How to conduct competitor research before creating a logo
Which competitors to include in the sample
A common mistake of newcomers is to analyze only those who sell the same product. This gives a narrow and predictable picture: all competitor logos start to look like the «norm», whereas in reality this is just a shared visual laziness of the industry. Example from practice: in the analysis of 150 window companies, 46% used images of windows in their logos, and only 10-12% of them actually competed qualitatively at the level of visual solution. The rest simply copied each other without creating differences.
Therefore, the sample should be divided into three layers.
- Direct competitors — companies with the same product, the same price segment, and the same geography. This is the baseline that shows what is already taken.
- Indirect competitors — brands solving the same customer task in a different way (for PVC windows, this could be a company specializing in suspended ceilings or facade repairs — they compete for the same household budget).
- Aspirational brands — companies from more mature or premium markets that the business aims to reach, even if it does not yet directly compete with them. They set the direction toward which the brand can visually grow.
Without indirect and aspirational layers, the analysis turns into a comparison within one narrow bubble, where all logos are similar by definition.
Where to physically look for competitors' logos
The most common practical problem is not 'what to analyze,' but 'where to get material in normal quality and without distortions.' Here is a working set of sources:
- Competitors' websites — the 'About the Company' section and favicons, where the logo is usually in the best resolution;
- Trademark registries (Rospatent, WIPO Global Brand Database) — that's where the logo is stored in its original vector form, without distortions from social networks;
- Brand crawls: Brand New (underconsideration.com), LogoLounge, Logo Design Love — for industry benchmarks and international examples;
- Social networks and marketplaces — show how the logo actually looks 'in the field': on avatars, on packaging, on banners, not only in the ideal PDF brandbook;
- Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) — a critically important tool: it shows the history of the company's logo and helps avoid confusing the current version with an old one.
It is precisely the last point that closes a frequent research error: comparing a new competitor's logo with the 2008 year logo of another competitor. Different periods — different visual norms, and conclusions drawn from such a comparison will be distorted. The same applies to company scale: it is incorrect to compare a local studio's logo with a federal chain's logo — they have different design budgets and different brand tasks.
What to compare in a logo, besides color and font
Color and typography are only the surface layer. A full research looks at five parameters simultaneously.
| Parameter | What to look at |
|---|---|
| Symbolic saturation | Whether the competitor uses a literal industry symbol (window, house, gear) or an abstract form |
| Compositional type | What dominates — the textual block (wordmark) or the pictorial mark; in combined logos, the weight of an element depends on how much space it occupies — this affects the perception of similarity with other brands |
| Level of form complexity | Minimalism versus decorativeness — and here it is important to remember: 89% of consumers consider a simple logo a sign of reliability, but in the luxury segment, complex, detailed signs work better to create a feeling of exclusivity than simple ones |
| Scalability | How the logo looks on a favicon, embroidery, or exterior — many competitors fail precisely on small media |
| Tone and character | Friendly / status-oriented / technological — perceived through rounded corners, tilts, and line thickness |
Visual positioning map: how to find an empty niche
The map is built on the intersection of two axes — they can be changed to fit a specific market, but the most effective pairs are: 'traditional — modern' and 'simple — complex', or 'serious — friendly' and 'mass — premium'.
- Take 12-15 logos from the selection above and scan them by color, form, and symbolism.
- Place each logo as a point on the quadrant according to the two selected axes — this can be done in Miro or Figma within one working session.
- Mark the clusters — that is where the visual landscape is 'occupied' and repetition will be perceived as copying.
- Find empty quadrants — not automatically a good solution, but a starting point for a hypothesis. If 46% of the market uses a literal symbol, an abstract form in the same industry color already provides distinction.
- Check the emptiness for common sense: sometimes a quadrant is empty because the solution doesn't work physically for the industry — for example, too playfully for the B2B-segment with a long deal cycle.
Brands with a visual identity markedly different from the competitive environment show 23% higher recognition according to Reboot Online data — and this is exactly the result of working with such a map, not coincidence.
From competitor patterns — to your own solution
This is where the logic of the research often breaks down. A designer sees that 'everyone has blue and a shield', and simply draws something without blue and without a shield — this is not strategy, but a reaction. The correct move is different: instead of rejecting the pattern, explain why it emerged, and decide whether this reason aligns with your brand's goals.
If the entire window company market draws a window — this is not a coincidence, but a signal that the audience expects instant readability of the category. Abandoning the window symbol for the sake of 'uniqueness' can cost the category recognition among new audiences. However, abandoning the literal representation while retaining the industry's color code (for example, blue for 'reliability and coolness') is a working compromise: the client reads the category by color, and the form makes the brand noticeable among 46% similar competitors.
Logos designed without such analysis are 70% more likely to go through a redesign in the first two years — because they either blend into the market or solve the designer's aesthetic task rather than the task of differentiation.
Typical mistakes and a checklist for systematization
Besides comparing different scales and eras of companies (as mentioned above), several other missteps regularly appear in the research: analysis of logos at low resolution from social media screenshots, where proportions are distorted; focus only on direct competitors without the aspirational layer; lack of documentation of findings in a single document, which causes the team to forget what was actually discovered by the end of the week.
Working checklist for one file (table in Miro, Notion, or Google Sheets):
- Company name, segment (direct / indirect / aspirational), year of last rebrand;
- Symbol and its literalness (1-10);
- Dominant element — logo or wordmark;
- Color and its code (HEX), alignment with industry standard;
- Form complexity (1-10) and font type;
- Assessment of scalability on favicon;
- Coordinates on positioning map.
Such a document takes one working day for 12-15 brands and gives the team a shared language for discussion — instead of subjective likes/dislikes when finalizing the concept.
