Why do big companies keep their logos simple?

“Simplicity is the key to excellence” says Dieter Rams

Looking at simple identity designs

Here are two logos for large organisations in the United Kingdom and logos for two of the biggest financial companies in the world. What do all these brands have in common? — the logo is simple. The bigger the company the simpler the logo. Simplicity works and companies and large organisations recognise that.

• What all these logos have in common is that they are so utterly simple and utterly distinctive. Creating something so simple but at the same time so distinctive is the most difficult thing in Graphic Design.

• People can be scared of simplicity. Is this all we have to say? However a logo mark is a device that can help facilitate expression but it not the totality of the expression.
• Logos in the 1950s had to be simple because of limitations of production sick as newspaper print and cheap printing in a phone book. Now these simple marks thrive amongst the possibilities online.
• By simple I mean that a trademark has to be focused in concept, have a single story and in most cases must be uncomplicated in form. This is so it can work effectively and flexibly in a wide range of sizes and media. In small sizes for a business card, in different physical materials such as those used for signage, and in pixels in the digital realm, even as a website browser icon.
• How memorable can the design be while remaining simple? How distinctive can we make the mark while keeping it focused?