Humanitarian, Cultural and Political Logos
The flag of the Olympic Games has been designed by Pierre de Coubertin. The circle is considered a symbol of unity, because all the regular polygons are embraced by the circle. It is also the symbol of timeless excellence, without beginning or end, perfect, the ultimate geometric symbol. Elegantly using the cultural symbolism of circle, the flag reminds us of the minimalism of Mondrian. According to Coubertin "This design is symbolic; it represents the five continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time."
The logo of the Socialist Party of France depicts a rose as a symbol of community (the flower�s petals), socialism (its red color), taking care of those who are less able to compete (the fragility), the struggle (the thorns), cultural life (beauty). Historically, the red rose became the party�s emblem during the nineteen-seventies. At first the party used a vertical fist as a symbol of resistance. However, Fran�ois Mitterrand's Socialists rebranded the party and turned the fist into a horizontal hand holding a rose.
Known worldwide by its panda logo, the Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) participates in international efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats. The powerful image of an engendered specie like panda bring home the point both intellectually and emotionally. Gerald Watterson was the creator of the original panda.However, through the design has become more articulated and aesthetically pleasing.
M�decins Sans Fronti�res, or Doctors Without Borders, is best known for its humanitarian projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic disease. Their logo using a minimalist approach modulates a nonjudgmental, apolitical, humanitarian visual impact.
Branding and Logos in the world of commerce
Early logos, 1910-13
Product differentiation; in quality, packaging, design, color, and style - has an important impact on consumer choice. This is how branding strategies work, they create product differentiation in the minds of consumers. In fact, Every time that we fill up our cars, the petrol we purchase is relatively identical whether we go to a Shell, an Esso, or any other stations. But branding strategies have to sell, and they achieves this goal by positively influencing people's perceptions of the product or service.
Today there are thousands of branding gurus who are providing advice on branding strategies. However, it is important to remember that if a company does not have a real product that would satisfy a need of a consumer branding would be of no use, Of course, there are those who argue a powerful company, with deep pockets, can always create in the minds of consumers an artificial feeling of a need for a useless product, such as many of the health products, cosmetics, bottled water, and so on in today's markets. Nevertheless, these products still satisfy various needs - albeit the illusive ones, of making someone more healthy, more beautiful, more safe, and so on, and if they cannot deliver on those promises sooner or later the value of that brand will diminish.
Many argue that a great brand name is one of the most powerful forces in marketing and advertising. A brand name, however, is not created right of the bat. The fact that Google became such a great brand was because it's search engine was working much more efficiently than Altavista, Yahoo, and other competitors at the time. Once people recognized the merits of a product, then the story about what makes that company different from it's competitors and the emotional tug that connects the company with it's customers becomes a branding story.
Unfortunately, visual design terms are too often used inconsistently, leading to confusion for designers as well as clients. Contrary to common usage, the words �logo,� �identity,� and �brand� are not interchangeable. A tasteful, and potent graphic identity is a touchstone for any company, and logos are among the most tangible artifacts graphic designers produce. Today, anyone with a computer and Internet access can create a kind of graphic identity. Many entrepreneurs may feel satisfied by acquiring run of the mill logos, but when their products become popular and the time arrives to benefit from their many years of hard struggles, the competitors begin to enter the same markets with similar products to delve into their sources of profit. The new entrants compete with better logos on their magazine ads, delivery trucks, business cards, lobby signs, and so on, and because their logos can deliver the message more clearly, they can borrow from the credibility of the earlier products, and can connect with the target consumers more emotionally, motivate them and generate loyalty and good will.
Thus, too succeed in branding, entrepreneurs must anticipate the needs and wants of their customers, understand the aesthetic of their logos, and integrate their brand strategies through the activities of their companies at every point of public contact. A potent brand would etch on the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. The brand would simply become a promise that the company would provide the same quality of service for the same authentic product that customers that have valued through their experiences.
As it should be clear form our discussion, so far, a logo by itself cannot create a brand for a company. Other elements, such as it's commitments to quality controls, it's ethical values, it's community relationships, the design of it's products, the quality of it's advertisements, and even the style and color of it's stationery all are very important. Most of the logos we admire more often than not are part of a well-designed system, that includes as these other elements.
