{"id":4871,"date":"2011-02-11T11:09:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T10:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tokao.com\/2011\/02\/12\/rad-rebranding-how-10-famous-logos-have-changed-over-time\/"},"modified":"2011-02-11T11:09:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T10:09:26","slug":"rad-rebranding-how-10-famous-logos-have-changed-over-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/11\/rad-rebranding-how-10-famous-logos-have-changed-over-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Rad Rebranding: How 10 Famous Logos Have Changed Over Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A company\u2019s brand is a succinct but comprehensive embodiment of everything the company stands for. The best logos are recognizable, memorable and let you know what the company is about with just a glance. But even the biggest companies in the world have to change with the times and grow as their brand grows. While rebranding is an expensive (and sometimes risky) undertaking, these companies have thrown caution to the wind and changed up their logos \u2013 and most of them have done it over and over.<\/p>\n

Pepsi<\/h4>\n

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(images via: PSFK<\/a> and InstantShift<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Officially trademarked in 1903, Pepsi-Cola has gone through many changes over the years. Though each individual change wasn\u2019t drastic, the evolution has led to a logo with no trace of the original. This shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise considering the first few iterations looked surprisingly like the logo of their main competitor, Coca-Cola. The latest of these changes took approximately 5 months of research and cost in the neighborhood of $100 million (including costs of changing old logos and marketing literature).<\/h4>\n

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(image via: Blow at Life<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

It didn\u2019t take long after the introduction of the new curvy logo for Lawrence Yang to notice that it looked a bit like\u2026well, a guy who enjoyed a bit too much Pepsi. His hilarious (and free!) revamp of the new logo has been floating around on the Internet and reminding people of a bloated fat guy since 2009.<\/p>\n

Starbucks<\/h4>\n

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(images via: Starbucks<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Like Nike and Pepsi, Starbucks\u2019 logo recently evolved away from including the company name. The famous woodblock mermaid illustration now stands on her own sans the signature Starbucks font.<\/p>\n

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(image via: Felipe Torres<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Also like Pepsi, the 2011 logo change inspired some further logo alteration. This illustrated \u201cfuture\u201d of Starbucks\u2019 logo takes the company\u2019s trend to its logical conclusion: a close-up so extreme you can no longer tell what in the world it is supposed to be.<\/p>\n

Nike<\/p>\n

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(image via: Logo Design<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Nike\u2019s famous \u2018Swoosh\u2019 logo is universally recognized. Created in 1971 by a graphic design student at Portland State University (who was paid just $35 for her work), the logo was first used with the brand name appearing behind it. Though the original logos were never retired (you can still purchase \u2018vintage\u2019 gear with the original logos), a little over a decade after its inception the company opted to drop the brand name in favor of the \u2018Solo Swoosh\u2019.<\/p>\n

Wal-Mart<\/h4>\n

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(image via: InstantShift<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Before it became the giant retailer that it is today, Wal-Mart was a single discount store in Rogers, Arkansas. As the company grew by leaps and bounds, the logo underwent only minor changes. The \u201cDiscount City\u201d logo introduced in 1968 was used on employee smocks but never on store signage; when you take that logo out of the timeline it seems that the retailer hasn\u2019t made many drastic changes over the years. The most noticeable alteration was in 2008 when the star was moved from the middle of the name to the end, leaving the official Wal-Mart logo without a separator (like a hyphen or a star) for the first time in over 40 years. Interestingly, the current logo looks quite a bit like the company\u2019s original logo.<\/p>\n

Apple<\/h4>\n

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(image via: InstantShift<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Today, Apple has one of the most recognizable logos in the world, but the company\u2019s first logo was a complicated mess featuring Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, apple dangling above his head. The too-complex logo was scrapped after less than a year in favor of the iconic rainbow apple with a bite missing. When Steve Jobs returned to the helm of the company in 1997, the old rainbow was ditched in favor of a sleek, stylish monochrome apple which now features prominently on every product the company sells.<\/p>\n

Canon<\/h4>\n

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(image via: Neatorama<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

The Japanese imaging products company actually started life as Kwanon. The name was taken from the Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin, who is known in Japan as Kannon. When the company expanded in 1935, they adopted a name that they thought would appeal to a wider audience. Since \u201ccanon\u201d had a similar pronunciation and positive associations, the word became the company\u2019s new name. With the new name came a new, simple logo: the company\u2019s name in a typeface which at that time did not exist in North America or Europe. Since then the logo has undergone a few refinements, but no major overhauls.<\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/h4>\n

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(images via: LogoTalks<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Most technology companies are particularly concerned with keeping up with the times, which makes perfect sense. Microsoft, however, does not seem to care as much about keeping their image interesting as some other tech outfits. Microsoft\u2019s original logo (from 1975) was a disco-type font which didn\u2019t last long. The second logo (used from 1982-1987) featured a distinctive \u201cO\u201d which was known within Microsoft as a \u201cblibbet.\u201d In 1987 the current \u201cPac-Man\u201d logo was adopted (so called because of the slashed \u201cO\u201d) and since then various tag lines have accompanied the logo.<\/p>\n

Xerox<\/h4>\n

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(image via: InstantShift<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

You have to hand it to Xerox: they have come back from so many challenges \u2013 from market changes to accounting scandals \u2013 to keep on doing business more than a century after the company was founded. These days it seems like they spend more time trying to keep their company name from becoming a common verb than actually doing business, but they bravely soldier on. Their most recent logo reflects the company\u2019s desire to prove that they are more than just copiers.<\/p>\n

IBM<\/h4>\n

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(image via: Neatorama<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Name changes, mergers and changing times amounted to a century of logo updates from IBM. However, the most recent logo has remained in place for nearly forty years now while the machines sold by IBM have changed dramatically.<\/p>\n

Volkswagen<\/h4>\n

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(image via: InstantShift<\/a>)<\/h6>\n

Volkswagen, one of the world\u2019s most beloved car brands, actually started out life as a pet project of Adolf Hitler. After WWII, the British took control of the company and removed the graphical Nazi elements from the logo. The company\u2019s long, fascinating history has led to surprisingly few logo redesigns, with the company choosing instead to stick with the familiar stacked letters inside a circle.<\/p>\n

(from weburbanist<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A company\u2019s brand is a succinct but comprehensive embodiment of everything the company stands for. The best logos are recognizable, memorable and let you know what the company is about with just a glance. But even the biggest companies in the world have to change with the times and grow as their brand grows. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35,28],"class_list":["post-4871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-art","tag-weburbanist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}