Is your organisation’s logo accessible?

Often, someone’s first encounter with your brand will be when they see your logo. This is why so many of the world’s leading brands put a great deal of effort into crafting a high-quality logo.  An important question that sometimes gets overlooked during the logo design process is, ‘Is this logo accessible?’.

What makes a logo accessible?

There are several elements that make a logo accessible. We explain each of them below.

Accessible colours

Colour combinations with a high contrast ratio can be seen by a wider audience, particularly people with a vision impairment. By using colour combinations that conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2, you can rest easy knowing your logo’s colours are accessible.

Accessible type

Some letterforms – the shape of an individual letter – are easier to read than others.
Careful consideration of your organisation’s typefaces – a whole family of letters – can help make sure your logo is more easily read by your audience. Avoiding all caps, using letterforms that are not extremely bold or thin and selecting a typeface with simple, familiar shapes are all ways to make a logo easy to read.

Recognisable icons

If your logo includes an icon, think about if this graphic is easily understandable for your audience. People with intellectual or learning disabilities benefit from graphics that are familiar and recognisable. Icons that are very detailed may be overwhelming for some people. Additionally, icons that depict abstract concepts could be misunderstood by people who have not come across the concept before.

Simple layout

The way that icons and letters are arranged in a logo can affect how easily a logo is understood.
Logos that are arranged in a way that encourages reading from left to right, for example, are more familiar to people who use a language that reads from left to right. Other creative graphic arrangements might also be accessible, but they will likely take your audience more time to understand.

Context

Where you place your logo can determine if it is accessible to your audience or not. For example, your logo might be accessible on a white background, however, placing it on a background of a different colour may reduce the logo’s colour contrast to an inaccessible ratio. Similarly, placing your logo on top of a busy photograph can make the details in the logo tricky to see.

Our logo redesign

You might have noticed that we recently rebranded. Part of this included redesigning the Information Access Group logo.

We have nested the ‘i’ within a neat circular container that represents the idea of inclusivity.
The container also doubles as a speech bubble to illustrate the concept of communication, which is a core part of our work and a familiar symbol people will understand. The red circular lines represent the idea of spreading, or radiating, information out into the community. It’s also a nod to our
original logo.

We incorporated accessibility from the beginning of our redesign process. Our designers carefully selected 2 colours for the logo that conform to WCAG 2.2 AA. The navy colour, used for text and part of the brand icon, meets the higher AAA ratio for best-practice colour contrast accessibility.

The text in the logo is typeset in a simple and modern sans serif typeface with recognisable letterforms that are easy to read. San serif typefaces feature less distracting decorative elements in the letterforms and are generally easier for people to read. Our logo features the icon on the left and text on the right, making it familiar to those who use a language that reads from left to right. The text is broken over 3 lines in a manner that is easy to follow.

Our brand guidelines include information about what backgrounds our logo can and can’t be used on. This is to make sure our logo is easy to see in every context it used in.

If you aren’t sure about the accessibility of your existing logo, feel free to reach out to us to find out how we can support you with updating your logo and brand.