Research on logo design and evaluation of youth education brands based on visual representation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how logo design characteristics influence consumer response based on visual representation. Logos in different areas may have different characteristics that impact liking a logo. The logos of youth education brands were explored in this study. Design/methodology/approach - The Kansei engineering (KE) method was employed in this research. In total, 115 logos of youth education brands were collected and classified into three categories: abstract, natural and text mark. Then 12 of these logos were selected as representative samples. A set of 171 Kansei pairwise image words was collected, and 14 of them were chosen for further investigation. The psychological projection experiment was conducted based on a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire with 120 participants. Three statistical methods including cluster analysis, factor analysis and correlation analysis were combined for the data analysis. Findings - The results show that four factors affect liking a logo including a sense of contemporaneity, a sense of esthetics, a feeling of interest and a sense of style. Accordingly, the weights of these four factors are proposed. The positive correlation between logo characteristics and liking a logo was also verified. In addition, the classification results of this study confirm the wide use of natural and English text mark logos in youth education brands. Originality/value - The results could guide designers and managers in selecting or modifying logo design for achieving a positive effective response. This is the first research on logo design characteristics linked with industry domains. This study also contributes to the KE approach to investigate the relative impact of logo characteristics on liking a logo.