As good a time as any to take a quick look at the Kodak logo evolution.

Image (above) and text (below) via Kodak website

Early 1900′s
Kodak is the first company to integrate its name and look into a symbol.

1930′s
Focus moved to the Kodak name and the red and yellow “trade dress” color.

1960′s
The corner curl was introduced.

1970′s
The mark retained the red and yellow colors and the Kodak name, but a box and graphic “K” element were added.

1980′s
A more contemporary type font streamlined the Kodak name within the existing logo.

Today
The box is gone, simplifying the logo. The rounded type font and distinctive “a” give the name a more contemporary look.

Kodak logo designed by Brand Integration Group, 2006

“The type-only successor to the brand’s 1971 vintage yellow-and-red K/arrow symbol is intended to offer a ‘more international and universal impact’, and to distance the company from its film and processing past.”

Quoted from Michael Evamy’s Logo.

Kodak was born in April 1880, when George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester. He began to manufacture dry plates for sale, and one of his first purchases was a second-hand engine priced at $125.

“I really needed only a one horse-power. This was a two horse-power, but I thought perhaps business would grow up to it. It was worth a chance, so I took it.”
— GEORGE EASTMAN

15 years ago Kodak’s market value was $31 billion (via Reuters).

The word “Kodak” was first registered as a trademark in 1888.

“I devised the name myself. The letter ‘K’ had been a favorite with me — it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made words starting and ending with ‘K.’ The word ‘Kodak’ is the result.”
— GEORGE EASTMAN

More Kodak history here.

Kodak signage via Techweek

Related:
Kodak: a fond farewell, on The Guardian
Don Draper pitching “The Carousel” to Kodak, on YouTube

Kodak signage via Below Stairs

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A few previous logo evolution features:
BMW
NASA
Paramount
Penguin
Waterstones

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In May 2010, the UK’s largest high street bookseller Waterstones launched a new brand identity. The design work was created by London-based venturethree.

venturethree’s 2010 design

The following was added to the Waterstones press office yesterday (11th January):

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Waterstones, the UK’s largest high street bookseller, has today revealed a new logo for the company. It reinstates the much-loved Baskerville serif font with a capital W and no longer features an apostrophe.

James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones said: “Waterstones is an iconic brand deserving a capital W, and a font that reflects authority and confidence — Baskerville does just that.”

“Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling. It also reflects an altogether truer picture of our business today which, while created by one, is now built on the continued contribution of thousands of individual booksellers.”

The new design and spelling of the Waterstones logo will gradually be implemented in all written communication, display material, online and shop fits and refurbishments.

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Waterstones logo evolution

The move “sparked outrage” (Daily Mail) among those who insist the apostrophe should remain. John Richards, chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society said, “It’s just plain wrong. It’s grammatically incorrect. If Sainsbury’s and McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstone’s? You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

Tim Waterstone launched the company in 1982 using £6,000 of redundancy money from WH Smith, before selling to his former employer for £47M 11 years later.

According to The Bookseller, the lower case FS Albert Pro logo by venturethree had only been transferred onto 25 of the company’s 310 stores. If correct, it’ll be less expensive to revert to the old design than to continue with the lower-case roll-out.

I can only guess at what the 2009/10? design brief was, but if Waterstones asked for a fresh, more dynamic identity, venturethree certainly delivered. Saying that, and from an outsider’s viewpoint, I was never convinced of the need to change.

Reported elsewhere:
Waterstones ditches apostrophe, on The Telegraph
Waterstones gives up on its apostrophe, on Mail Online
The Waterstone’s apostrophe. Who care’s? on Plain Text
Apostrophcalypse now, on Asbury & Asbury
Out with the old and in with the old, on CR Blog

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Update:
An employee at Waterstones Oxford Street spotted the abandoned apostrophe while walking to work.

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“It started with the simple logo and name, suggested, allegedly, by a typist who was earwigging the board meeting. Allen had already hit upon the idea of an animal logo, inspired by the template offered by the contemporary publishing house The Albatross Library. “It was the obvious answer, a stroke of genius,” said Penguin’s original designer, Edward Young. “I went straight off to the zoo to spend the rest of the day drawing penguins in every pose.” The clear logo was matched with the archetypal modern, but not too scarily modern, typeface, Gill Sans, and the now classic three-band cover, with colours related to the subject: orange for fiction, dark blue for biography, etc.”

Quoted from The Guardian.

Photo via The Fales Library

“Edward Young, who designed Penguin’s famous ‘dignified but flippant’ logo and the colour scheme for its book covers was a submariner during the war. His boat was involved in a collision which saw it sank to the bottom of the North Sea, but Young escaped by swimming to the surface.”

Quoted from jkr’s new book Champions of Design.

Penguin’s original logo designer, Edward Young, pictured above right

Edward Young’s obituary in The Guardian.

The version of the logo you’ll be more familiar with is typographer Jan Tschichold‘s 1946 modification, and subsequent 2003 fine-tuning by Pentagram‘s Angus Hyland.

Image via The Terrier and Lobster

Photo from Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman’s Symbol

Image via Penguin Logo Guidelines

A classic logo. A classic brand.

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Embedded video also here on YouTube.

Via Brand New, after Paramount Pictures unveiled a new company logo to commemorate the studio’s 100th anniversary in show business.

The video shows the centenary proposal around the 2:55 mark, but it’s different from the design Armin published (below). I’m guessing this one’s the legit version.

