LOGO DESIGN AND CORPORATE IDENTITY

The history of logo design and Corporate Identity

Enduring trade names such as Coca-Cola, Kodak and Heinz appeared around this time. However many of the logo designs from this era were cluttered with allegorical mottos, since few were actually designed from the hand of professional artists or logo designers.

A well known story of a logo design in our recent times began in the 1800's. Marcus Samuel, a curio dealer in London started selling shell-covered boxes to children and tourists. As his Shell Shop prospered he took on new merchandise of various kinds, adding jewels, kerosene and later oil. Eventually his company went world-wide by 1830, and consolidated as the Shell Transport and Trading Company in 1897. Because of his early specialty, the company adopted the simple drawing of a seashell as its trademark. It has since become the world's best known logo design.

One of the most enduring logos from this era is the Rock of Gibraltar. The rock achieved fame as impregnable to sieges when in 1779 1783 the Spaniards failed and failed again to recapture it from the British. To position the company as a great financial institution with this known strength, in 1896, Prudential adopted the Rock of Gibraltar as the company logo design. As the symbol tells the story better than words, it remain as one of the most effective trademark ever conceived.

Another enduring logo design from this era is the original script "GE". It was appeared sometime in the 1890s, possibly as a decorative element for the merchandise of General Electric Company. Though not without much scrutiny, it was adopted and evolved as a general trademark and corporate identity name survived to this day.

It has been said that World War III has already started. The war is fighting it out in business competitions. In the free enterprise society, instead of national flags, logos and trademarks are seen everywhere. You are likely able to find hundreds of logos and trademarks in the privacy of your home, and be exposed to ten of thousands of these signs and symbols on your way to work if you live in a cosmopolitan city. One can consider that logo designs and trademarks are the shields and banners of warring sectors, or the guideposts of the business-oriented society, which embody the commercial reputation of products and services, encourage the production of quality products and enable consumers to facilitate purchasing decisions.

The competition in the marketplace is fierce. There are nearly two million of registered trademarks in the United States alone, and over a hundred thousand new trademarks being registered every year. With a deluge of new trademarks annually pouring into the existing vast pool of registered trademarks in use, virtually every form of business needs to be well identified. Developing a clear and positive visual identity is essentially the cornerstone for a new company to establish itself in the market place against well entrenched competitors. Equally true is that when an established company evolves and business solutions change along with new demands of the time, the need for a revamped distinctive identity that can continue to reflect and communicate with the audience is a vital part of the company's business strategy.

The two most common constituents of business identity are a name and a mark. First and foremost, a company's name is the key factor in creating a corporate identity. After the content of the name, the most crucial aspect in an identity development is the form of the company's visual identifier--be it a literal signature, typography, or wholly based on the graphic symbol alone, or combining logotype, graphic symbol together for greater recognizability. The symbol-only logo is generally an ultimate choice in design, but it is generally more difficult to associates successfully to a company's identity; it also requires extensive time and money to promote. Combination logos designs are cost effective because they can increase psycho-emotional value and appeals to a wide variety of audience more effectively. Our own observation reveals that contemporary corporate identity design is exceedingly leaning toward this trend.