A recognized brand name is a great ambassador for a company. It can act as a guarantor of quality for other products of the company that are still new and unknown. It also helps differentiate a company�s offerings from the competition�s.
A great brand name must be both linguistically appealing and must strategically reminds the clients of all other elements that are part and parcel of it's identity. In other words, the brand would be a shorthand signal for the high quality of products, the company's trustworthiness, ethical integrity, and good corporate citizenship.
Today finding a right name and an appropriate logo has become a real challenge. It is interesting to note that in 2003, there were more than 260,000 trademark applications in the United States and over 98 percent of the dictionary is registered as a �dot com � company. This has created many jobs for some smart people to search a for a good brand name. I do not think, finding a name is that important as the Johnson & Johnson, P& G, and 3M brands as well as many others demonstrate.
In today's world a brand name needs to have strong presence in Web search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This is in a context that the globalization has released an enormous competitive force from a torrent of new products which makes it enormously challenging to develop a new brand. A business needs to build its products or services with a perceived or a real unique value or unique competitive advantage. However, in a globally competitive market the competitors, usually fairly quickly, copy, or even improve upon, those unique values or advantages. Over time, most highly valued features would become common, or in technical terms they become commoditized. Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities.
A comprehensive visual communication strategy is the only viable solution within a branding strategy that would combat that loss of advantage or uniqueness. For instance; Apple Inc.'s branding strategy is to compete with a tasteful and elegant designs across several highly competitive consumer electronic markets, which includes the Mac brand in personal computers, the MP3 segment represented by the I Pod brand, digital music distribution through its iTunes Music Store, the phone segment led by iPhone and more recently in the critically important domain of convergence, between the smartphone, the notebook and the media player with the Apple iPad. What connects all these branding activity is apple's logo.
History of Commercial logos
The most ancient logo is swastika that has been used for over 3,000 years, which is even older than the ancient Egyptian logo, the Ankh!. The word "swastika" is rooted in Indo-European word svastik, with "su" meaning "light," (in Persian and Sanskrit), and "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix. Ancient Indians, incorporated it in their gammadion; representing the divine power that can enlighten the darkness, and purify the impure. They decorated their temples and dwellings with it to bring the divine light and to protects the community from evil spirit.
The Middle Ages were extremely prolific in inventing ciphers for ecclesiastical, artistic, and commercial use.Chi and Rho are the first two letters (??) of "Christ" in Greek ???S??S. (Christos). Sometimes it is called the Monogram of Christ or Chrismon or Labarum. While it was used very early by persecuted Christians in the catacombs,
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| Obverse of a bronze coin issued in 353 AD by Magnentius with the Chi-Rho symbol. Alpha and Omega are also shown. |
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| Monogram of Christ, Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican, undated. Notice the Alpha and Omega symbols as part of the Chi-Rho monogram. |
The use of modern logos as trademarks can be traced back to the thirteenth century. They include masons marks, goldsmiths marks, paper makers watermarks and watermarks for the nobility, and printers marks. Logo designs are usually giving the first impression about the characteristics of a company.
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| Stone mason's mark in a stone in the church of S�nanque abbey, Gordes, Vaucluse, France |
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| Stone Mason's mark on Nochty Bridge at Auchernach, 1833 |
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| English Goldsmiths' Marks |
A well designed logo would be flexible enough to represent the evolution of a company through time, they must represent universal aesthetic values that transcend any cultural, and social boundaries; and they must be simple and distinct.
The Prudential Insurance logo- the Rock of Gibraltar is one of the earliest modern logos that was appeared in 1896. Although Prudential has modernized this logo in recent times, it still urges consumers to "depend on the strength of Gibraltar Rock".
This is the original RCA logo, which has not changed all that much over the years. The company's roots are in the broad cast industry with early product focus on the marketing of GE and Westinghouse's radio equipment. In 1929 the company made its first moves into consumer electronics products when RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of phonographs (including the famous "Victrola") and phonograph records. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the Nipper trademark.
