Unpacking exceptional healthcare logos

In the land grab of digital health that was 2020 to 2021, it feels like so many brands were hastily created and company names slapped together. 

New co = [person’s name, plant, or food] + Health.

Looking through all the landscape graphs…so many logos have boring infinity swoosh symbols or triangular ‘synergistic’ shapes. When you see all of them together, suddenly great logos stand out.

As the first introduction to a company, a logo and wordmark, if designed well, draws a genuine connection to your brand. Because the bar is so low already in healthcare, it becomes memorable and inseparable. 

This post is a living list of our favorite brands in digital health, life sciences, private practices, and the larger healthcare industry, and how they intentionally align their branding and company values. Let’s dive in.

1. Cityblock Health

Cityblock logo

Cityblock has an unbelievably impressive logo. Maybe even our all-time favorite? With a mission to help those be seen, be heard, and be healthy, Cityblock publicly stands for radically different, member-first healthcare. In their favicon-friendly logo, you see a city block, a defiant fist, and a loving family. They communicate multiple company values with one simple design.

2. Galileo

Galileo Health logo

We had to brush up on our history of Copernican Heliocentrism, but there’s a subtle nod to the person who famously said “and yet it moves” about the earth (the o in Galileo's wordmark) and the sun (the yellow asterisk). The o is even slightly tilted inward like the earth on its axis, with this same brand detail translating to the g in their favicon. This masterful logo and company branding amplifies Galileo's mission of bringing care closer to patients, whether at home, in your community, or on your mobile device.

3. EmpiricaLab

EmpiricaLab logo

EmpiricaLab, a digital library product that empowers healthcare teams to organize and distribute their collective learnings efficiently, ties their their bright, bold E looks into a stack of books (growing stack = more team knowledge). Depending how jaded you are as a healthcare professional, you might also see a stack of folders and paperwork.

4. Fair Square

Fair Square logomark

Speaking of paperwork, seniors are literally mailed government brochures to choose their Medicare insurance. With its logo as a single dog-eared piece of paper, Fair Square indicates it’s the *only* resource seniors need for this complicated decision.

5. Benchling

Benchling logo

Though we said too many health tech companies pick animals for their Brand, Benchling does it the best. Neena Parikh has a great post on her Medium account on the history of jellyfish in life sciences, showcasing how their mascot, a Jellyfish with DNA tentacles, gives homage to the use of GFP (green fluorescence proteins) in the life sciences industry. Best insider logo. IYKYK!

6. Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine

Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine logo

Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine uses both a flower and a… let’s just say, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s rare that a medical practice invests in a tactful logo that balances two meanings so well.

7. WHOOP

Whoop logo

With a straightforward and memorable logo, if you’re familiar with the data visuals for tracking your HRV, sleep, and other biometrics, Whoop showcases the quantified self-movement in their wordmark.

8. ŌURA

Oura logo

Oura is a rare and excellent case where a logo also resembles the company’s physical product. Oura nicely communicates both the shape of their hardware (the o for the ring) and how it represents the interface (the line above it) into one’s health data.

9. Actual Veggies

Actual Veggies logo

With an earthy look, Actual Veggies’ logomark forms both an A and V through a plant and its roots. They nicely separate their two words with a line symbolizing the earth, and pick a dark, almost clay-colored maroon like a beet or sweet potato. We love the thoughtfulness this team took for their product, and their burgers are truly excellent.

10. Levels

Levels logo

Like Whoop, Levels effectively ties their L logo back to the product (blood glucose, tracking). Simple logos are often the best, and we think this company has the most distinct and recognizable brand in their industry.

11. Lenox Hill Radiology

Lenox Hill Radiology logo

If you live in NYC, chances are you’ve been to a Lenox Hill Radiology facility for an x-ray or ultrasound. It’s a blunt, but clever, logo that shows an skeuomorphic X-ray of their abbreviation.

12. Farewell Fax

Farewell Fax logo

We have a shameless plug here…we built a job board to help our clients and network hire, and I love the work our design team did. We hate fax machines. Doctors hate them too. When we colonize Mars, will we still use them there too?

