is so much more fun than other industries. Your logo vividly tells the story of your automotive brand. For instance, a car logo with wings will instantly tell car enthusiasts that your brand is all about freedom, speed, and elevation. There are brands that use geometric symbols, too, like interlocking rings or a four-pointed star.

Whichever format you choose, your car emblems must look great on a speedway billboard at 20 feet as it does on a bonnet badge at 2 inches. Your logo must survive this scalability test.

Designing car logos is fun because you get to play with colors. Although chrome silver and metallic finishes dominate (the colors of the vehicle’s materials), you can go deep black if you want premium positioning. If you’re a speed demon, reds are always a great choice, like that horse car logo in Maranello. Want to convey your engineering confidence and precision? Drive with blue!

Here’s a secret. Avoid colors that can clash with the vehicles or surfaces you’re going to put your logo on. It’s important to remember that your logo “lives” on your fleet.

The typography for car brand symbols follows a precise and well-established grammar. Wide, low letterforms echo a vehicle in motion, making your logo feel purposeful, grounded, and definitely fast. If yours is a premium brand, you can get away with thin, high-contrast serifs or even custom lettering to convey bespoke craftsmanship (think Cadillac). Your chosen typeface must feel as engineered as the vehicles you represent.

You must be purposeful in choosing the typeface for car badges. While you can source from standard font menus, ensure to tweak it to make your typography feel like it couldn’t belong to anyone else.