The RCA logo which made its debut in 1910, is one of the earliest logos, in which the dog Nipper is sitting in front of a phonograph and listening in amazement. The motto "His Master's Voice" clarifies the message of the logo. The logo is based on a painting by Francis Barraud, His Master�s Voice, originally painted with the dog Nipper listening to a phonograph cylinder machine. In April 1898, William Barry Owen, who had left New York to set up a syndicate for exploiting the Berliner Gramophone, formed The Gramophone Company, a Limited company in London, with his partner Trevor Williams. A year later, his Gramophone Company sent a letter to Francis Barraud, making him a formal offer for a revised painting that would show Nipper and a gramophone, instead of a phonograph cylinder machine, paying him a further �50 for the copyright to his painting after originally paying �50 in 1899 . At his visit to London in may 1900, Emile Berliner, the Germany-born and Washington-based inventor of the flat disc record and the gramophone, saw the painting hanging on the wall in Owen�s office in the gramophone company. Berliner contacted Barraud and asked him to make a copy of the painting which he brought back to the United States and immediately sought a trademark for it, granted by the patent office on july 10, 1900. Berliner passed the trademark on to his partner Eldridge R. Johnson (with whom he had worked on improving the gramophone). Johnson�s company, the Victor Talking machine, extended the trademark protection to Central and South America, the Far East and Japan.
In 1929, RCA made its first moves into consumer electronics products , and purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of phonographs (including the famous "Victrola") and phonograph records. This included a majority ownership of the Japan Victor Company (JVC). The new subsidiary then became RCA-Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the Nipper trademark.
This graphic design of the Coca-Cola logo is the work of Frank Mason Robinson who created it in 1885. There is no proof as to who originally wrote it, but master Penman Louis Madarasz(1859-1910) was said to have told one of his students that the work was his. When the work was created Madarasz had a mail-order business and could easily have done it, and the writing style is similar to his. In the book "An Elegant Hand" by William E Henning, it states that Frank Mason Robinson, who was the bookkeeper of the firm originated the name Coca-Cola and specified that it be written in Spencerian script. In a 1914 court case, Robinson testified that he was "practically the originator" and that "some engraver here by the name of Frank Ridge was brought into it" This old Logotype has been around more than a century, which could be regarded as a measure of its success. A successful logotype will store a sense of loyalty for the clienteles.
The mark of a good logo is legibility and good brand recognition. Because of the diversity of products and services sold by many businesses today, the need for new, unique logos is even stronger. Probably the most famous Chrysler Imperial logo, the eagle, was designed by John Samsen. It first appeared on the 1962 hood ornament, reappearing in 1964 not only on the hood but in the middle of the rear bumper as well, and staying until 1975.
Rob Janoff , a graphic designer of corporate logos and identities, is probably most famous for his creation of the Apple logo. In 1977, he worked for Regis McKenna as an art director and was tasked to design the logo for Apple Computer, creating an apple with a bite out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic logos, and Jobs immediately took a liking to the bitten apple. While Jobs liked the logo, he insisted it be in color, as a way to humanize the company. It is suggested that the bitten apple pays homage to the mathematician Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating an apple that had been poisoned with cyanide. Turing is regarded as one of the fathers of the computer. The rainbow apple logo appears to be out of favor in the company these days.
The Nike logo represents the wing of the Greek Goddess of victory, "Nike," .This simple logo is a classic case of a company gradually adopting its corporate image as its branding strategy takes hold. Niki's first logo appeared in 1971, when the word "Nike" was printed in orange over the outline of a check-mark. A s, the brand became known the check-mark survived but the company name itself became superfluous.
The Nike "Swoosh" is created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University. Phil Knight the owner of the Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) was teaching an accounting class where Carolyn enrolled as a student. She began some freelance work for BRS. Phil Knight approached Davidson for design ideas for a new line of athletic footwear in 1972, and at a rate of $2 per hour, she agreed to do some designing for him. In June 1971, Carolyn presented a number of her designs to Phil and his associates. They ultimately selected the Niki's Swoosh. Davidson received a total sum of $35 for her more than 15 hours of work. This stunningly simple corporate logo was registered as a trademark in 1995.
The logotype of Volkswagen which is recognizable all around the world is also simple and elegant. It is created by Franz Xaver Reimspiess. The simplicity of design together with its composition, achieved by repetition of a geometric V-form inside a circle, creates its striking visual impact .
