15 Inspiring Brand Designs & Why They Work
Brand design is more than a logo and colors, it's a system that helps people recognize, trust, and choose a product and business over time. Successful brands bring together visuals, voice, and product experience into a memorable package that scales every touchpoint: websites, apps, packaging, ads, and physical spaces.
At Big Human, we’ve spent over a decade building and evolving brands that live in both the digital and physical worlds, from Rockefeller Center to Quinn. Our team blends strategy, design, and tech to create systems that look great and work seamlessly across different touchpoints.
Whether it’s a startup defining its first visual identity or a household name like TD Ameritrade ready for a refresh, we’ve helped brands stay recognizable, scalable, and above all, human.
“The best branding doesn’t just look good; it creates a feeling you can recognize instantly,” John Kim, Big Human’s Director of Design, said. “We design systems that turn that feeling into something you experience at every touchpoint.”
Below, we’re sharing 15 standout brand design ideas — what they do well, and why those choices matter — to help spark ideas for your own brand.
15 Inspiring Brand Designs
1. Apple
Why it inspires Apple set the bar for brand design by proving that simplicity can be powerful. Its branding is intentionally minimal so attention stays on the product experience. Every choice — typography, spacing, imagery, copy — reinforces elegance, intuitiveness, and reliability. Over the last two decades, subtle cues like product-centered imagery, cleanness and clarity, and minimal color palettes have become immediate signals for quality and trust.
Key brand elements Apple’s design system combines its San Francisco typeface (optimized for legibility across devices), product-first photography, and clean grids with generous white space to create a visual system that’s simple, consistent, and unmistakably Apple.
For Apple, less is more. The product is the experience, so the brand’s job is to remove noise.
2. Google
Why it inspires
Google spans dozens of products and global markets, yet it feels familiar everywhere. How? Through a robust brand system that ensures consistency across every product experience: a playful but technically-precise tone, bright colors, and simple, geometric visuals that scale effortlessly across devices and regions.
Key brand elements
Google’s uniformed interface patterns, typography, iconography, and animations scale across the globe while leaving room for local flavor. From the four-color “G” to the clean, modular layouts, every design cue reinforces Google’s accessibility and innovation. The system adapts seamlessly whether you’re searching, emailing, or using one of Google’s many SaaS tools.
3. Dropbox
Why it inspires
Dropbox evolved from a storage utility to a flexible, creative platform. The rebrand moved away from a folder towards a modular system that appeals to both creative and enterprise users.
Key brand elements
The rebrand broke away from Dropbox’s traditional look. Instead of locking into a single color scheme or style, the team created a dynamic toolkit that scales seamlessly depending on an audience or medium, while a consistent voice and logo holds it all together. The result is a system that’s adaptable yet unmistakably Dropbox.
4. Nike
Why it inspires
Everything about Nike’s brand identity — visuals, language, motion — leads back to one emotional idea: action. “Just do it” isn’t just a tagline; it’s the spirit that powers every campaign, product launch, and ad.
Key brand elements
The iconic Swoosh, bold type, and energetic imagery all work in harmony to inspire performance and confidence. When messaging and visuals point the same way, the design becomes persuasive rather than decorative.
5. IKEA
Why it inspires
IKEA proves that consistent brand design can win globally. Its visual system mirrors its products: simple, affordable, and functional. The result is a brand personality that feels the same, no matter where you are in the world.
Key brand elements
IKEA’s blue-and-yellow palette, clear sans-serif typography, and product-focused visuals make the brand instantly recognizable. Its brand design clearly represents a system designed to solve everyday problems at home.
6. Coca-Cola
Why it inspires
Coca-Cola shows how visual cues can become cultural shorthand and leave a lasting impression. Coke’s classical script logo, bright red-and-white palette, and contoured glass bottle provide instant recognition.
Key brand elements
Coca-Cola turns normal, everyday moments into recognizable brand experiences. It pairs its Spencerian script and brand color palette with warm photography and upbeat marketing. Consistently repeated across products and placements, these design elements lend a familiarity to Coke’s brand image.
7. IBM
Why it inspires
IBM shows how a brand can modernize without losing the trust it’s taken decades to build. By broadcasting technical expertise and credibility while evolving to address conversations around the cloud and AI, IBM has maintained its relevance to legacy clients while attracting a new generation of enterprise customers.
Key brand elements
IBM’s blue palette, Plex typeface, and classic eight-bar mark blends legacy trust with modern clarity. The brand’s clear architecture and consistent presence reassures customers who value predictability and competence
8. Slack
Why it inspires
In a field dominated by dry interfaces, Slack stood out with a vibrant color palette and social media-inspired tone that felt familiar, even fun. This human-first brand approach lowered the barrier to adoption, helping Slack evolve from a simple messaging tool into a workplace staple.
Key brand elements
Slack pairs a colorful geometric mark with a conversational tone and UI patterns optimized for team workflows. Its user friendliness reduces social friction — a necessary element for a product whose success depends on inviting and onboarding whole teams.
