If you are using the Internet, chances are you will see this logo at least once a day. This logo is a testimony to the fact that Google likes things to be simple. The logo is very simple, has primary colors and has nothing artistic. Unlike other “designer” logos, this one isn’t meant for conveying a message. This logo just happened and became one of the most famous icons of the Internet.
Sergey Brin created first Google logo in September 1998 in the open source graphics software GIMP. And since Sergey wasn’t a designer, he applied simple effects that any novice graphics artist would apply to a piece of text in a powerful image editing software. Sergey used primary colours, added some emboss effect to make it look like 3D and Google had its first logo ready!
Later in November 1998 they added a shadow to the letters, changed the colours a bit and added a Yahoo! like exclamation mark which was quickly dropped.
The current Google logo is slimmer and sexier. It was designed by designer Ruth Kedar. The logo uses a font called Catull.
In 1999 Larry Page and Sergey Brin visited the Burning Man Festival. They modified the Google logo to indicate that they will be at the festival. Some of the users though Google had adopted that logo forever an they received quite a few messages praising or criticizing the new logo. Larry and Sergey were encouraged by this experiment and they deiced to celebrate various events in Google style through a Google Doodle. Initially they were designed by were designed by an outside contractor later the task was given to intern designer Dennis Hwang who designs them to this date.
View All the Google Doodles till date.
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A great company founded by a great inventor! Thomas Alva Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878 to manufacture and sell his new invention - incandescent electric lamp. Later Edison combined all his businesses under Edison General Electric Company that merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892 to form the General Electric Company.
GE’s logo has changed little since inception. The original logo was designed almost 100 years ago. Actually, it was just a badge for the center of one of the first electric fans. You can see this in the first of it’s kind GE logo. The fans were lost in the history but the swirly logo remains the same although it has gone thorough minor revision over the time. Click on the thumbnail image of the fan to view the full sized image.
Old GE Logos:
Current logo was adopted in 2004 when GE also changed its corporate color. The new logo was designed by Wolff Olins. GE also adopted a new slogan, “imagination at work” replacing the longtime slogan “we bring good things to life”.
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Anybody who is somewhat familiar with the world of business and stock market will recognize this logo instantly. A raging bull makes for a perfect logo for a company that is “bullish on America”. Charles E Merrill & Co. was founded by Charles Merrill on January 6, 1914. Soon Edmund Lynch joined the company and it became became Merrill, Lynch & Co. Today Merrill Lynch is one of the iconic names on the Wall Street.
The existing logo of the company was adopted in 1974. The logo was designed by King Casey Designs for Marketing, Inc. (now King-Casey Inc). Three years earlier, the company had come up with a marketing campaign “Merrill Lynch is bullish on America” during a baseball World Series. So the designers might have derived the inspiration from that campaign.
The bull in the logo has its tail up and is ready for a charge with a bent front leg. It is holding it’s head high thus it symbolizes growth, strength, optimism and confidence.
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What started out as AuctionWeb as a section of a programmer’s homepage became world’s largest online marketplace. The primary colored overlapping logo of eBay stands for what the company is all about.
eBay started out as AuctionWeb on September 3, 1995 and the first logo was indicative of it’s humble beginnings. The boxy black and white logo with a white to black gradient bar was known as the “Death Bar” by early eBay staffers.
By September 1997, AuctionWeb officially became eBay but it had no logo! The homepage just contained the name eBay in big black block letters. This was to change pretty soon and for good.
eBay roped in Silicon Valley’s renowned branding expert Bill Cleary of CKS Group to assist them in branding and redesigning of the website and logo. CKS designed several logos and the current eBay logo was eventually selected. Each aspect of the logo conveys a distinct message that describes the company’s values.
The primary colors of the logo depict fun, excitement and childlike energy. The overlapping letters of the logo are suggestive of the bonding within the eBay user community. The letters are not on the same level, they have what graphic artists call “baseline shift”. It gives the logo an offbeat feel and shows that company is not averse to change and that its a dynamic company that is always evolving. The unusual capitalization of the letters also shows that company accepts change when it is for good. Letter B is not capitalized in the logo even though the name of the company is written as eBay. Designers at CKS thought a capital B would look like a roadblock in the middle of the logo so they capitalized letter Y instead.
Logos should reflect the personality of the company and to some extent of the founders. Bill Cleary described the logo as being “friendly, open, accessible and having a little bit of the pony-tail about it”.
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Coca-Cola’s logo is perhaps the world’s most famous and most recognized brand icon. It is a logo that has not changed ever since it was created.
Coca-Cola was invented by a pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton on May 8, 1886. His bookkeeper and partner Frank M. Robinson suggested the name Coca-Cola and also came up with the now famous flowing logo in Red Spencerian script. Frank also invented the very first tag line of the new drink - “Delicious and Refreshing”. Frank happened to be the publicity director of the fledging soda drink company at that time and he though two Cs would look good in advertising.
Trivia: Did you ever notice there was a hyphen (-) between the words Coca and Cola in the logo and in the name? It’s a part of the registered trademark and one should always use it when referring to Coca-Cola!