The logotype for Google, a prominent high-tech company, is created by Ruth Kedar and reminds us of the Mondrian minimalism. Kedar has emphasized the playfulness of her design, and its simplicity that conveys an illusion of non-design. According to her " The colors evoke memories of child play, but deftly stray from the color wheel strictures so as to hint to the inherent element of serendipity creeping into any search results page ... The texture and shading of each letter is done in an unobtrusive way resulting in lifting it from the page while giving it both weight and lightness".
Andy Bechtolsheim when he was a graduate student at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, originally designed the SUN workstation for the Stanford University Network. Sun's logo was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt, of Stanford University. It is a stunning example of minimalism using symmetry and order. Pratt brilliantly uses the letters u and n which when arranged adjacent to each other give an impression of the letter S which in a new juxtaposition beside another u and n , it reads SUN. But the later u and n themselves create another S in perpendicular to the previous S, thus creating a square made of the word sun on each of its four sides. The initial version of the logo was orange and had the sides oriented horizontally and vertically, but it was subsequently redesigned so as to appear to stand on one corner and the color changed to purple.
In 1956, Paul Rand designed the first IBM�s logo, using a retooled version of the City Medium fontface, a 1930 design by Georg Tromp. In the first design, Rand made the letters "IBM" to look solid, grounded and balanced. In 1972, he given the opportunity to redesign the logo. Keeping some elements of the old logo, he added eight (in another version thirteen) horizontal stripes to suggest "speed and dynamism," that became one of the most iconic identity designs of all time time.
Monograms
A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters to form one symbol. They are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. Historically, a monogram was used as a royal signature. Romans and Greeks used them on coins to identify their rulers. Then, in the Middle Ages, artisans began to use them to sign their work. Victorian-period high-class persons adapted the monogram for personal use as a symbol of their place in society. Logos in the form of monogram are clear and straight-forward, and don�t ask the viewer to interpret much.
Re-branding
As competition intensifies and profit margins decline, companies often start to question their branding strategies. Re-branding means redefining the unique values or advantages of the product. It is a new attempt at product differentiation in order to leave the past behind and move forward. In all too many cases, however, those expensive re-branding efforts fail to yield the desired business results, because the consumers have a long memory, and if the company has done something wrong in the past they will not forgive just because the company has changed its logo. In such circumstances companies need to be forthright about their mistakes. However, sometimes re-branding is necessary, not because the company's past mistakes but because of changes in consumer's tastes. In such cases re-branding breathes a new life into the brand. Because of the fast pace of innovations in the high tech and communications sectors the clients change of taste is more prevalent in these sectors and this is why many of these companies feel the need to re-brand themselves.
Starbucks' re-branding was due to the strong passion Howard Schultz had for espresso beverages. He realized that the unique advantage Starbucks can offer to its clients is in serving coffee in an elegant and tasteful manner. After failing to convince the original owners of Starbucks to focus on serving coffee in an espresso bar fashion he started his own espresso caf�, Il Giornarle in 1986. However, by 1987, the two remaining original owners of Starbucks decided to sell the business and Schultz jumped at the chance to acquire it and re-brand it into the espresso bar concept similar to Il Giornale. As Schultz relates in his book POUR YOUR HEART INTO IT ; Terry Heckler and him poured over old marine books until Terry
"came up with a logo based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store�s original name, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself."He then describes how they merged the Starbucks logo with that of Il Giornale, which its name was inscribed in a green circle that surrounded a head of the Greek god of messages, Mercury. He writes;
"To symbolize the melding of the two companies and two cultures, Terry came up with a design that merged the two logos. We kept the Starbucks siren with her starred crown, but made her more contemporary. We dropped the tradition-bound brown, and changed the logo�s color to Il Giornarle�s more affirming green."
Starbucks logo was rebranded again on the company's 40th anniversary in 2011, apparently to explore other opportunities in the fast food markets beside the coffee. In the new brand the siren in the circle became the most prominent feature of the logo and the typeface on the ring 'Starbucks Coffee' was removed.
Here are some other instances of re-branding.
