7 logo animation examples worth studying
Seven real logo animation examples, from Kia's sky-drawn signature to Netflix's ta-dum, each with the brand's own published work and the choice worth stealing.
A logo animation is the few seconds of motion a brand attaches to its mark: the ident before a video, the sting at the end of an ad, the splash screen when an app opens. If you only watch three from this list, make it Kia drawing its new signature across the sky with 303 drones, LA28’s Olympic emblem that never looks the same twice, and Netflix turning two notes and a red mark into the most recognized sign-off in streaming.
I work at Moonb, a creative team that produces motion and brand work, and animated logo references land in my inbox weekly. Most reference lists have the same flaw: vague praise for animations nobody can actually find. So every example below is brand-published work with a year and a source, and every film embedded here sits on a channel the brand itself runs, so you can check my description against the screen.
The entries are grouped by the motion technique each one demonstrates best. For a wider map of the styles behind them, the overview of animation styles pairs well with this list.
1. Google’s four dots and the G, 2015
The oldest entry here, and still the template most shape-morph logo animations trace back to. When Google introduced its current wordmark in September 2015, it shipped the identity as a motion system: the wordmark collapses into four colored dots, the dots become a listening waveform, and everything resolves into either the full name or the compact G. Google explained the logic in its announcement post, Google’s look, evolved, published on September 1, 2015.
Here is the film Google released with the change, on Google’s own channel.
The observable choice: every state of the animation is itself a usable logo. The dots are not decoration on the way to the real mark; they are the mark, reduced for moments when the interface is listening or thinking. That is why the system survived a decade of new products without a rebuild.
The lesson for any brand: build the motion from parts the identity already owns. If your logo has to shatter into shapes that appear nowhere else in your system, the animation is borrowing energy it cannot pay back.
2. Kia’s signature drawn across the sky, 2021
Kia’s 2021 logo was designed to read as a handwritten signature. The company’s press release describes “a rhythmical, unbroken line” meant to convey inspiration, with symmetry for confidence (Kia press release, January 6, 2021). A mark built from one continuous stroke is a gift to animation, because the reveal writes itself: you draw the line.
Kia understood that and staged the reveal literally in the sky over Incheon, with 303 pyrodrones firing synchronized fireworks, a display that set a Guinness World Record for the most UAVs launching fireworks simultaneously. The highlight film is on Kia’s global channel.
The technique underneath the spectacle is ordinary stroke animation: the eye follows a line as it travels, then gets a stable final shape. What makes the Kia case worth studying is the match between mark and motion. The logo is a line, so the animation draws a line. When a stroke reveal is applied to a logo that was never line-built, the drawing feels arbitrary, and viewers register effect instead of identity.
3. LG’s symbol that winks, 2023
LG’s 2023 brand refresh turned the familiar face-in-a-circle symbol into a small performer. Wolff Olins built the renewed identity, and per Creative Boom’s coverage of it, the symbol can perform eight unique motions, including nodding, spinning, and winking, and in digital spaces it can even move to background music. The same identity introduced an energetic new shade the brand calls Active Red.
This brand film on LG’s global channel shows the outlined symbol animating over the brand’s shifting Active Red gradient.
What LG did well is scope. The logo’s geometry never changes; only its expression does. A wink reads instantly because the face was always in the mark, waiting to move. That is character animation applied to identity with the lightest possible touch, and it gives social teams dozens of usable behaviors without a single off-model frame.
4. PlayStation Productions’ flythrough, 2022
PlayStation Productions, the film and TV arm of PlayStation, debuted its opening ident with the Uncharted movie in February 2022 (Push Square, February 2022). The camera glides through electric-blue, light-traced scenes from PlayStation games, Aloy’s face, a samurai mask from Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet and Clank, before settling on the PlayStation Productions mark. A regional PlayStation channel published it standalone.
This is the depth-and-camera approach: instead of transforming the logo, the animation moves the viewer through a world that belongs to the brand, and the mark is the destination. The risk with dimensional idents is that the journey upstages the arrival. PlayStation controls that by keeping one material language throughout, so every scene already looks like the logo that ends the sequence. If you want the production math behind work at this fidelity, the guide to animation costs breaks down where the money actually goes.
5. FIFA Women’s World Cup emblem build, 2021
FIFA launched the brand identity for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in October 2021 (FIFA announcement). The emblem is a ball ringed by 32 colored squares, one for each team in the newly expanded tournament, and the launch film assembles it exactly that way: squares stagger into orbit around the ball until the emblem locks, alongside bold letterforms in a palette drawn from the two host countries.
The brand identity film is on FIFA’s own channel.
This is the strongest staggered-build example I know of, because the build order is not just rhythm, it is meaning. Thirty-two pieces assemble because thirty-two teams do. When a segmented reveal carries a fact about the brand, the viewer gets the story and the mark in the same few seconds. When the segments are arbitrary, the same technique reads as a loading screen.
6. LA28’s emblem that never repeats, 2020 to now
The LA28 Olympic and Paralympic emblem, launched in 2020, was described by the organizing committee as the first ever-changing mark in Olympic history (LA28 newsroom). The L, 2, and 8 hold still; the A is a rotating slot that artists, athletes, and Angelenos keep redesigning and animating. More than 40 versions have shipped since launch.
