Interesting Story Behind Logos

Apple Logo

Let me begin with the story behind the logo of the cultest brand of all time, Apple! I feel the term ‘cult brand’ was defined in popular culture by Apple. Much before the bitten apple came into prominence, there was this logo designed in 1976 by one of the founders, Ronald Wayne. It depicted Isaac Newton sitting under the legendary apple tree with the apple about to fall off!

Later it was replaced by the well known rainbow coloured bitten apple designed by Rob Janoff. The Apple logo was designed with a bite so that it wouldn’t be recognized as another fruit. The coloured stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact that its monitor could reproduce images in colour. Read more…

BSA Logo

All of us have ridden a cycle in childhood, which would probably be a BSA cycle! Particularly the BSA Ladybird was quite popular among girls. However, the origin of the company’s logo is anything but girly! Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) was a British guns and ammunition manufacturer who diversified into bicycles in 1880s. One legend says that the company produced cycles out of the same gun barrels produced in excess during the First World War. Although historians dispute that, the company’s logo is an assembly of three guns! Read more…

MRF Logo

Here is an Indian twist to a story behind a well known brand named, ‘MRF Tyres’. The company originated in present day Chennai as ‘Madras Rubber Factory’. When it expanded its operations across India, it wanted a brand image with wider appeal.Given this task, Alyque Padamsee, the doyen of Indian advertising felt he should seek customer’s opinion on a tyre. So he met a few truck-drivers, who said, “Arrey saab, tyre mazboot hona chahiye, taakat rehna chahiye.” Thus the MRF Muscle Man was born in 1964, symbolising the power that the truck-drivers wanted in a tyre. Read more…

Sun Microsystems Logo

Here is an Indian connection to a well known IT hardware and software brand. Sun stands for Stanford University Network which was formed by Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy. These Stanford graduate students came together along with Bill Joy of Berkeley to form the company in 1982.Sun’s logo, which features four interleaved copies of the word ‘sun’, was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt, also of Stanford University. The initial version of the logo was orange and had the sides oriented horizontally and vertically. It was subsequently changed to appear to stand on one corner and the colour was changed to purple. Read more…

Amazon Logo

This famous logo has a clear message hidden in itself! Jeff Bezos wanted to name the company, Cadabra .Inc but he refrained after he got to know that people mistook it for ‘cadaver’ (dead body).Later he named his company upon the huge river, Amazon. This suggested that the brand implies huge variety of choices and also it began with the letter A, so that it will be on top of alphabetical web catalogues which were precursors to the search engines. The clever hidden message in the logo is the arrow that indicates ‘a to z’! Read more…

Elettrodomestici Logo

Elettrodomestici is a renowned Italian company catering to the household appliances market. The logo was created by using the electric plug image and the letters ‘E’ and ‘D’ are hidden in the negative space!The stark mathematical perfection of this logo created by designer Gianni Bortolotti forces critics to think that the combination of these two letters forming the shape of a plug is just a grand coincidence! Read more…

Toblerone Logo

Toblerone is the favourite chocolate which everyone wants from Switzerland. The distinctive triangular shaped packaging reminds us of the Swiss Alps. So obviously the mountains were the natural choice for its logo. However, the hidden image of a bear talks about the company’s origin.
The city of Bern is also known as the ‘city of bears’. The bear was the heraldic animal of the seal and coat of arms of Bern since the 13th Century. Originating from the city of Bern, Toblerone founders had to use the bear the symbol! Read more…

Gudang Garam Logo

This logo is literally a dream come true! All smokers know about Gudang Garam. This Indonesian clove cigarette has a strange warehouse image as its logo. It happens that the founder Surya Wonowidjojo was working in Cap 93 cigarette factory in Indonesia. One night, Wonowidjojo had a dream which featured an old salt warehouse which stood near Cap 93 factory. Subsequently, Sarman, one of the 50 employees who had followed him when he left Cap 93, advised him to put a picture of the warehouse on every packet of his cigarettes to secure good fortune. Today, the founder’s son is the richest man in Indonesia! Read more…

Mom & Me Logo

In my opinion, this is one of the pinnacles reached in creativity in Indian advertising! Mahindra Group’s retail division launched ‘Mom and Me’ outlets to cater to mothers and toddlers across the country. The group wanted a logo which symbolised both the target audience and the company.The designers came up with the enlarged ampersand which looks like a toddler! Further, it connects to the old name of the group, Mahindra & Mahindra! Read more…

Red Crystal Logo

This is a strange new logo of a world famous organisation. I am yet to understand, why anyone would dump an existing renowned logo for this strange and unimaginative image! This new logo named ‘Red Crystal’ belongs to the International Red Cross Movement.Due to the need to integrate the Red Crescent used in the Middle East, Red Star in Israel and the Red Cross in the rest of the world, the organisation took this politically correct decision of a new logo. This is exactly why political correctedness and committee decisions should be eradicated from the corporate world. Ironically, it was Apple’s Steve Jobs who said “do not let a committee design a product”. It’s no joke that Apple’s logo is on everyone’ minds and this Red Crystal on nobody’s! Read more…