13. Tia

Tia logo

With only a wordmark, lowercase Tia humanizes its brand as an approachable and trusted confidante + the single pink period boldly brings “taboo” women’s health topics to the forefront.

14. Kintsugi

Kintsugi logo

The soundwave-shaped K logo astutely conveys what their product does - using voice biomarkers to detect signs of depression and anxiety. To us, Kintsugi has one of the most relaxing logos to observe, like a piece of art in the MoMA.

15. Geode Health

Geode Health logo

Geode (a rough-looking and often oddly-shaped rock with crystals on the inside) thoughtfully uses a metaphor to express treating mental health. Finding the right therapist can unlock our best selves, and Geode Health’s metaphor remains on point.

16. Spring Health

Spring Health logo

With a classy and enterprise-friendly brand, Spring Health’s bright leaf with bold veins presents itself as a timeless brand.

17. Ness

Ness logo

Alluding to the mythical creature, Ness aesthetically combines their font and mascot. Their domain name, Nesswell.com, is also a clever play on wellness. Even their lowercase ‘s’ look like smaller mascots.

18. Quilted Health

Quilted Health logo

Their thin text-stroke “Q” represents a thread and the tying of a knot, but also a child resting safely in a quilt. With a mission to provide comprehensive pregnancy care, Quilted Health gently ties their brand and logo together.

19. Two Chairs

Two Chairs logo

With the eloquent Feijoa font and a unique ligature between characters, Two Chairs' brand feels alive, distinct, and characteristically personal, just like the therapy they provide.

20. Othership

Othership logo

Othership's transformative logo communicates the balance necessary in life. Like a spinning top, the horizontal and vertical lines represent their values of creating space to shift emotionally, physically, and mentally. We also see hints of gravitational waves and space-time themes.

21. Forward

Forward logo

Forward's futuristic and subtle F-shaped logomark communicates progress, motion, and improved tech-enabled healthcare delivery.

22. Ash Wellness

Ash Wellness logo

Ash alludes to a recognized blood diagnostics tool (a lancet) in the shifted A of their logomark. 

23. Freshpaint

Freshpaint logo

As a no-code CDP, Freshpaint connects platform analytics into a red/green visualization familiar to data managers, but also like fresh strokes of paint.

24. Cofertility

Cofertility logo

With the off-center ‘o’, and the two “i’s” at different heights, Cofertility artfully shares how no fertility journey is as expected, and their mission to support the many ways families can be created.

25. Lark Health

Lark Health logo

Symbolizing a new dawn in literature like Shakespeare, Lark thoughtfully incorporates this bird into their wordmark to inspire optimism with their on-demand weight loss coaching.

26. Function Health

Function Health logo

Investing early in one's health can have compounding results over time, and Function's logo cleverly shows this improving, gap-closing trajectory.

27. Out-of-Pocket Health

Out-of-pocket Health logo

A sketch that da Vinci himself would envy, Out-of-Pocket uses a Caduceus staff combined with a shrug emoji, where the subject appears apathetically strangled vs healed to accurately convey the irony of our health system.

28. Prenuvo

Prenuvo logo

Like an MRI machine, Prenuvo's logo takes a simple, skeuomorphic approach to representing the whole body, preventative health screening.

29. Omada Health

Omada Health logo

A fingerprint, unique to everyone, symbolizes the custom approach Omada takes to delivering lifestyle change preventative care.

30. Hatch

Hatch logo

Using the negative space “H” in their logo like a maze, Hatch capably shares their mission of providing better patient navigation.

31. Eight Sleep

Eight Sleep logo

With digital clouds, spring bed coils, weaving heating and cooling wires, and 8 hours of sleep, Eight Sleep does it all in one iconic logo.

Conclusion

When building a health tech or life sciences company, it’s easy to ignore your branding if you have strong product market fit, quick access to capital, or a technology and distribution moat that makes branding irrelevant. But when you do decide to invest in your brand, and do so intentionally…you’ll be able to stand out even more in healthcare.