Which competitors to include in the sample
A common mistake of newcomers is to analyze only those who sell the same product. This gives a narrow and predictable picture: all competitor logos start to look like the «norm», whereas in reality this is just a shared visual laziness of the industry. Example from practice: in the analysis of 150 window companies, 46% used images of windows in their logos, and only 10-12% of them actually competed qualitatively at the level of visual solution. The rest simply copied each other without creating differences.
Therefore, the sample should be divided into three layers.
- Direct competitors — companies with the same product, the same price segment, and the same geography. This is the baseline that shows what is already taken.
- Indirect competitors — brands solving the same customer task in a different way (for PVC windows, this could be a company specializing in suspended ceilings or facade repairs — they compete for the same household budget).
- Aspirational brands — companies from more mature or premium markets that the business aims to reach, even if it does not yet directly compete with them. They set the direction toward which the brand can visually grow.
Without indirect and aspirational layers, the analysis turns into a comparison within one narrow bubble, where all logos are similar by definition.
Where to physically look for competitors' logos
The most common practical problem is not 'what to analyze,' but 'where to get material in normal quality and without distortions.' Here is a working set of sources:
- Competitors' websites — the 'About the Company' section and favicons, where the logo is usually in the best resolution;
- Trademark registries (Rospatent, WIPO Global Brand Database) — that's where the logo is stored in its original vector form, without distortions from social networks;
- Brand crawls: Brand New (underconsideration.com), LogoLounge, Logo Design Love — for industry benchmarks and international examples;
- Social networks and marketplaces — show how the logo actually looks 'in the field': on avatars, on packaging, on banners, not only in the ideal PDF brandbook;
- Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) — a critically important tool: it shows the history of the company's logo and helps avoid confusing the current version with an old one.
It is precisely the last point that closes a frequent research error: comparing a new competitor's logo with the 2008 year logo of another competitor. Different periods — different visual norms, and conclusions drawn from such a comparison will be distorted. The same applies to company scale: it is incorrect to compare a local studio's logo with a federal chain's logo — they have different design budgets and different brand tasks.
What to compare in a logo, besides color and font
Color and typography are only the surface layer. A full research looks at five parameters simultaneously.
| Parameter | What to look at |
|---|---|
| Symbolic saturation | Whether the competitor uses a literal industry symbol (window, house, gear) or an abstract form |
| Compositional type | What dominates — the textual block (wordmark) or the pictorial mark; in combined logos, the weight of an element depends on how much space it occupies — this affects the perception of similarity with other brands |
| Level of form complexity | Minimalism versus decorativeness — and here it is important to remember: 89% of consumers consider a simple logo a sign of reliability, but in the luxury segment, complex, detailed signs work better to create a feeling of exclusivity than simple ones |
| Scalability | How the logo looks on a favicon, embroidery, or exterior — many competitors fail precisely on small media |
| Tone and character | Friendly / status-oriented / technological — perceived through rounded corners, tilts, and line thickness |
Visual positioning map: how to find an empty niche
The map is built on the intersection of two axes — they can be changed to fit a specific market, but the most effective pairs are: 'traditional — modern' and 'simple — complex', or 'serious — friendly' and 'mass — premium'.
- Take 12-15 logos from the selection above and scan them by color, form, and symbolism.
- Place each logo as a point on the quadrant according to the two selected axes — this can be done in Miro or Figma within one working session.
- Mark the clusters — that is where the visual landscape is 'occupied' and repetition will be perceived as copying.
- Find empty quadrants — not automatically a good solution, but a starting point for a hypothesis. If 46% of the market uses a literal symbol, an abstract form in the same industry color already provides distinction.
- Check the emptiness for common sense: sometimes a quadrant is empty because the solution doesn't work physically for the industry — for example, too playfully for the B2B-segment with a long deal cycle.
Brands with a visual identity markedly different from the competitive environment show 23% higher recognition according to Reboot Online data — and this is exactly the result of working with such a map, not coincidence.
From competitor patterns — to your own solution
This is where the logic of the research often breaks down. A designer sees that 'everyone has blue and a shield', and simply draws something without blue and without a shield — this is not strategy, but a reaction. The correct move is different: instead of rejecting the pattern, explain why it emerged, and decide whether this reason aligns with your brand's goals.
If the entire window company market draws a window — this is not a coincidence, but a signal that the audience expects instant readability of the category. Abandoning the window symbol for the sake of 'uniqueness' can cost the category recognition among new audiences. However, abandoning the literal representation while retaining the industry's color code (for example, blue for 'reliability and coolness') is a working compromise: the client reads the category by color, and the form makes the brand noticeable among 46% similar competitors.
Logos designed without such analysis are 70% more likely to go through a redesign in the first two years — because they either blend into the market or solve the designer's aesthetic task rather than the task of differentiation.
Typical mistakes and a checklist for systematization
Besides comparing different scales and eras of companies (as mentioned above), several other missteps regularly appear in the research: analysis of logos at low resolution from social media screenshots, where proportions are distorted; focus only on direct competitors without the aspirational layer; lack of documentation of findings in a single document, which causes the team to forget what was actually discovered by the end of the week.
Working checklist for one file (table in Miro, Notion, or Google Sheets):
- Company name, segment (direct / indirect / aspirational), year of last rebrand;
- Symbol and its literalness (1-10);
- Dominant element — logo or wordmark;
- Color and its code (HEX), alignment with industry standard;
- Form complexity (1-10) and font type;
- Assessment of scalability on favicon;
- Coordinates on positioning map.
Such a document takes one working day for 12-15 brands and gives the team a shared language for discussion — instead of subjective likes/dislikes when finalizing the concept.
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