iPhone App Logos: 10 of the Best and Worst

Too many developers simply cut an image out of existing marketing collateral and make it their iPhone app logo — even though it doesn’t translate. But here’s one case where it actually works. Whole Foods took the familiar fruit-shaped “O” in their name and turned it into an iPhone app logo. “It’s about boiling it down to its essence,” says CEO Steve Yamaguma of Design2Market, a graphic design firm in Silicon Valley.

Okay, we get it: an elephant never forgets. This app lets you take notes, snapshots and recordings. More than a million people use it. Sure, it’s clever. But in the iPhone app world clarity rules. Swiping through your list of apps, will you remember its function?

“Bright red feels like it’s saying, ‘error, don’t take this one’,” an iPhone user told researchers at Create with Context, a Silicon Valley research and design firm. The message: Don’t use red in iPhone app logos. But CEO Steve Yamaguma of Design2Market says the color red can work in some cases, as with this Bug Spray app. “Fire colors give off action,” he says, adding that red alerts people to a stopping action. “You don’t want bugs.”