With all the competition in the finance industry, it’s important for a company to stand out in all possible ways. For financial services companies that work personally with clients, it’s important have a quality logo and brand that is recognizable.

In this post, you’ll find 25 brilliant financial logo designs that show off some good design principles in logo design.

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Tenica

Credit Altyn

Union

Stratega

Brokers

Alexandra

Ferratum

Cipe Plus

Money Saving Tactics

Westmill Capital

Whitmant

Lifebloom

Fortress Financial

MoneyLedge

Eager

Zamorski

Lake Constanz

Pacific Shore

Lionsgate

Eton

Griffin

El Finance

Crown Bank

Jared Jones

Blue Numbers

Black and White Designs

The most basic of color choices are black and white, but they can still convey a wide range of design elements. Here are a few elegant web designs that use nothing but black and white.

DYKC

J Bradford Dillon

Bureau of Workplace Interruptions

ReHybrid

Stay Decent

Postmachina

Pierrat

Fizy Videomusic

Kardo Ayoub

Established NYC

Complementary Colors

The color wheel provides a look at complementary colors that often work very well together. It’s all based on color theory, which explains why the following two-color web designs work so well together. Those colors opposite from each other on the color wheel are called "complementary colors" and work together nicely: red complements green, blue complements orange, and purple complements yellow.

Uemitoezcan

Rocky Creek Winery

Nature’s Table

Abrigo

BV Arrows

UD on Campus

Design was Here

Groupe Reflect

Your Web Job

Corporate Two-Color Design

Once you know about color theory and color design, you’ll start to see it everywhere. Big corporations know all about this and their websites reflect it.

Amazon

Best Buy

Whole Foods

Other Inspiring Two-Color Websites

Once you know the rules of the color wheel, you can break them creatively. Not every two-color site slavishly follows the rules, but the designs can still be bold and inspiring.

Bookish

Redesigned

Shelton Fleming

Robin Uleman

Cabure

Hard Graft

Happy Cog

Kern and Burn

Belong

Martin Balhar

From the Couch

Ben the Body Guard

Ploc Media

Quazar

Right to Left

Find any favorites in the list above? Did I miss any 2-color or mostly 2-color website designs that should have been included in this collection?

About the author:

Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She writes for PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers postcards, posters, brochure printing, postcard printing, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.

Voyages over Edinburgh

By David Fleck

Bubbles the Snow Leopard

By Darel Seow

Them Birds

By Dan Elijah G. Fajardo

A Happy Place

By Norman Duenas

Airplanes

By Alice X. Zhang

Water Balloons

By Alice X. Zhang

Retro Radio Prints

By 55hi’s

The Voyage

By Danny Haas

Ocean Meets Sky

By Terry Fan

Night Winds

By DKNG

Moving to Moscow

By Terry Fan

Deliquesce

By Alice X. Zhang

Rebirth

By Efi Tolia

Jade

By Abby Diamond

Idea Man

By Norman Duenas

Are there any art prints that you’ve found that deserve a mention? Let us know in the comments.

About the Author

Alex writes for printing experts Print Express, who specialise in posters, banners & canvas prints. In his spare time, he enjoys studying graphic & web design and aims to get better at coding web apps.

Anthony Neil Dart hails from Johannesburg, South Africa where he runs his own design studio. He has an interesting and legitimate claim to being both self-taught and educated in the arts. Anthony’s formal training was in traditional arts that involve hand-made designs, so Anthony had to learn computer-aided design on his own to survive in a commercial setting.

Anthony flourished once he was able to start producing in programs like Adobe Illustrator and has since carved out a career of creating unique commissioned works. His designs are simple, but very clear and accessible. Typographical elements and symbols are ever present in his designs as can be seen in the following examples:

Anthony graciously took time out of his busy schedule to give us deep insight into his background, approach, and inspiration. We hope you enjoy his responses as much as we here at HV-Designs did!

ThinkDesignBlog (TDB): Are you self-taught or have formal design education?

Anthony Neil Dart (AND): I studied fine arts, namely graphic processes like traditional print making: linocut, woodcut, and silkscreen. So everything was by hand. The course included art history, drawing, photography, art history, and sculpture. As far as (digital) graphic design, I am self taught. My intention after leaving my studies was to become an illustrator but found the going tough as I had no computer skills. So I set about learning the computer out of necessity, which I found odd at the time because it had not really dawned on me that I could use the computer as a creative tool until I actually set about creating my artwork digitally.

Looking back now it seems absurd — but now it’s very different; for students today the computer is a given.

And it was the internet that actually ignited my love for graphic design. The more I exposed myself to it, the more seduced and submerged I became in the world of graphic design. That really heightened my perception and I started falling in love with printed matter — first magazines and then design books which I still consume rather ferociously.

TDB: Who are some of your influences?

AND: My earliest inspiration comes from the work of William Blake — looking back I already had a love for words and illustration, his writing and art inspire me still. The other influences came much later — but the work of Joseph Muller Brockmann and Wim Crouwel truly awakened me to graphic design. I love their systematic approach to minimalism without loosing creativity while working within considered confines.

TDB: How do you balance the creative with the commercial side of being an artist?

AND: I have this uncomfortable realm within which I operate — I love art and design and realize they both have their own place, and despite my natural instinct to resist taboo I often find myself exploring this push and pull between the two. Many of my fellow designers hate this quirk, especially the ones positioned squarely in the modernist camp. I also think what inspires creative people manifests itself in their work — the artifacts and shrapnel of all that is digested and then poured out for the viewer to discover, little codes and secret languages.

TDB: How do you handle client interviews?

AND: I like to involve them as much as possible in the process — whether it’s a complex commercial [project] involving CG animation and live action integration or typography based work for a below the line ad campaign. The key is communicating clearly and really understanding their particular needs and requirements, and totally inviting them to contribute to [the] process. Clients who embrace this way of working benefit hugely including myself. More often than not you both get to add value where it’s most important.

