Logos used to be arguments#
The good ones solved a specific problem for a specific audience.
- Levi’s, founded 1873, was known as the two horse brand until 1928. The mark survived the rename by about a century.
- Lacoste turned a tennis player’s on-court nickname, the Crocodile, into a mark stitched onto the shirt he’d designed himself. An athlete building a personal brand roughly a hundred years before that was a job.
- Tommy Hilfiger’s flag is the maritime signal flag for the letter H. The blue is there to finish the preppy nautical idea.
Each one is doing work. Compare that to most marks now, which exist to be recognised and nothing else.
Borrowed myth lasts longer than borrowed style#
- Nike is the Greek goddess of victory, and the swoosh is her wing. It was drawn by a design student, Carolyn Davidson, who was paid $35 in 1971. In 1983 she was given 500 shares of original Nike stock, now worth well over a million dollars. A rare story with a decent ending.
- Versace’s Medusa came from a mosaic in ruins near where Gianni Versace grew up. The intent was literal: clothes striking enough that you can’t look away, the way you can’t look away from her.
- Patek Philippe’s Calatrava cross is four fleurs-de-lis, taken from the Knights of Calatrava, a 12th-century order sworn never to remove their armour. Patek himself was knighted in 1865.
- Rolex’s crown has five points and the name has five letters. The name wasn’t anybody’s surname — it was chosen because it worked in every language. Gold for excellence in watchmaking, green for prosperity, and a slogan about a crown for every achievement.
Some meanings are invented afterwards#
Worth holding onto, because it’s the honest counterweight.
Adidas does not stand for All Day I Dream About Sports. It’s Adolf Dassler’s name, compressed. The backronym came later, from people who wanted the mark to mean more than it did.
This happens constantly. A logo becomes famous, and the story grows to fit the fame rather than the other way round. The Trefoil showed up in 1972 when the company moved into clothing; the three-stripe mountain of the 1990s stands for the climb an athlete has to make. Both are real. The acronym isn’t.
Burberry’s knight carried a banner reading Prorsum — Latin for forward — for 117 of the company’s roughly 170 years, and was retired in 2018. Burberry didn’t invent the trench coat, though it made more of them than anyone in the early twentieth century. Even the heritage marks are a bit more improvised than the heritage suggests.
The best one isn’t what you think#
The Jumpman first appeared on the Air Jordan 3 in 1988, taken from a 1984 photograph shot before the Olympics. Michael Jordan is holding the ball in his left hand. He dunked right-handed. He wasn’t dunking at all — by his own account he was doing a ballet pose for the camera.
The most athletic silhouette in sportswear is a man posing. It sat unused until another Nike artist found it again.
Where “hidden meaning” oversells it#
None of this is hidden. It was all public, and most of it was the entire point at the time. What happened is that the meaning got forgotten while the mark kept going, which is the opposite of a secret.
That’s the actually interesting bit. A logo that outlives its own explanation is a logo that worked.
A few small things to try:
- Look at what’s on your jeans and your watch and see whether you know why.
- If you’re making a mark for anything, encode one promise, not a mood.
- Be sceptical of any brand story that’s an acronym.
- Treat the good ones as conversation, because that’s what they’re for now.
