Oct 2, 2010

Logo Design Topic: Company Logos and their Meanings

Ever wondered what company logos mean and whats the significance behind them? Wonder no more!
Amazon

You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to the customer's face. Wow, that is quite deep.

FedEx
Am not sure how many of you have noticed a hidden symbol in the Federal Express logo.
Yeah, I am talking about the 'arrow' that you can see between the E and the x in this logo. The arrow was introduced to underscore speed and precision, which are part of the positioning of the company.

Baskin Robins
 The old logo of Baskin Robbins had the number 31 with an arc above it. The new logo took this idea to the next level. The pink parts of the BR still form the number 31, a reference to the 31 flavors.

Carrefour
Carrefour is one of the biggest European retailers, and its also French for crossroads. The logo symbolizes this word via two opposite arrows. They also added the first letter of the name, because if you look closely youll see the letter C in the negative space between the two arrows.

Formula 1

At first, this logo might not make much sense. But if you look closely, you'll see the number 1 in the negative space between the F and the red stripes. I also love how this logo communicates a feeling of speed.

NBC
The NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is one of the biggest American television networks. I think most of you have already seen the peacock in this logo. The peacock has 6 different tail feathers, referring to the six divisions at the time that this logo was created. The peacocks head is flipped to the right to suggest it was looking forward, not back.

Sony Vaio
Sony Vaio is a well known brand of laptops. But did you know that the name Vaio logo also had a hidden meaning? Well, the first two letters represent the basic analogue signal. The last two letters look like a 1 and 0, representing the digital signal.

Toblerone
Toblerone is a chocolate-company from Bern , Switzerland . Bern is sometimes called The City Of Bears. They have incorporated this idea in the Toblerone logo, because if you look closely, you'll see the silhouette of a bear.

Unilever
Unilever is one of the biggest producers of food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. They produce a huge amount of different products and they wanted to reflect this in their logo. Each part of the logo has a meaning. For example: the heart represents love, care and health - feeling good, a bird is a symbol of freedom. Relief from daily chores “ getting more out of life.

IBM
Paul Rand (who designed the iconic IBM logo in 1972) designed this 'eye bee M' logo in 1981. I like that they are quite relaxed about the logo, unlike certain other companies who do not like the logo to be tampered with in any way even for internal promotions

SUN Microsystems

The SUN Microsystems logo is a wonderful example of symmetry and order. It was a brilliant observation that the letters u and n while arranged adjacent to each other look a lot like the letter S in a perpendicular direction. Spectacular.

Families Marriage
The above are two magazines from the Readers Digest stable. Again, the attempt to communicate what it is about quite figuratively through the logo catches my attention.

Cluenatic
This was a logo created for a puzzle game called Cluenatic. This game involves unravelling four clues. The logo has the letters C, L, U and E arranged as a maze. and from a distance, the logo looks like a key.

Eighty20
Eighty-20 is a small consulting company which does sophisticated financial modeling, as well as some solid database work. All their work is highly quantitative and relies on some serious computational power, and the logo is meant to convey it. People first guess that 20% of the squares are darkened, but that turns out to be false after counting them. The trick is to view the dark squares as 1's and the light squares as 0's. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary.

Eight

This logo is too good. For the name Eight, they have used a font in which each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.

Apple Curry Editing Studio
The above logo is for an editing studio. I like the way the logo attempts to convey what they do.

Rachel Hair Stylist

I liked this logo of a hair stylist for the cheeky humour it brings to the (dressing) table.

Forkwire Logo
Being an Online Food Delivery service, its logo shows a fork formed into an @ symbol! Such a easy logo to remember.


Body Wisdom
It is a logo design for a high end day spa… the hands effectively convey relaxing massage integrated with the proximity of the “owl eyes” to clearly say “wisdom”.

Big Ten
The Big Ten collegiate conference has eleven schools but they didn’t want to change their name. However, they used their logo to hide the numerical “11” in the name.

ED Logo: Gianni Bortolotti
The designer of ED Logo – “Elettro Domestici -Home Appliances” in English, changed the concept of traditional logo designing through this logo. The designer has amazingly used the negative space to demonstrate the letter “E” and “D” making the logo look like an electric plug.

Elle Hive
 It is a company which designs compact tractors. The letters “E” and “H” make up the image of a tractor.

Hartford Whalers

The logo shows 3 concepts at the same time. A whale’s tail, letter “W” in green and the white space forming an “H” for Hartford.

Pakuy Logo
 
As “Pakuay” is a packaging company, so the logo shows a broken down box in the shape of the letter “P”

ZIP Logo
Zip – The “I” has been replaced with a zipper to connect the Z & P

VIA Rail Canada Logo
Notice carefully…the VIA rail Canada logo makes two train tracks with the letters” V” and the “A”. The alphabet “I” is the division between the two. A simply brilliant logo.

Mosleep Logo
You will notice here how cleverly designer have integrated a bed with the letter “M” to come up with a logo for an organization of doctor’s dealing with sleep issues.

Fuga
It is a logo for Architecture Center Of Budapest and looks more like a maze but if you follow the white space, the four lettered company name will become evident.

Piano Forest Logo
The designer gives the message in a subtle but evident manner by shaping piano keys like trees to resemble a keyboard/piano

NorthWest Old Logo
The logo reflected a clever way of splitting the alphabets, N and W  (north west) along with a location pointed to by the red triangle in the upper left corner. The redesign lost the charm of the original.

Review Logo
When you take off a piece of the “v” in the word “review” it forms a check mark (for review). Simply amazing!!

Lafeyette Logo:Even
If you’ve ever visited one of the famous stores in Paris – Galeries Lafayette, you will notice that it’s logo represents Paris with its joined letters “t” to form Eiffel Tower. C’est magnificique!

Logo !N3K8


The complexity of this logo is its beauty. It is a business and IT consulting company based in the UK and the logo is a combination of numeric and alphabets to explain the word “intricate”.

Heart Beats
Although it is quiet evident but still I liked the concept a lot. Two musical notes are bent in a way to make a heart and and headphns. The softness of this logo expresses “Love for Music“

18 comments:

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