The brief side discussion about logos that supposedly represent airplane propellers over in the thread about companies known for two completely disparate products got me thinking about meanings behind corporate logos more generally.
Many logos are just meaningless swoosh things, or the company’s name written in a stylized way, but there are plenty that do have some meaning behind them. A few that I am aware of:
Audi: The four rings represent the four companies that merged to form Auto Union, which later became Audi.
Volvo: An ancient alchemist symbol for iron (among other things). Sweden was once know for making high quality steel, so the symbol was chosen to represent strength and durability, and that the cars were made from quality Swedish steel.
Northwest Airlines: Their old logo was both an N with a compass pointing northwest, and a W with a slash through it. Pretty clever.
What are some other logos with interesting meanings behind them that you’re aware of?
VAIO was a brand used by Sony to sell personal computers, though now it’s an independent company. The Wikipedia article notes that “the logo is stylized to make the “VA” look like a sine wave and the “IO” like binary digits 1 and 0, the combination representing the merging of analog and digital signals.”
And of course there’s the arrow in the FedEx logo and the arrow leading from A to Z in the Amazon logo.
The iconic IBM logo has gone through numerous revisions. Aside from the very early logos, for a long time the logo was slight variations of the letters “IBM” in heavy block letters with distinct large serifs, revised in 1956 and suggesting strength and stability.
In 1962 the logo was brilliantly modernized by representing the letters as a series of 13 horizontal strips rather than sold colour. While I haven’t seen an official explanation for this design, it was attractive and to me always suggested the scan lines of a CRT monitor. In 1972, the design was slightly changed to use only 8 horizontal lines instead of 13, which gave the logo a lighter look and was explained as suggesting speed and dynamism. That logo is still used today.
Another computer company, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) also went through several logo redesigns, but only a few. They briefly used the capital letters “DIGITAL” within a rectangle, white on black or vice versa, but in 1957 settled on the permanent design of the lower-case letters “digital”, each rendered in white on seven black or blue rectangles, the rectangles obviously intending to convey the concept of discrete digital technology.
This design remained until the company’s buyout by Compaq, which itself was acquired later by HP. Except for one slight change in 1993. At that time the company was going through great turmoil and the original president and founder was replaced. The new guy decided that the historic white-on-blue logo should be replaced by white-on-burgundy, because the burgundy colour conveyed the concept of “trust”. There was a lot to trust about DEC, who were well known for their ethical treatment of both employees and customers, but the colour change didn’t help their fortunes.
6 stars. Because apparently, the Japanese know how to count. A person with normal vision can see 6 stars with the naked eye. The seventh and eighth brightest are significantly dimmer than those, and about equal in brightness, so someone with very good vision can see 8. But there’s only a very tiny slice of people who would see 7.
And not a company, but Obama’s campaign logo was pure genius. It’s the letter O, of course, but it’s also evocative of the US flag, and it also looks like the sun rising over a farm field.
