TikTok Logo Design: An Abstract Drawing Adventure

TikTok is a name known to teenagers worldwide. It innovated short videos and is one of the most popular social media platforms. When we say TikTok, a floating colorful musical note comes to mind. The TikTok logo is an image that even a child might recognize.

It became the most-downloaded app in 2018 and held that status for many years. The rapid success of the app has made us wonder how an app can achieve such great heights in such a short period.

History of Douyin

There are stories behind the making of the TikTok Logo design and the company itself. The company TikTok originated in China in 2016. Also, Douyin is the name of the parent company.

Another Chinese company, ByteDance, bought Douyin and introduced the feature to create short videos in its app. The concept spread throughout China, and the app gained 100 million users soon after.

Due to its imminent success, the company went global and introduced the international version of Douyin (TikTok) worldwide. In 2017, TikTok acquired similar companies like the American company Musical.ly which uses short lip-syncing videos as entertainment.

Musical.ly was a startup from Shanghai, started in 2014. The app was famous for its lip-syncing feature with different videos and dialogues. The startup was bought by  ByteDance and integrated with its own company Douyin on 2 August 2018.

With some modification, the final product emerged as the TikTok we all know. This TikTok has the same logo design as Douyin with minor changes and all the features from Musical.ly and Douyin. The product is ultimately the same, but the servers are different for Douyin and Tik Tok.

The app evolved with time, and the company made necessary changes. The app is a complete social media app with short video-sharing features and many more.

It has 15-second short videos with features like filters, stickers, music, and reaction channels. Thus, it is a complete entertainment social media app. TikTok gets a positive global response due to the available apps on PC and mobile.

Due to these benefits, TikTok is becoming a name everyone knows, entertaining half the global mobile user population. The lockdown also aided the spread of TikTok, resulting in nearly 2 Billion TikTok users at the end of 2022.

The Logo Design Abstract Adventure

The logo has a huge role in making a company successful. The emblem of TikTok has done the same. The app has billions of users worldwide, including celebrities and sports stars.

The logo of TikTok looks like a musical note in the center of a square. The logo appears as if the musical note is moving or vibrating (abstract effect). The logo design has three colors: black, aqua, and pink.

They are overlayed, appearing like shadows from different-colored lights in a club.

The company made a few changes from the original design of Douyin in making the TikTok design. They added TikTok in writing under the musical note in the 2017 global breakthrough.

In 2018, they removed the space between Tik and Tok. They also gave the “o” in TikTok the Abstract effect, the same as the musical note in the logo. With this, the logo was complete, and since then, they have made no more changes.

One of the main reasons for not changing the TikTok symbol is that the musical note resembles ‘d’ and signifies the company’s original name Douyin. The abstract effect logo is now called the Dance Logo due to its motion-like effect.

The original designer of the TikTok logo shared his story about how the logo idea came to his mind. In his interview, he said that he got the idea from a live concert he visited back in the day. The moving lights splashing on his face gave him inspiration for the logo. According to him, the symbol signifies vibrating musical beats.

Why is the Original TikTok Logo so Memorable?

There are many reasons why the logo of TikTok remains in the audience’s mind. The exceptional thought that TikTok put into its logo speaks for itself. After the great success of TikTok, many new apps tried to capture the emerging market, but they have yet to succeed as widely as TikTok. Below are a few reasons why the TikTok logo appeals as a global brand where similar apps fail to do so.

Relevance

The logo design maker perfectly knew his audience and made a logo that connected with them. Young audiences, like teenagers, love to hear music, and the app specifically targeted them as their audience.

So, the concept of music resonated with young audiences. Any social person would recognize the party or dance aspects in the logo, making it popular among such people.

You can also comprehend the masterpiece through its multipurpose nature. As mentioned above, the musical note has similarities with the letter ‘d.’ It signifies the company name and the musical aspect, establishing the app’s purpose, all in one lettermark logo.

Simplicity

Although the abstract nature makes the logo seem stylish, it’s just one alphabet at the core. Big companies that are well established for decades have put in resources to design their logo.

They all come to the same conclusion: a simplistic logo gives more authority than a fancy one. But exceptions are always there, and TikTok is an exception. The TikTok logo design is a hybrid of simple and 3-D logos that surprised the market.

Recognition

It is interesting to note how memorable the TikTok dance logo is. Logos with too much text and complex designs are the least ones that anyone remembers. Making a logo unique is a crucial step to establishing a brand. A person tends to trust the product that leaves an impact on their brain.

Conclusion

The Tiktok logo played a vital role in its success. Very few businesses have a quality platform and the correct people to brand it. TikTok has an exciting story that inspires new startups and gives them valuable knowledge. Every aspiring business needs to understand the importance of branding and the value of logo design by taking TikTok as an example.

See more: kivodaily.com