Why Logos on Popular Items Are Always on the Left

Researchers suggest that you gaze more at logos placed on the left side of items than on the right, and this is a fact that you might not have realized before. This is one of the main reasons why the logos on items are almost always on the left, but it’s not the only reason.

Bright Side learned about the basic reasons why logos are placed on the left side, and we would love to share these reasons with you.

They’re placed on the side we naturally gaze at.

Logos are like first impressions. Let’s take a website for example, when a user visits a website, they tend to look at the left side of the websites, more than the right. The same thing happens with clothing or other conventional designs, people tend to gaze more to the left-hand side, more than the right-hand side. And it’s more about visibility, i.e., the logo being visible to the person staring at it. When you give a person a handshake, you gaze to the left-hand side of clothing, where the logo is placed.

Historically, they’ve been placed on the left side.

Logos being aligned to the left are what people have been used to, and it’s how logos have been placed since the beginning. Let’s take military uniforms for example, the logos on military uniforms have always been placed on the left side of the uniform, and that hasn’t changed, not even once. In addition, the left alignment of logos are conventions that people are used to and familiar with, which may be why when you consider the way people gaze naturally, it’s always aligned to the left.

They’re aligned to the way we read.

When you look at most websites, their logos are always placed on the left-hand side, and the main reason is that people in the western world read and write from left-right. Except for Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, where the written word is read from right to left.

They make brands more memorable when they’re aligned to the left.

Logos are key components to branding, and they are part of what makes a brand memorable (or something termed as brand recall). According to a study, by the Nielsen Norman Group, it was concluded that users remember brands more when logos are placed on the left than on the right, it was also discovered that there was an average lift of 89% for brands that placed their logos to the left. When people view items in general, they gaze more to the left where the logo is situated, than to the right. That alone makes the brand memorable, and gives the brand a high brand recall. That’s what brands want right? To be remembered!

In all, people will also say that logos on popular items are placed to the left, more than they are to the right, because most people are right-handed, and it’s convenient for right-handed people to find logos on the left, than on the right. Or it could be because it helps people in getting dressed, but the main reasons are the ones listed above — cultural differences in reading and writing habits, gazing habits, history and conventions, and branding.

Do you have other ideas for why logos are placed on the left-hand side of popular items? Please share with us in the comment section.