9. Figma
Why it inspires
Figma transformed UI design into a collaborative, browser-based experience: Its system reflects that accessibility and openness. With an approachable brand style guide and a contemporary aesthetic, Figma made complex design software feel inviting.
Key brand elements
Figma’s soft colors, rounded sans-serif typeface, and iconic "F" logo design convey clarity. Its UI echoes this, with an intuitive layout that scales from solo creators to enterprise teams. From plugins to templates, a community-driven ecosystem reinforces its strong brand, encouraging creativity and contribution without sacrificing polish.
11. Jaguar
Why it inspires Jaguar’s 2025 rebrand signals a bold departure from its legacy as a combustion-era automaker. Embracing an all-electric future, the brand is evolving from a performance-driven heritage to futuristic luxury. The new brand design strips away ornamentation, instead leaning into minimalism and precision.
Key brand elements Jaguar’s refreshed logo and sleek monochrome palette replace the chrome cat with something more refined and architectural. The custom wordmark, reduced iconography, and cinematic photography convey modern luxury and innovation. Motion and lighting choices in digital formats reinforce a sense of elegance in movement, an intentional shift from power to poise.
11. Airbnb
Why it inspires
Airbnb connects hospitality with belonging. To make millions of hosts feel part of one global experience, Airbnb combined warm imagery, a personable tone, and fun interface patterns. This balance between community and platform utility fosters trust with users and conversions for hosts.
Key brand elements
Airbnb’s “Belong Anywhere” tagline, property- and lifestyle-forward photography, and consistent UI patterns create a sense of place and trust. The design makes discovery feel organic, which drives conversions and makes hosts feel part of a trusted marketplace.
12. Patagonia
Why it inspires
Patagonia shows how brand design can champion a mission without sacrificing clarity or consistency. Its identity reinforces the company’s long-standing commitment to environmental activism, like protecting public lands and encouraging conscious consumption. Unlike more trend-driven competitors, Patagonia’s brand aims to lead with meaning.
Key brand elements
Patagonia’s logo, earth-toned palettes, candid photography, and recycled materials in packaging all reflect the brand’s commitment to environmentalism. The brand’s messaging — direct, mission-first, and often advocacy-driven — reinforces a unified identity built on action and accountability. From product tags to its digital footprint, every element feels aligned with Patagonia’s values.
13. Netflix (a Big Human Client)
Why it inspires
Netflix’s brand is designed to elevate its content, not compete with it. The system is immersive and intuitive, pulling users into the experience without distraction. Clean visuals and consistent UI patterns create familiarity while minimal but bold design cues keep the brand recognizable from billboards to device screens.
Key brand elements
Netflix pairs a simple, striking logo with a clean, red-and-black palette. UI patterns — from carousels to search and recommendations — are consistent across devices, reinforcing the brand’s promise of easy access to entertainment.
When Netflix needed a home for its brand values and global mission, the streaming giant partnered with Big Human. Together, we crafted a centralized website that fit Netflix’s established brand guidelines. The site showcased Netflix's brand pillars, news, and assets with clean fonts, modular layouts, and intuitive navigation. Every design choice reinforces clarity, consistency, and accessibility — all to make Netflix’s brand feel polished and intentional.
14. Quinn (a Big Human Client)
Why it inspires
Quinn’s identity shows how brand design can support a deeply personal product. When we partnered in 2021, the goal was to better connect Quinn with its target audience. The platform needed to feel warm and private, yet approachable. The result: a brand builds trust through tone and thoughtful UX, not only through graphic design.
Key brand elements
Thoughtful copy, soft colors, and low-friction UX design flows make the experience intuitive and welcoming. Every element — from design to language — reinforces consent, comfort, and control, turning a delicate category into something welcoming and empowering.
15. Gemini (a Big Human Client)
Why it inspires
Gemini’s brand design proves that trust and technology aren’t mutually exclusive. In a category often dominated by industry jargon and complexity, Gemini stands out by pairing a sleek, modern aesthetic with clear, confidence-building design. It brings humanity to crypto and signals that the product is built for all, not just early adopters.
Key brand elements
Gemini’s visual system is crisp and minimal, anchored by a calming blue palette, geometric logo, and strong typography. Clean layouts and intuitive iconography reflect the company’s values of transparency and security, making a complicated subject feel accessible, even empowering.
Big Human led Gemini’s brand transformation, shaping an experience that made crypto feel secure and intuitive. The system we delivered emphasized clarity and trust across each touchpoint, with the goal of bringing a once-niche category closer to the mainstream.
Build Branding That Inspires and Scales
Great brand designs don’t happen by accident — they’re engineered step by step.
This is what we do at Big Human. From flexible visual languages to meaningful product experiences, we build brands that feel purposeful, consistent, and alive across every touchpoint. Whether you’re a storied legacy brand refreshing your identity or a startup launching a bold new platform, we translate business goals into design systems that resonate, engage, and endure.
Reach out, and we’ll work together to create a brand your teams, users, and partners can believe in.
