A journal of iconic marks
The history, design choices and meaning behind the world’s most famous logos, plus ideas for designing your own.
The PlayStation logo was drawn in 1994 by Manabu Sakamoto, for a company that made televisions and Walkmans and had never sold a games console. His answer was two letters, a P and an S, arranged so they seem to stand in three-dimensional space, which was exactly what the console was promising to do with games.
Most luxury houses sign their goods with initials. Versace chose the face of a monster from Greek myth, the Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone. It is one of the strangest logos in fashion and one of the most effective.
The Jeep logo has no animal, no crest and no shield. It is four letters in a sturdy sans-serif, and it has carried one of the best-known names in the car business since the vehicle came out of World War II.
American Express started in 1850 as a freight company, hauling goods across the American West, and its first logo looked like it: a bold, plain “American Express Co.” with nothing to suggest luxury. The blue box and the Roman Centurion came much later, once the business had moved from shipping parcels to traveler’s checks and charge cards.
Bacardi’s bat goes back to 1862, when Don Facundo Bacardí Massó found a colony of fruit bats roosting in the rafters of his Cuban distillery and decided they were a good omen. More than 160 years later, the same animal still sits above the name on every bottle.
Look at the pink parts of the Baskin Robbins “BR” and you will find a 31, the number of flavors the founders promised, one for every day of the month. That small trick has done more for the brand than any color change.
The devil on Manchester United’s crest is borrowed from a rugby league team. Salford’s players were nicknamed the Red Devils, United took the name, and by the 1970s a pitchfork-carrying imp sat in the middle of the club’s red, gold and black shield.
Uniqlo’s logo is two red squares, one with the name in Japanese katakana and one in Roman letters, and it is close to the plainest mark any big fashion brand uses. That plainness is the whole strategy.
The Under Armour logo is two letters, a “U” stacked on an “A,” drawn so tightly together that most people read it as a single symmetrical X. It has barely changed since Kevin Plank started the company in 1996, and that refusal to change is a large part of why it works.
Spotify picked green partly because nobody else in music had claimed it. Apple and Napster had blue and red, and a Swedish startup that wanted to look different from both went for a bright, slightly acid green that it still uses today.
Borrow the lessons of the greats: simplicity, a memorable shape, a colour that owns a feeling. Then start sketching your mark.
Logo ideas
