Through the years I have visited many a coffee shops and café’s, savouring the moments on a Jamaican Blue or an Ethiopian blend, when a coffee logo captures my attention.

Every country or region has a popular coffee café that locals love to throng. In USA, you see Starbucks at almost every corner of the street. Now that is one logo that really captures your attention and its brand value is tremendous in North America. The history behind this logo is fascinating and it certainly has an ethereal quality to it. The original logo was apparently conceived in 1971 and illustrates a 15th century Norse(a mythical 2 tailed mermaid siren). I found this interesting link on the Starbucks logo and its history and it was a great read.

http://gourmet-coffee-zone.com/starbucks-logo.html

Needless to say, the original Starbucks logo remained in use till 1987 when Howard Schultz acquired Starbucks from its founders. Since then the logo has changed several times to what we see it today.

When I travelled North from USA to Canada, I found another iconic name that represented the typical “Canuck” coffee culture and it had nothing to do with Starbucks. Here in Canada, “Tim Hortons” is what rules the coffee world. The logo is the signature of the founder, Tim Horton who was an outstanding hockey player for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The colors are simple – red and yellow/cream.

So if you are a Canadian, it’s a Tim Hortons that you drink and not Starbucks! Oh and they serve the most delicious “Timbits”. You must try them when you get a chance with a super cup of Tim Hortons coffee.

www.timhortons.com

In Australia, I found that the coffee culture is still new and mostly centred among city folk. Gloria Jeans Coffee is truly Australian when co-founders Nabi Saleh and Peter Irvine brought the brand to Australia from USA, to provide Australians with great quality speciality coffee. The logo brings home the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee what with the logo showing a loving hand holding out a cup of hot coffee to you. Very enticing indeed! The colors are typical of most coffee brands – browns, oranges and creams. I found a few Starbucks coffee places here, but Australians have been true to the” 100% Australian” mantra that precedes most of their marketing. And as a result Starbucks has really not taken off here.

www.gloriajeanscoffees.com.au

Caffe Nero is the largest independent coffee retailer in the UK, with over 400 stores in the UK. The aim of these cafe’s is to give a European Coffee experience, incorporating the local feel and architecture of the areas where these cafes are located. The logo is simplistic on its approach to create a generic European feel to it. I found these cafe’s popular with the locals, ideal places to hang out and enjoy a coffee stopover while touring London and its surrounds.

www.caffenero.com

 Coffee shops and Cafes are a relatively new experience for India with the coffee culture growing tremendously among the young university students and city folks. In the past 10 years two major coffee shop chains began to open shop all over India. Barista Lavazza created a warm and friendly café atmosphere with the aim of providing a true Italian Coffee experience to Indians. The logo is effective in its design with a cup of coffee incorporated in a triangle, a simple type face has been used and the colors brown and orange rust have done the job to market this coffee phenomenon in India and the Indian Sub continent.

www.barista.co.in

Cafe Coffee Day started its first café in 1996 and thus began their dynamic journey to become a large organised retail café chain. The color in the logo are vibrant and passionate, red with a touch of green which represents 125 years of coffee growing heritage of the India’s largest coffee conglomerate of which cafe Coffee Day is a division. The logo depicts a life of its own and represents the brand successfully.

www.cafecoffeeday.com

It has been an amazing coffee journey so far with different regions and different coffee cultures! All of them have varying branding strategies and logos. Each one of those have been successful and memorable in their own right. And on that happy note I am off to have a cup of coffee, freshly brewed from ground coffee beans with my new coffee beans grinder.

The Logo is the starting point of any brand awareness strategy. It is that which maintains recall value visually whilst connecting the various marketing and design tools that a business uses to promote its product or service. It is where branding processes begin.

The dismal state of our economy today has left many businesses in a state of flux, some closing down their doors, others reinventing themselves in the bid to maintain their customer base. With lagging sales and a diminishing customer base, businesses are doing whatever they can stay afloat.

Most will try new marketing and advertising strategies to boost their sales. One idea would be to make changes in the logo of the business. Injecting freshness into the design makes the logo not only more appealing but helps the business fit into the corporate zeitgeist of the time.

Let’s take the ANZ Logo as an example. The ANZ Banking Group Ltd launched a new brand and logo recently to boost its profile as a major regional bank. The new logo includes the image of a human figure, designed to promote the bank as a “peoples” bank.

Companies regularly change their logos to reflect changing times. What they are doing is adding a new perspective while maintaining the same equity that they have built with their customers.

Google is constantly changing its logo to reflect current times.

Tough time means tough decisions…whether to allocate funds towards new branding and logos or to cut back on marketing, each business has its own philosophy and strategy. But one thing is for sure…every business wants to succeed and more so in tough times.

Armed with a degree in marketing management and advertising I started on my job at an advertising agency as a visualizer and a computer graphic designer. My position there was more about being a liaison between clients and illustrators and giving them instructions on how I had visualised logos, designs, symbols and layouts for my clients. The clients loved talking to me about their goals and businesses and the illustrators were happy with the feedback they got from me. Eventually I started creating and designing myself as I was itching with these ideas growing in my head. The computer was my drawing board and my mind was an unending river of ideas. I realised that I loved LOGOS!  These fascinating symbols that say a thousand words for every business!

At that time (about 18 years ago) logos were symbols and trademarks for large multinationals or very established companies. Some of these logos have survived generations, industrial changes, and economic upheavals and even after the demise of a company. These are examples of very effective logos.

Some examples that come to mind are: Xerox, Pepsi, Microsoft, Apple  and Shell 

Timeless LogosTimeless Logos

Timeless Logos

20 years later and I see logos everywhere for every kind of business enterprise. And why is that?

“Good logos are important to a commercial enterprise or even an individual. It’s a symbol that precedes the business and identifies the product or service.  An artistic design, that tells a story. A good logo stands for the entire business.”

Earlier forms of logos can be seen as symbols or pictorial representations of ownership during the Egyptian and Mesopotamian era. Over this century logos have evolved as more than just a word or an icon and have become a business enterprise in itself.

One of the earliest logos that come to mind is that of a dog called “Nipper “sitting in front of a phonograph with the tag line of “His Masters Voice”. This logo has such strong appeal and recall value. Nipper is still used by the HMV Group stores  to market its products.

Another logo with tremendous recall value and popularity is the double interlocking “C” symbol of Chanel. This fashion house was first established in Paris in 1909. It is here that Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel established herself as a skilled and creative fashion couturier. Today Chanel is a multi billion dollar industry in the world of haute couture. This famous logo was not trademarked till the opening of the first Chanel stores and was not the design that Coco Chanel had first thought of. Today this same logo markets luxury goods even before the products hit the world wide market.

Kids the world over recognise the famous McDonald Logo. This Golden Arches logo was first developed in 1962 by Jim Schindler. Today this logo is largely seen as a symbol of globalization and capitalism. And for kids it represents fun times and great fast food!

Timeless Logos

“A Good logo will stand the test of time and be the identity of the business. Ultimately a Logo becomes a brand.”

Logos are here to stay… whether you are a large corporation, a small business owner or just an individual. If you want the get your goods out there in the market, getting a good and effective logo is the start of a profitable marketing plan. With Logos you provide and identity, a recall for your target market and a value for your goods and services.

And just like Logos I am here to stay, designing logos with a passion and a love that has grown over many years and with many years of experiments with design , colors and style.