The Armed Forces Bank logo looks dynamic and positive. There is upward motion implying that the company is ready to embrace the future. And yet, the design does not appear to create a connection to the brand’s core values. It could have been a little better legible, too.
Armed Forces Bank is a full-service military bank established in 1907. The bank belongs to Dickinson Financial Corporation, which is family-owned and headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.
The logo can be broken down into two parts: the red and white box and the lettering in black.
The box features two rather abstract white shapes on the red background. The shape that is lower is a triangle. The shape above is a swoosh. Both the shapes are positioned in such a way that their left ends are by far lower than their right ends. This approach creates an impression of upward motion.
The lettering “Armed Forces” is given in bold, while the word “Bank” looks lighter, although the font is the same. All these make the wordmark pretty legible.
And yet, the way the three words are positioned creates some problems. Between the words, there are no spaces that could have indicated the end and the beginning of the word. Also, all the words are positioned within a single line. As a result, you would be hardly able to grasp the wordmark and decipher it at a single glance. Even the fact that the initials of the words are capitalized does not help.
The wordmark features a pretty generic serif typeface. It has classic proportions, while the serifs are noticeable but not overbearing.
The combination of red, white, and black featured in the Armed Forces Bank logo is rather popular in logo design. And yet, we cannot say that red is among the colors often used in the brand identities of financial institutions – its psychological meaning does not seem to be the most appropriate for this.