They are a popular symbol of a consumer society, but company logos play a more subliminal role than most people imagine. If designed and conceived properly, a logo can indicate, with one image, what your company is all about. Ultimately, a company?s logo becomes a recognition tool for the public, an essential part of a company?s branding. We can all recall the world?s iconic logos?Nike?s swish, Ferrari?s prancing horse, Apple?s apple or McDonald?s golden arches. Yet, quite a few consumers miss the subtle touches in a logo, even though they may identify with the brand and are actually customers. Here are the most prominent examples cited by those into design philosophy:
Picasa: The popular website for organising, editing and sharing digital photos (now owned by Google) has a logo that represents the shutter mechanism in a camera. Look closer and you will discover that the white space within the shutter actually depicts a house (casa in Spanish), implying it is meant for your personal photographs. The Pi stands for Picasso, the famous artist.
Wikipedia: We use it every day without quite getting the subtlety behind the design of the unfinished globe constructed from jigsaw pieces with some missing at the top. Each piece is stamped with a glyph (letter or character) from a writing system. This represents the multilingual reach of Wikipedia. The glyphs include letters from Greek (Omega), Arabic, Georgian, Hindi (akshar) and Kannada (akshara). They actually represent the first letter of ?Wikipedia? written in that script. The empty space at the top of the logo symbolises the fact that the project is as yet incomplete with updates, additional information and languages being constantly added.
Volvo: Very few people realise that the name Volvo literally translates to ?I Roll? in Latin. Before manufacturing cars, Volvo made ball bearings and the name is a throwback to that era. The big Mars symbol with the arrow is also a reference to what Volvo was involved in earlier; it was a key player in Sweden?s iron and steel sector.
The North FacE: Most of the company?s products?apparel, equipment and shoes?are meant for mountaineers, climbers and hikers. The name was chosen because the north face of a mountain is always the coldest and most treacherous side, as in Everest. In fact, the logo chosen for the company is an interpretation of Yosemite National Park?s Half Dome, once believed to be inaccessible.
Tour de France: Tour de France is the world?s most prestigious and toughest bicycle race staged annually in France (won most times by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong), but very few people who glance at the branding for the race notice the cyclist hidden in the logo. Only on closer examination is it possible to spot the stylised image of a cyclist connected to the yellow circle, which represents a bicycle wheel, as well as the sun, to indicate that the race takes place only during daytime.
Mercedes-Benz: The three-pointed star is among the most recognisable logos in the world, but not many know what it really stands for. It was designed by the founder of Daimler-Benz, Gottlieb Daimler, to symbolise the company?s dominant corporate position on land, sea and air. The original company, or companies, manufactured engines for submarines, aircraft and tanks, apart from automobiles.
Unilever: The U-shaped logo of multinational giant Unilever is barely noticed since the multiple brands under its ownership are identified by their individual logos. Yet, a magnified look at the parent logo reveals 26 icons intricately woven together to form the U shape, which actually represent products that Unilever makes or markets, from hair to a palm tree (oils), the DNA double helix (for bio-science), a hand (skin and touch) and sauces and spreads, among others.
Amazon: That distinctive yellow arrow in the Amazon logo is more than a decorative swoosh. It is meant to convey the message that it sells everything from A to Z (the arrow connects the two letters) but seen another way, it is intended to represent the smile that customers would experience by shopping on the site.