• What company logo was drawn up in an hour by Salvador Dali?
Whose company logo was so successful they re-named the entire company after it?
Here are 10 crazy stories behind some of the company logos you see every day.
10 – Domino’s • The logo for Domino’s pizza is a domino.
That much is obvious.
But the store was originally called “DomiNick’s,” and was simply a small, local pizza place
in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
• The place was re-named “Domino’s” after a few years, and they started opening
franchises.
The original idea was to add a dot to the logo each time the company opened a new franchise.
• They bailed on that idea after the third store opened, which is why there are only
three dots on the logo now.
Considering they opened more than 200 stores over the next decade, and now have 10,000
in place, that was probably the right call.
9 – Apple • One of the most popular prevailing theories
about the Apple name and logo is that it was a tribute to Alan Turing, the man widely known
as the “father of computer science.”
Turing is thought to have committed suicide by biting a cyanide-laced apple, hence the
logo.
• But nope.
It’s actually none of that.
Steve Jobs named his company Apple because he was in the middle of a “fruitarian”
diet, and thought the word sounded nice.
• The only reason for the signature bite out of the side is so that people wouldn’t
mistake the apple shape for a cherry. 8 – Starbucks
• Fun fact: The original Starbucks logo had boobies!
• No, seriously.
You can definitely see where the current logo originates here, but this is somehow more
sexualized and uglier.
• There’s a reason for this, though.
The Starbucks siren is based on actual depictions of the ancient Greek siren, as they wanted
a logo that represented a Seattle’s nautical theme.
• Of course, in Greek mythology, the siren represents addiction and obsession to the
point of driving someone to their death.
So… it’s basically perfect for Starbucks. 7 – Toyota
• Toyota was once known as Toyoda in Japan, after the family that founded the company.
But there is a superstition in Japan about business success based on the number of brushstrokes
required to write the name.
• “ToyoDA” required 10 brushstrokes, which was considered unlucky.
“ToyoTA,” however, required only 8, a number that represented prosperity.
• The modern logo involves three intersecting ovals, which the company says represents the
overlapping hearts of the company and its customers.
But the cool thing is that you can actually see every letter of the Toyota name in the
logo.
6 – NBC • NBC’s famous peacock logo came about
right around the time color television was being introduced, so they created a logo that
took advantage of that to promote their color programming.
• The peacock logo originally featured 11 feathers when it was introduced in 1956.
It wasn’t until 1986 that they redesigned it into the six-feathered logo they use today.
• Those six feathers represent the six branches of NBC’s company – News, Sports, Entertainment,
Stations, Networks, and Productions.
5 – Chupa Chups • The logo for Chupa Chups, a famed Spanish
lollipop manufacturer, is meant to symbolize a bright yellow daisy.
And it took about an hour at a café table to design the logo that has made Chupa Chups
a worldwide brand.
• But the real story here is the man who designed this logo with random sketches on
newspaper scraps.
That man was world-famous artist Salvador Dali, who was a good friend of the company’s
founder.
• Dali also had the idea to put the logo on the top of the sucker so that it would
remain intact and visible, a marketing tactic that now defines the brand.
4 – BMW • A common myth surrounding BMW’s logo
is that it is meant to look like spinning propeller blades, a reference to the company’s
origins in making aircraft engines for German warplanes.
• It’s true that the position of the letters “BMW” are similar to the logo for Rapp
Motors – the aero engine company it grew out of.
• But the blue and white design has nothing to do with airplane propellers – it is based
on the emblem for the Bavarian Free State.
They had to reverse the order of the colors, because it is illegal to use a national symbol
for private commercial purposes.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coat-arms-bavaria-text-the-free-472074913?src=8hrGD241FDI7s9LCibBH-Q-1-2 3 – Gerber
• When the search for the famous Gerber Baby began in 1928, the company running it
wasn’t called Gerber, it was called the Fremont Canning Company.
They ran a contest for drawings and paintings of a baby to be the face for their new line
of Gerber Strained Foods.
• Dorothy Hope Smith, the eventual winner, submitted an unfinished charcoal sketch, with
a note that said she would finish the drawing professionally if her drawing was accepted.
• The company accepted the drawing as-is, and told Smith they wanted no changes.
The Gerber Baby became so popular, it was the Fremont Canning Company’s official logo
by 1931, and the entire company had changed its name to the Gerber Products Company in
1941.
2 – McDonald’s • McDonald’s golden arches seem straightforward
enough.
It’s an “M,” for McDonald’s, right?
• Well, sure.
But the design is actually a reference to what the original restaurants themselves looked
like.
• The original McDonald’s restaurants had two massive golden arches over the entire
building, holding up an overhang to provide shade and protection from the rain.
That’s what the logo originally represents.
• When McDonald’s dropped the golden arch design from its restaurants in the 1960s,
they kept the logo design partially because they liked the “symbolism of a pair of nourishing
breasts.”
1 – Walt Disney • Aside from the unmistakable castle, the
most recognizable part of the Walt Disney logo is the Walt Disney signature.
• Problem is, that’s not Walt Disney’s signature.
Not even close.
• The stylized signature used in the Disney logo is based on what was THOUGHT to be his
signature, based on autographed items sent out from the company.
But Disney got artists to create a stylized signature for those items, rather than signing
them himself.
• This was such a common practice that there are now more fake Disney signatures in circulation
than real ones.
And the company logo features one of them.
So which of these logo stories is the most surprising to you?
Let us know what you think or add your own stories in the comments below, and we’ll
pin our favorite to the top.