LA28’s channel posts lineup films as new emblems arrive; this one shows the wall of variants, including an A built from a guitar by the musician H.E.R.
The lesson is structural. LA28 did not animate a logo; it designed a logo with one variable element and let animation live there permanently. That is the most durable version of a motion identity I have seen, because the system generates new work for eight years without ever going off-brand. Brands considering a refresh can compare this approach with the more conventional cases in these rebrand examples.
7. Netflix’s ta-dum, 2020 theatrical cut
The Netflix ident is the proof that a logo animation can be almost nothing on screen and still be unmistakable. The streaming version lasts about three seconds: the red mark on a dark frame while the two-note ta-dum lands. In August 2020, Netflix had Hans Zimmer compose a 16-second symphonic extension for theatrical releases, because three seconds felt too abrupt in a cinema (Engadget, August 12, 2020).
Image: Netflix wordmark via Wikimedia Commons
Two things make this the reference for sound-led idents. First, the audio carries the identity, so the visual can stay minimal and legible at any size. Second, Netflix treats duration as a system: the same identity exists as a three-second app version and a 16-second cinema version, tuned to the room. If you are building a mark where audio does this much work, plan the sound and the motion as one sequence; a practical guide to animated sound effects is a useful starting point for matching effect libraries to motion beats. And design the muted version first, because most social feeds will play your ident silent.
One from us
Full disclosure on this one: it is our own work, so weigh it accordingly. This is a logo animation we made at Moonb, and I am including it because the seven above are all global brands with global budgets, and it is fair to show what the same thinking looks like at normal scale.
The same four choices from the list above are doing the work here. The motion comes out of the mark itself rather than being applied to it, the end frame settles into the static logo a viewer can screenshot, it reads with the sound off, and it was cut to a length that survives being a pre-roll sign-off. More of these live on our logo animation page.
How the seven compare
| Example | Year | What moves | Where it runs | What to steal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google dots and G | 2015 | Wordmark collapses into four dots that morph and rebuild | Product interfaces, voice states, films | Every animation state is a usable logo |
| Kia signature | 2021 | One unbroken line draws the mark, staged with 303 drones | Launch event, brand films | Match the motion to how the mark is built |
| LG symbol | 2023 | The face in the mark nods, spins, and winks | Digital touchpoints, social | Expression without changing the geometry |
| PlayStation Productions | 2022 | Camera glides through light-traced game worlds to the mark | Film and TV title cards | One material language from journey to logo |
| FIFA Women’s World Cup | 2021 | 32 squares stagger into orbit around the ball | Broadcast, stadiums, social | A build order that carries a fact |
| LA28 | 2020 | The A is a permanent slot for new animated art | Olympic campaigns through 2028 | One variable element, endless variation |
| Netflix ta-dum | 2020 | Minimal zoom on the mark while the sound leads | App, originals, cinemas | Duration as a system, sound as identity |
What the strong ones share
Across seven very different techniques, the same four choices keep showing up. The end frame is still and readable, because the last frame is the one that gets paused, screenshotted, and exported as the thumbnail. The motion comes from something already in the identity: Google’s dots, Kia’s line, LG’s face, FIFA’s 32 teams. There is a version that works with the sound off. And duration is planned as a family, a short sign-off for an animated commercial and a longer cut for openers, rather than one file stretched or chopped to fit.
Restraint has some research behind it too. A 2025 peer-reviewed study of animated logos, using questionnaire data across 63 animated marks plus an eye-tracking experiment, found an inverted U-shape: animations with medium unpredictability held attention best, while highly chaotic and fully predictable motion both did worse (study on animated logos and sustained attention). More movement is not more memorability.
Delivery is the unglamorous half of the job. The same ident usually needs an MP4 for video editors, a vector runtime version for product surfaces, and a transparent variant for overlays; the Lottie resources roundup covers the vector side. Teams that publish heavily on social sometimes pair the animated mark with faceless animation formats, so the same visual system can carry channels where nobody appears on camera. And if your mark is a wordmark that leans on moving type, the craft notes in these kinetic typography examples apply directly.
Frequently asked questions
Plan a family of durations instead of one file. The working range in the examples above runs from about three seconds (the Netflix streaming ident) to 16 seconds (its theatrical cut), and most brands need at least two versions: a short sign-off for ads and social, and a longer opener for videos and events. Whatever the length, hold the finished mark still at the end long enough to read, because that final frame becomes your pause screen and thumbnail.
The motion has to come from something the identity already owns. Google animates the dots its wordmark reduces to, Kia draws the unbroken line its signature mark is built from, and LG moves the face that was always inside its symbol. A quick test: if the same reveal would look equally natural on a competitor's logo, it is an effect, not an identity behavior. Start from how your mark is constructed and animate that.
Design the silent version first, then add sound as a sharpener. Most social feeds autoplay muted, so the visual sequence must resolve clearly on its own. When audio is available it can carry a surprising share of the identity, as the two-note Netflix ta-dum shows, but the sound cue should land exactly on the moment the mark completes, and the animation should still make sense with the speaker off.
