Logos. As far as brands are concerned, they mean the world - and for consumers, they mean a lot too. They’re the immediately recognisable symbols that brand fans swear by, and the icons that are a mark of distinction. Some companies plough massive amounts of money, time and energy into the redesign of their corporate identity, and a whole slew of companies exist to cater just to this niche area of design.
For every company worth its salt, the weighty question of whether to update their logo in line with changing consumer tastes and design trends is one that’s endlessly deliberated, argued and considered. It’s understandable - any change in the area of corporate identity comes with a wide range of questions that need to be asked: how will the consumers react? Can it be easily applied across all applications? Is it too much of a departure from the familiar version, and is it even necessary? Come with us we review how logo evolution worked (or didn’t) for some of the world’s biggest brands.
First up: the biggest brand on Planet Logo, the big red grandpappy of all soft drinks - Coca-Cola. There’s a great story behind this logo - which we covered in a previous post - but let’s take a look at how it’s progressed through the years. The first version saw the widely-used Spencerian Script used in the USA in the late 1800s provide the basis of the logo that’s now known the world over. The amazing thing - and there’s a cautionary tale here for brands eager to shake off logos that they perceive as ‘old’ or ‘dated’ - is that, despite many sub-identities having being added to the Coca-Cola brand over the years, the primary logo has undergone only slight updates, and remains more or less the same as the one originally created by Frank M. Robinson in 1886. That’s an object lesson in standing the test of time.
Just as consumers have turned their noses up at the original formula of Coke being changed, so it seems people like the world’s favourite cola logo to stay exactly as it has always been. Over the years the only deviation from the full ‘Coca-Cola’ has been the introduction of the ‘Coke’ logo in the 1980s, which has since been retired. Other than this, the only other addition to the primary logo has been the addition, in the 1960s, of the trademarked ‘dynamic ribbon’ device, below the flowing script logotype - and that was a visual differentiator which references the shapely curve of the Contour Bottle, also trademarked. All other versions used by the Coca-Cola Company nowadays are combinations of the script, dynamic ribbon and bottle tops. A truly classic logo? Without a doubt.
Next up: no review of logo evolution would be satisfactory without a look at how one of the USA’s biggest clothing retailers made a serious - and likely very expensive - about-turn. In 2010, the mighty Gap announced that it was undergoing a corporate ID change. The rationale behind Gap’s thinking was much the same as many brands experience from time to time - that their identity needed a refresh. Now, a refresh is a good thing, when handled appropriately. On October 6th 2010, Gap pushed out the rebrand boat, and millions of people chipped in their opinions on the relatively new social media network Facebook- and most were utterly scathing about what Gap’s then-Vice President of Corporate Comms Bill Chandler described as “a more contemporary, modern expression”.
The result? Quite possibly the fastest re-rebrand of all time: Gap changed its logo a week later, back to the well-known blue square. Once again, another lesson in ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ - and how it’s important to never underestimate just how sacred an identity can be be for brand fans.
A good example of a company whose logo has changed greatly over time would be Kodak. When founded in 1889, the logo reflected the combination of the name of its founder, George Eastman, and the name ‘Kodak’, which he and his mother came up with whilst messing around with anagrams. In the late 1800s, a logo based on lettering was quite typical, but as design trends and tastes began to evolve in the years that followed, so did the Kodak logo.
As the leading photographic brand in the USA (if not the world) at the time, the Kodak logo went through many changes - firstly in 1935, when it made a dramatic departure from monochrome to the yellow and red rectangular version. Over the years that followed, this colour scheme became sacred and survived rebranding in 1960, and ultimately only fell by the wayside almost a century later, in 1987. Only then did the logotype emerge as the identity which we know today - a sans-serif ‘Kodak’ in red on white.
The above examples show 3 routes that logos may take over time, but it’s worth bearing in mind that not all brands follow the above examples. The reasons for this are numerous. Some companies are amalgamated into bigger brands, and adopt elements of their new parent company. Others have a fundamental shift in their offering, and the logo may morph to express this change in focus. Others still are subject to the whims of their directors or brand managers, or believe that a regular refresh keeps them ahead of the pack. There’s no standard to logo evolution - the reasons are as diverse as the number of companies out there - but this will always remain a contentious area for both brands and consumers. The simple fact is that an identity carries a lot of much weight, and any changes should be very carefully considered.
Thanks for reading up on logos here on Springleap - if you enjoyed this, you’ll love our previous article on the History of 3 Famous Logos, here.