Anthony certainly has a portfolio that can inspire anyone to new heights within their own design projects. Whether you find yourself meddling in several fields of design at one time or are focused on a particular niche, Anthony’s portfolio is one sure to give you the push you need to keep reaching for your goals. Anthony’s determination, education both formal and self-taught, and his love for what he does may be a few of the main reasons why he is so successful today. Hopefully, this glimpse into his approaches to design, clients, and education will give you some tools you can use to keep moving forward.

For more on Anthony Neil Dart:
Website: http://www.anthonyneildart.tv
Portfolio: http://ontwerp.tv
Behance: http://www.behance.net/DARTA

About the author:

Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She writes for PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers postcards, posters, brochure printing, postcard printing, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.

As an avid texture enthusiast, as I know y’all are, I of course said sure. So here are the results. 10 Super High-Res (4245px x 2835px / 300DPI) wood textures, free for commercial and personal use.

I’m including a preview of a few of the textures below. Thanks again to Andrea from TextureQualityPro.com for the awesome exclusive.

The other day I was working on a new brush set that I will be releasing soon. I was taking the pictures for it inside, but I heard a lot of wind outside. When I looked out the window, I saw a storm was coming.

The clouds looked very cool. Nice colors, gradients, and depth. So I took a short break from the brushes I was working on, and walked around a bit taking pictures of the sky. I wonder what my neighbors thought. Regardless, here are 25 Free High-Resolution Storm Cloud textures. Will be great for backgrounds, texturing, layering, etc. Enjoy!

You can show off your product, offer up some key info & bullets points, and link your Buy Now button in just a few minutes. You can add testimonials, and other supporting text down the homepage as well. The homepage is widgetized, so you can put as many testimonials and supporting text blocks as you’d like.

The theme was designed by me, Nick Pagano with Think Design Blog/Think Four Graphic Design, and coded by the fine folks at Purlize. They are a new company that offers PSD to HTML conversions, and more. Tyler, from Purlize, was a great help on this project, and also wanted to see y’all have an awesome end product. Make sure to check out there website, and their top-notch code.

SalesLead Setup & How To.

Installation:
1. Upload via FTP, or using the "Upload" option under the "Install Themes" tab. (Appearance –> Themes –> Install Themes)
2. Active theme.
3. Now, you will see a "Saleslead Theme Options" page. Here is where you can setup the basics for the theme. You can input a path for the header & footer logos, as well as the favicon. The "Parent Name" and "Parent Company Link" are for the header and footer, where the parent company name is displayed. You can also enter copyright text for the footer, and a Google Analytics code.

Setup:
- Now, you will want to setup your product. You’ll see there is a custom post type called "Product". You’ll click "Add New Product." The title of the ‘post’ will be the main headline. The content of the post will be the subheading. The ‘Featured Image’ will be the product image to the left of the headline & info.
- To add bullet points: You simply create a custom field with a name of "bullets". The ‘value’ is whatever you want the bullet to be. (You can add as many as you want.)
- To include the "Buy Now" button. Simply create a custom field with a name of "BUYNowButtonLink". Then put the URL you want to link to as the value of the custom field.
- To setup the Testimonial/Copy section below the product section: This section is widgetized, so you’ll go to ‘Widgets’ under appearance. You’ll see two sidebars: Home Left, and Home right. You’ll also see a new ‘Testimonial Widget’. For the supporting copy to the right of the testimonials, you can use the default ‘text’ widget, and it will be styled properly. So, for instance on the demo, I have 2 testimonial widgets in the "Home Left" sidebar, and five text widgets on "Home right." You can add as many as you want to these areas.

That should be basically it! Then you’ll be up and running with your spiffy new sales page!

This is the first release of the SalesLead Theme. Feel free to suggest any changes, bugs, or fixes to the theme in the comments. We will try to update the theme as necessary. Please understand that the theme is available "as is" and that we are not responsible for any bugs. The one major thing we’ll be incorporating next time, will be easy integration of Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, and other mail services for the "newsletter" section at the bottom of the homepage. We wanted to get this out there though, so as of now, it’s more of a section you can work with, and manually integrate it with your MailChimp, or similar services.

I’ve been very fortunate to work as much as I do.  I began freelancing in 2003 and have had the opportunity to work in publishing, editorial, entertainment, and advertising markets.  I really enjoy the diversity of projects I get to be a part of an their unique challenges.

My work has twice caught the eye of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles and was exhibited in their Annual show in both 2009 and 2010.  Only the best illustration is selected for their show, and I was honored to be counted amongst that group.

Also, don’t forget, even if you didn’t win, you can get a FREE $25 credit by filling out this special form for ThinkDesignBlog.

I’d like to thank everyone that took the time out to stop by and enter the contest. I’d also like to send a big thanks to the cool folks at CustomBagsHQ.com for sponsoring this content. As always, if you didn’t win, stay tuned, because we have more contests coming up!

I am an art director and illustrator at Happycentro, a design studio from Verona, Italy. I was born 27 years ago and I live in the country near Verona. I like  clean, geometric shapes but I also love to try and experiment new and unusual ways for my illustrations.

For the Grand Prize, they’re giving 5 lucky winners $100 in FREE printing (enough to get a totally free order). The contest is comment to enter, and will close on Monday 5.16.11 at Midnight CST.

BONUS ROUND:
Custom Bags HQ just launched and wants your help to get big fast. So, follow @ThinkDesign & @custombagshq, and tweet about this contest. The Custom Bags HQ crew will then pick one of the tweeters at random, and design and print $100 worth of stuff for them! So in short, lots of chances to win on this one.

Good luck to everyone!