“Although his son, the President of the company, had initiated the corporate identity program, the Chairman and retired founder, Kazuo Tashima, remained skeptical of such fancy new ways.

“During the initial consultation process, he listened to my proposals in stony silence. At one point when I was speaking, Mr. Tashima plucked a miniaturized Minolta camera from its display stand, and said ‘Gentlemen, we have a very small product. There is hardly enough room on it for a name, let alone a symbol!’

“I paused a moment. ‘Mr. Tashima,’ I said, ‘your company has a perfectly symmetrical name — three letters on each side of a circle — and the circle is the perfect place for a symbol.’ I then reached over and took Herb Yager’s pipe out of his hand; it was a Dunhill pipe. I pointed to the traditional white Dunhill dot and said, ‘This is what you need — a magic dot.’ That did it. From then on the old lion was intrigued.”

Excerpted from page 348 of the superb book Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, published by Laurence King.

The trademark dot on Dunhill pipes, photo credit PipesMagazine

The Minolta corporate identity applied

Minolta merged with Konica in 2003 to form Konica Minolta.

Saul shared a little advice for design students in this video (embedded below).

From the LDL archives: Saul Bass logos: then and now.

Minolta logo (top) credit: I is someone else

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Saul Bass logos: then and now
• Kodak logo evolution
• De-cluttered logos
• Ferrari logo history
• Brandversations

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

—

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

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Ferrari logo history
• BMW logo evolution
• Saul Bass logos: then and now
• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”
• Penguin logo evolution

This type of stamp — known as the “definitive” version — usually only features an image of the Queen. Royal Mail said it was the first time a logo had been beside the Queen’s head on a “definitive” (everyday) stamp.

Sets of “everyday” first class stamps displaying the Olympic and Paralympic logos will go on sale this week in shops around the UK. They will be available from all 11,800 Post Office branches and from thousands of retailers from 5 January.

Via Mail Online.

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Madrid 2020 logo causes controversy
• Rio 2016 Paralympic Games logo
• Trademark symbols, what’s the point?
• Brand New Conference
• Sochi 2014 Olympic logo

“The once iconic brand was deemed dull and lifeless by consumers and business customers alike. The power of the portfolio could only be fully leveraged by aligning it under a single-minded story that could rally various businesses and over 300,000 employees world-wide behind a unified strategy and behaviours.”

You can, and should, view the full result here on the Moving Brands website. Watching the videos gives a taster of the massive scale of the project.

—

Update: 16 December 2011
The case study and all videos have been taken off the Moving Brands website, as discovered via Identity Works, with the following statement shown:

“We have removed the HP case study per the request of HP, in order to clarify the distinction between the aspects of the work that were setting a creative vision for the brand but were not implemented in the market, and the aspects which reflect the actual in-market applications of the Identity and Design System. The ‘Progress mark’ logo is not the go-forward direction for HP.”

—

My hat’s off, regardless of whether the new design is fully implemented. It’s a fascinating insight into an identity redesign for one of the world’s largest companies.

Seen and discussed elsewhere:
Brand New
Creative Review

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• You could remove the logo and still know the brand
• The work of venturethree
• Brand alphabets, Chicken Now, the Apple logo designer, and a fuss over nothing
• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”
• DC Entertainment

“Unilever, the Anglo Dutch company with a portfolio of well known brands within nutrition, hygiene, and personal care. They appointed Wolff Olins to help create a new brand for the company, clearly expressing it’s vitality mission.

“The logo consists of twenty six icons intricately woven together to form a U, replacing the old logo that had been used since 1970. Working with creative director Lee Coomber, we used a fluid creative process whereby we thought about how and what Unilever does, whilst drawing icons and the U simultaneously.”
— MILES NEWLYN

From Miles Newlyn‘s website.

Unilever icons explained

Above images from Unilever

Above image from Unilever’s flower advert

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Literally
• Birds of a feather flock together
• Woolmark logo
• 33 logos in 33 minutes
• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”

“If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of ownership of the mark, regardless of whether you have filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, you may only use the federal registration symbol “®” after the USPTO actually registers a mark, and not while an application is pending.”

Quoted from the USPTO website.

So if anyone can use TM, isn’t it just adding clutter (as Starbucks have done)?

Starbucks website screenshot

Even when the ‘R’ symbol is used (shown below on the Adidas and McDonald’s websites), it looks more like a few stray pixels, a slip of the designer’s hand.

Adidas website screenshot

McDonald’s website screenshot

And when companies such as Nike, Mercedes-Benz, and Coca-Cola leave their main online logos free from this embellishment, is there really any point?

Nike website screenshot

Mercedes-Benz website screenshot

Coca-Cola website screenshot

Just something I’ve been wondering.

Related:
Logo trademarking tips: a legal perspective, on davidairey.com

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Logo > Queen
• Brand New Conference
• A conversation with Paul Rand
• Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.
• Experts critique business logos

Translated name marks (above).

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

—

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

—

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.

—

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

—

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Kodak logo evolution
• Ferrari logo history
• NASA logo evolution: meatball vs worm
• BMW logo evolution
• Saul Bass logos: then and now

“Some of the best logos are obvious, that’s what makes them resilient.”
— MICHAEL BIERUT

Red Cross, designed by Henri Dunant, 1863

Penguin, designed by Jan Tschichold, 1949

Blue Circle, designed by F H K Henrion, 1970

Puma

Shell, designed by Raymond Loewy, 1971

Apple, designed by Rob Janoff, 1977 (updated 1999)

Bell System, designed by Saul Bass, 1969

Greyhound, designed by Raymond Loewy, mid-1950s, (updated 2010 by Ajana Green of BSSP)

Chevron, designed by Lippincott Mercer, 1969 (updated 2005)

Sometimes, the design is in the name, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Unilever icons explained
• Birds of a feather flock together
• Woolmark logo
• 33 logos in 33 minutes
• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”

Reminds me of these honest logos.

Pepsi logo illustration by MODY-89, via Grace Oris.

From the archives: Thoughts about Pepsi

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• Thoughts about Pepsi
• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”
• Kodak logo evolution
• 2012 Olympic non-events
• Combined logos

“Lots of brands have the authority to de-clutter their logos, not just Apple and Nike. Maybe it’s time they were braver?”

Image via Stuart Watson

The ones below are accompanied by the respective brand names on their websites. Perhaps they’ll move to ditch the name online (as Apple and Nike have).

I suppose it’s an easier decision if, after removing the type, you’re still left with an image depicting the brand name.

Stuart Watson is creative director at London-based venturethree (I’ve featured the brand agency’s work for Little Chef and XL over on Identity Designed).

There’s a good post on Stuart’s blog about container branding. Worth a read.

A few credits via Logo and Symbol:
— Mitsubishi, by Yataro Iwasaki, 1870.
— Chase, by Tom Geismar, 1961.
— Penguin, by Edward Young, 1935, modified by Jan Tschichold, 1946, and Pentagram, 2003.
— Citroën, by André Citroën, 1903, redesigned by Landor Associates, 2009.
— Mercedes-Benz, 1909, modified 1916, 1937.
— WWF, by Sir Peter Scott, 1961, modified by Landor, 1986.

Published on Logo Design Love

Related posts on Logo Design Love

• “This is what you need — a magic dot.”
• Kodak logo evolution
• Ferrari logo history
• Brandversations
• Nike logo 40 year anniversary