First Logo

First Logo. Your first logo should represent your brand help people remember you and provide insight into your services Choosing the right colors layout fonts and shapes are key to making sure your first logo rises above competitors.

Ancient Foundations of Symbolism in Graphic Arts —Logo’S Illiterate Legacy —Paper and Textile Technologies Further Fuel Development of Logos —Industrialization + Advertising = Early Branding —An Era of Creative Thoughtful Logo Design Begins —The Digital Era Brings Stylization and Adaptability —A Brief History of Logos Concluded —Between 70000 BC and 7000 BC primitive peoples from all over the world laid the foundations of the graphic arts by painting animals in caves Around 8000 BC people in Assyria Egypt Carthage Persia Media and Sumer created potterythat communicated aesthetic ethical cultural sociopolitical and religious information Even in these distant primitive stretches of history people and cultures were representing themselves and their ideas with symbols and illustrations Nowhere was that more apparent than in Ancient Egypt starting around the fourth millennium BC Not only did the Egyptians develop hieroglyphics a formal writing system where images represented words or sounds but they were also prolific artists Their paintings and sculpture included specific symbolic images and colors that held specific meanings Between 2125 and 1991 BC grids appearedin Egyptian designs This development is essential to logo design because it ensures that artists effectively maintain propo Jumping forward in time and looking to medieval Europe we see two distinct visual languages appear heraldic crests and symbolic signage Heraldry is a system of assigning design elements societal meaning and status A certain set of colors and shapes would represent a certain noble family This set of imagery was combined to create a unique coat of arms Sound familiar? Though the original purpose was a little different—identifying the friendly vs enemy army while at war—the result was the same Design elements took on meaning and helped people identify their favorite “brands” Outside of the aristocracy most of the population was illiterate In the High Middle Ages(900 – 1300 AD) the population started to grow leading more and more people to move to cities Society moved away from selfsustaining agrarian ways of life to more specialized and diversified trade This meant more commodification as people couldn’t make everything they needed Shops started hanging up signs to id By 105 AD a paper making industry had begun in China It extended into Japan by about 610 AD By contrast it was not until about 1276 AD that paper was first made in Italyafter being imported by Arab traders into Europe It was eventually made in England in about 1495 AD Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 which caused the production of printed materials to become far more common setting the stage for modern logo design as authors and printers of materials sought to claim ownership of their work By the late 15th century various printers were using logos to identify their works With printing comes more printed works In the mid 1600s we saw the first printed newspaper with regular circulation These quickly grew in popularity And you know what funds newspapers? Advertisements Print gave businesses new reasons to set themselves apart from their competition they didn’t want to pay to advertise any old cobbler they wanted to advertise their cobbling shop When thinking of the industrial revolution the first thing that comes to mind for most people is steam engines huge factories and cotton gins But this wasn’t the only kind of technology that improved in the nineteenth century During the 1800s mass production of printed materials was enabled by changes in the structure of the printing press and its new steampowered design Chromolithography—which allowed color printing in mass for the first time ever—came to the US in 1840 and colorful printed labels advertisements and posters became a common sight Also with the Industrial Revolution came the middle classFor the first time people who weren’t in the upper echelons of society had disposable income This lead to an increase in retail and urban centers Naturally as businesses established themselves and grew branding evolved Frank Mason Robinson designed the CocaCola logo in 1885 starting the modern era of logo design Just as thirsty commuters today look for a Starbucks l In 1956 Paul Rand designed the iconic pictographic IBM logo featuring a human eye and a bee Most logo historians see this as a turning point in the history of logo design Whether it was one iconic image or a larger trend the 1950s marked a paradigm shift in thought surrounding logos As companies realized how impactful symbols could be people began to move away from simply creating utilitarian logos for identification purposes and began to put a great deal of thought into intentionally branding their businesses In the early 1960s various thought leaders on the London graphic design and art director scene riding this wave of thoughtful logo design decided to collaborate to improve the entire field of design more generally In 1962 they founded D&AD Design and Art Direction The organization stated as its intent the promotion of excellence in advertising and design Between 1962 and 1964 Charles Csuri and A Michael Noll created some of the first computer art signaling In the 1970s computergenerated imagery (CGI) and computeraided drawing (CAD) technologies were developed In the 1990s we saw the popularization of the personal computer And in the early 2000s Adobe developed InDesign and Photoshop bringing sophisticated digital graphic design tools to the masses Society began to change with the digital era people began to consume more and more of their media on screens Designers and brands began to get creative with their logos For example in the 1980s MTV came along and took a basic logo and made it constantly change This dynamism that defined the brand As the logo was animated blew up crumbled and otherwise kept changing it reinforced the alternative edgy MTV brand message Before digital screens this manipulation wouldn’t have been possible In the early days of the internet designers tried to help people adapt to the new technology by making things on screen look like things off screen This style is known as skeuomorphism Looking at the vast winding history of logo design is fascinating and useful because it allows us to see what is informing our design ideas now however organic they may feel to us they are steeped in the meaning of our culture and past One of the most exciting things about the history of logo design is that despite its deep roots and extensive chronology so much remains open to interpretation—and it continues to unfold before our eyes Our ability to represent ourselves and things that matter to us symbolically will generate countless additional innovative iterations of our fascinating shared culture and history as we create new symbols and signs Want to learn more about logo design? Check out our article on how to design a logo This article was cowritten by Kelly Morr.

These Are the 10 Oldest Logos in the World Time

Designed in 1886 Valvoline logo could easily be the first prototype of what we call today commercial logos The Victorian style typeface is complimented with arched out sphere and small dots within it.

Logo Wikipedia

The first logo to be trademarked was the Bass red triangle in 1876 The Arts and Crafts Movement of late19th century partially in response to the excesses of Victorian typography aimed to restore an honest sense of craftsmanship to the massproduced goods of the era [12].

FIRST Brand and Logo Files FIRST

FIRST standards and policies protect valuable FIRST assets and help build and maintain a strong and consistent visual identity for FIRST Find the artwork described in the FIRST Branding & Design Standards document and shown in the FIRST Logo File Directory FIRST® the FIRST® logo FIRST® Robotics Competition (formerly also known as FRC.