Paramount’s 100th anniversary logo (image via Brand New)

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Related:
Bill Hicks on drugs and music (nsfw)
An interview with “Lord of the Logos” Christophe Szpajdel

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Translated name marks (above).

From top to bottom
Danish, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Russian.

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Update (thanks Jami, T):
Danish, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Russian.

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Company
Carlsberg, Denmark.

Design
Thorvald Bindesbøll, 1904 and 1987.

Thorvald Bindesbøll’s original Carlsberg label (above), designed 1904.

Translated logos scanned from Marks of Excellence.

Somewhat related are these honest logos.

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Update: 18 November 2011
@issue published an addition with these Coca-Cola logo translations.

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“The horse was painted on the fuselage of the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca — a heroic airman of the first world war. In ’23, I met count Enrico Baracca, the hero’s father, and then his mother, countess Paulina, who said to me one day, ‘Ferrari, put my son’s prancing horse on your cars. It will bring you good luck’. The horse was, and still is, black, and I added the canary yellow background which is the colour of Modena.”
— ENZO FERRARI

Learn more in this video from Ferrari.

Via @TheLogoFactory. Photo credit.

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You might like:
The stories behind car brand names
BMW logo evolution
Mercedes logo evolution

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“The old horse is gone to where the grass is always green, and a new horse has taken its place. We feel that this horse truly reflects our spirit — it’s stronger, clearer and even more dedicated. We like the connotations to the chess knight — with its mobility it’s a versatile and strong piece. And of course; we do like the ambience of the dark horse!”

This little flip book animation was made by Norway-based Commando Group’s French intern Charlotte Lamy.

Vimeo clip here for subscribers who can’t see it above.

Nicely done, Charlotte.

For Commando Group. Via @heydaysstudio.

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NASA’s original logo dates back to 1959 when the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) metamorphosed into an agency that would advance both space and aeronautics: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After a NASA Lewis Research Center illustrator’s design was chosen for the new agency’s official seal, the head of Lewis’ Research Reports Division, James Modarelli, was asked by the executive secretary of NACA to design a logo that could be used for less formal purposes.

The illustrator’s design before simplification

Mr Modarelli simplified the seal, leaving only the white stars and orbital path on a round field of blue with a red airfoil. Then he added white N-A-S-A lettering.

NASA’s meatball

In the “meatball” design, the sphere represents a planet, the stars represent space, the red chevron is a wing representing aeronautics (the latest design in hypersonic wings at the time the logo was developed), and then there is an orbiting spacecraft going around the wing.

Known officially as the insignia, NASA’s round logo was not called the “meatball” until 1975. That’s when NASA decided a more modern logo was in order.

Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn were hired to replace the complex meatball with a stripped-down, modernist interpretation where even the cross stroke of the A’s were removed. During the first design presentation, the proposed system was met with some resistance.

Danne remembers NASA’s administrator, Dr James Fletcher, and deputy administrator, Dr George Low, having the following exchange:

Fletcher: “I’m simply not comfortable with those letters, something is missing.”
Low: “Well, yes, the cross stroke is gone from the letter A.”
Fletcher: “Yes, and that bothers me.”
Low: “Why?”
Fletcher: (long pause) “I just don’t feel we are getting our money’s worth!”

Still, the new program was approved and implemented.

The “worm” — image via Galaxy Wire

17 years later, despite its winning the prestigious “Award of Design Excellence” by The Presidential Design Awards, NASA scrapped the Danne and Blackburn design and re-instated the “meatball.”

The “worm” on Star Trek — image via Ex Astris Scientia

Danne thinks this was at least partly due to how NASA chose to introduce the new logo to its various internal agencies in the first place. He says the redesign was kept secret until letters were sent to every center director… on their new stationary. Those loyal to the old design were offended, and a rivalry between the “meatball” and the “worm” began.

“Meatball” image via NASA

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Info excerpted from:
NASA “Meatball” Logo
Who Made Those NASA Logos? (via Chris Backert — thanks, Chris)
NASA insignia, on Wikipedia

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For some truly space-age web design, read the NASA Graphic Standards. And some of you will remember the NASA logo redesign post from last year.

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Update: 08 August 2011
NASA brand guidelines on Flickr.

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The four-minute video embedded below (email subscribers can view it on-site) talks about the origins of the BMW logo, dispelling the myth that the emblem was created around aircraft propellers.

The following info was transcripted from the video:

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Aircraft engines are the origin of the myth. People think that the BMW logo is based on a rotating airscrew. The origin of this interpretation is the cover of a BMW aircraft magazine. This picture (shown below) was taken in 1929, years after the logo first came into existence. Respect for the publicity department back then for the fact that the airscrew myth continues today.

1929 BMW aircraft magazine cover illustration (close-up)

But what’s really behind the origin of the logo? For those who are trying to answer this question unavoidably come across the aircraft engine manufacturer Rapp.

“As Rapp grew into BMW, BMW assumed all the business segments, and the company wanted the logo to be oriented on Rapp’s logo. As you can see here on this example, Rapp has a black horse as a symbol on its logo. BMW chose the Bavarian national colours as a symbol, but arranged the letters exactly like Rapp. So you can see very clearly how the BMW logo was developed.”
— KAI JACOBSEN, AUTOMOBILE HISTORIAN, BMW GROUP

Rapp Motoren Werke logo, Bayerische Motoren Werke logo

Flag of Bavaria, courtesy of Thinkstock

Other logo transitions through the years:

Starbucks logo evolution
Shell logo evolution
Mercedes-Benz logo evolution
Pepsi logo evolution
BBC logo evolution
Braun logo evolution
Batman logo evolution

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