A brief history of logo design… Where did logo design start?
A logo Design history. Logos have existed long before the Coca-Cola logo, they have existed for thousands of years, they have evolved quite significantly but logos were used even by Ancient Egyptians. Ancient Egyptians branded their animals with hieroglyphs to mark their ownership.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Image source: www.ritournelleblog.com
There is a coin in existence that bears the head of a roaring lion with sun rays over its head, this coin is from the 6th century BC.
Coin from 6th Century BC
Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo
The Ancient Romans and Greeks marked their pottery to indicate who the maker was. From as early as the 12th century through to medieval times, heraldic designs or Coat of Arms were used to identify the status and property of nobility. These marks were basically logos used to signify or distinguish just as modern logos do today.
20th Century Logos for Advertising
Now moving to the 20th Century where businesses commenced using logos for differentiation of their products and services as they are used today. But the marketing side was very different to how it is today, today you have targeted marketing for each individual company, in those times this was non existent which meant that designers used similar images and designs to advertise various products, this made much of the marketing very similar in style to others.
Below are examples of similar designs of advertising for soft drink brands
She Baby Ginger Soft Drink
Royal Canadian Cola
Twin Lights Ginger Ale
Image credits: www.flickr.com
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
The Evolution of 20th Century Logos
Over the past century, logos have grown as have the amount of businesses. Designers started designing more simple designs that could be more easily interpreted. We saw the evolution of the older logos like Pepsi- Cola, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Pepsi-Cola even changed their name to just Pepsi. But Coca-Cola kept their name and although the logo was enhanced it was only slightly.
Below is an example of how Pepsi-Cola changed to Pepsi and how Cola-Cola changed their logo also.
Pepsi-Cola/Pepsi and Coca-Cola Logos Evolution
Today the design of logos has moved from pretty pictures to complex marketing strategies but the actual designs have moved from complex to more simple and less busy styles making the best logos better to understand. These days the aim of a great logo is for it to be immediately recognised and for it to target a specific audience. But no matter how much logos change they will always remain. Sometimes overlooked and some don’t give them a thought, but for the branding World and the business World logos are very much important!
So the next time you see the Coca-Cola logo and the Pepsi logo, remember that these logos have been seen and lived by many, these logos have been around for longer than you have. That is a logo design history!
The logos displayed on this post are copyright of the designers that created them and the owners of the logos.
Thanks for reading A Logo Design History!
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