The famous bell symbol was created by Bass & Yager design firm in 1969. This minimalist logo with a sans serif letterform achieved a remarkable recognition in the US. The designer was Saul Bass, a graphic designer and Academy Award-wining filmmaker. The circle around the bell symbolized the globe with a UN-blue. The bell icon was used by AT&T for more than 100 years, and Bass kept it because it was a very apt symbol for the brand, as it was a pictogram of the company's founder, Alexander Graham Bell. Furthermore, bells are a means to inform and connect people.
In 1982, AT&T was forced by the U.S. Department of Justice to divest itself of the 22 Bell Operating telephone companies as of January 1, 1984. The design development of the AT&T globe symbol began in late 1982, The initial redesign added a globe symbol in conjunction with the logotype "American Bell". However, a Judge ruled that AT&T cannot use the 'Bell' identification. Thus, the symbol was joined with the new name and logotype 'AT&T' to form the identification signature for the restructured AT&T. In the new design the globe symbolized a world circled by electronic communications, by carefully delineated 'highlight' and 'shadow' elements.
In 2005, SBC Communications bought AT&T, and the newly formed company opted to keep the AT&T name and to re-brand its logo. They kept many features of the old logo, with a globe circled by electronic communications with a more emphasis three-dimensionality, with the addition of some computer generated transparency and shading effect .
The oil spill resulting from the explosion and sinking of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon in 2010 created tar balls that very quickly were found in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Soon after they spread into the famed island of Key West, Florida, about 600 miles from the spill site. This appeared to confirm scientists� fears that the oil spill caused by the explosion and subsequent collapse of the Deepwater Horizon rig has been picked up by fast-moving ocean waters knows as the Gulf Loop. Greenpeace UK started a campaign to redesign the BP logo, to more accurately reflect its tarnished status, as well as to raise awareness about the company's plans for extracting oil from tar sands.
How much a company would pay for a simple logo? -- $1.28 billion!!
Symantec's old logo
Symantec, a software company, mainly known for security products, acquired some of the assets from a non-competitor, VeriSign, in order to get that company's logo, the single asset that VeriSign had argued in the past that was its ticket to a stable future.
VeriSign's Logo
The VeriSign logo was called Trust Seal. A major part of VeriSign's business had been the licensing of the above logo to "trusted" Web sites whose security services pass VeriSign's test. So when online shoppers see that pixelated checkmark inside the circle, they conclude the site they're shopping on is safe.
Symantec's New Logo
According to Symantec press release "The new company logo brings together the Symantec name with the check mark from the recent VeriSign acquisition. The VeriSign check mark is the most recognized symbol of trust online with up to 250 million impressions every day on more than 100,000 unique websites in 160 countries. The check mark and circle will be the common symbol used across Symantec brands." Thus, Symantec paid $1.28 billion for this logo.
Here are some other examples of re-branding: 
Note the arrow in the new Amazon logo moves from A to Z, indicating that they sell everything from "A to Z" and it looks like the smile of a happy face.Logos in Sport
Team logos try to command the loyalty of their fans by being more playful and adventurous. The Boston Celtics, a basketball team, uses a jovial Irishman in its logo. He is winking and turning a basketball on his finger, while smoking a pipe. The logo project a sense of humor which is not offensive and is in good taste.
The Chicago Bulls logo, is minimalist with the powerful combination of Black and red on a white background. The facial expression of the bull shows a kind of macho determination, which is in good humor.
The Chicago Blackhawks hockey team uses the above logo which is conceptually not very much different from the logo of the Washington Redskins football team. The Washington Redskins started in Boston as the Boston Braves and were later called the Boston Redskins. Their logo is the face of an Native American chief facing the right. The chief's head is placed within a yellow circle that has some yellow feathers. The yellow comes from the team colors of burgundy and gold. According to Forbes Magazine, the Redskins were recently the second most valuable franchise in the NFL, valued at approximately $1.467 billion.
The National Congress of American Indians has long been opposed to logos that portray Native Americans in a negative light. They feel that logos like the Redskins perpetuate negative stereotypes of Native American people, and demean their native traditions and rituals. This issue has not been resolved yet, as many teams continue to possess logos with controversial names and images.
1974 World Cup West Germany Logo
Go to the next chapter; Chapter 19 - The Viennese method, and Burtin's Models.
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