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Everybody recognizes the golden arches of the McDonalds. This logo is so simple yet so elegant! Generally no designer would use the combination of red and yellow in a logo. But McDonalds is an exception. Here the red and yellow complement each other.
The Golden Arches logo was created by Jim Schindler in 1962. It was inspired from the arch shaped signs on sides of the McDonalds restaurants. The golden arches were introduced in the restaurant design in 1953. Jim Schindler combined the two arches and formed an “M”. The golden arches logo replaced the earlier “Speedee” chef logo. In 1968 the word McDonald was added to the arches.
The arches signify a shelter under which you can get a refuge. A safe place to have your break and eat. Over the years, the golden arches have become a symbol of capitalism and Americanism.
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The three stripes of Adidas can be seen everywhere. They are on the shoes, they are on the jerseys of your favorite football team, they are on T-shirts, and on many more things. Adolf-Adi-Dassler founded Adidas in 1949 in Herzogenaurach, Germany along with his brother Rudolf (Who later founded rival sportswear maker Puma). The three stripes logo was created by Adi Dassler himself. Since then the stripes have become a symbol of comfort, durability and toughness.
The three stripes which are shaped like mountain signify the challenges faced by the athletes. Chances are that it was inspired by the side view of a shoe with a lace. The triangular shape of the logo looks like a shoe while the white space between stripes may signify shoelace.
The stripes have become so much of a part of Adidas’ identity that they have adapted different variations of it for their various business units. In 1971 Adidas came out with a Trefoil Logo which became its corporate identity for the next few years.
Today the company has three different versions of the logo for its three different businesses. The Modern Performance logo, The Classic Trefoil logo and the Y-3 logo.
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Michelin’s Tire-Man is probably one of the best known company mascots around the world. It is not just a logo but a persona. The cute fat man has been used in all forms of promotional activities and branding by Michelin since 1898.
His official name is Bibendum or Michelin man. He’s the “living tire” as the company calls him. At the Lyon Universal Exhibition in 1884, brothers Édouard and André Michelin saw a pile of stacked tires which looked like the shape of a human. They took the idea forward and artist O’Galop (Marius Rossillon) created the Michelin Man.
Over the time the number of tires in his body and their types have been changed to keep up with the latest trend in the tire industry. Bibendum has become slimmer and cuter with the passage of time. The first logo that O’Galop designed consisted of bicycle tires, he wore glasses and smoked a cigar. By the 1980s Bibendum was being shown as running instead of just standing.
The present day slimmed down version was unveiled in 1998 on his 100th anniversary. A slim trim Michelin Man reflects today’s hi-tech but small tires and depicts athleticism, speed and strength.
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This signature like logo of Virgin group can be compared with the personality traits of Richard Branson - founder of Virgin group with interests in airlines, space travel, colas, mobiles, hotels and much more. The way it rises from left to right, it signifies, progress and upward movement. This is evident from Virgin group’s rise from a record label to a space travel organizer.
The logo was designed by designer Ray Kyte in the early 1970s. Branson mentions the logo in his autobiography as being his personal endorsement with the “V” forming an expressive tick.
The very first logo of Virgin was designed for Virgin Records by English illustrator Roger Dean. The logo known as “Gemini” or “Twins” depicted a young naked woman in mirror image sitting on top of a long-tailed serpent. That logo might have been appropriate for an upcoming rock record label but certainly not for Branson’s later ventures.
Trivia: When Branson was brainstorming for a name with his collegues, one girl suggested Virgin because they all were new to the business - kind of virgins. Branson liked the name. Another name that branson liked was “Slipped Disk“!
Any takers for Slipped Disk Airlines, or Slipped Disk Mobile?
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The logo of IBM - International Business Machines - the “big blue” company is widely recognized across the world. The logo stands for innovation, speed, dynamism and the technological prowess of the company.
IBM got its name in 1924 when the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed International Business Machines. The spherical shaped earth like logo was perfect for a company that was spreading its business globally. The word International was orbiting the globe created with words Business and machines.
As the company made transition from punched card readers to computers, the logo got a total makeover. On January 1, 1947 the bulky looking globe was replaced with just IBM in a simple looking font called Beton Bold. By now the IBM brand was recognizable enough for the company to have such a simple looking logo and yet be recognized.
In May 1956 famed graphic designer Paul Rand (Who has also designed ABC, UPS and many other famous logos) designed a new solid logo with a typeface called City Medium. The new logo looked solid and balanced in appearance. In 1972, Paul added stripes to the logo which is the current logo of IBM.
There are total of eight equally spaced stripes in the logo. Many people believe that stripes signify the scan lines on a TV or computer monitor’s screen implying the state of the art technology of the company. However Rand said that he made the striped version just because stripes get noticed. He was probably right because a lot of companies in the 70s and 80s imitated the IBM logo and added stripes to their own logos.
Trivia: Since there are eight stripes in the logo, some suggest they stand for eight bits that make up a byte.
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