We talked about brands that have been in existence for 50 years or over and asked to find examples of their logos that have evolved with time.
Brands/logos that are 50+ years:
Twinnings, Nikon, Ford, Lloyds of London, Haig, Coca Cola, UPS, Boeing, Lego, Barbour, Land Rover, Pepsi, McDonalds, Burger King, Guinness, Walmart, Levis, Holiday Inn, Tiffany & co and Jim Bean are all examples of brands that have evolved with time.
We then discussed each one and explained why and what socio economic factors were happening around the times each logo changed. eg: – 1969 Moon landing – Boeing 747 jumbo jet debut etc
Evolution of the Lego logo
The name LEGO is from the Danish words ‘leg godt” which means ‘play well’ and in Latin means ‘I put together’. The logo is synonymous with one of the world’s largest and most famous toy manufacturers, but it didn’t always look this way.
In 1932 a carpenter and joiner named Ole Kirk Christiansen founded a business in the village of Billund, Denmark. He started out making stepladders, ironing boards and stools. In order to show off his products, he would construct miniature wooden models of each one of them. He soon realised these models were really popular with children as play items and started to make wooden toys including piggy banks, pull toys, cars, trucks and houses. The business was not profitable to start with because of the great depression so he continued to produce furniture in addition to toys to stay in business.
Lego is an iconic brand, it has been around for that long and established itself that good, that it is hard to imagine your childhood without them. While the brand/logo is one of the most popular and recognisable in the world right now, it actually took quite some time to develop.
The first product line, 1932
The first LEGO logo was presented in 1934. It wasn’t a very exciting design and the words were simply spelt out in an ordinary black font. Most countries around this time were just about beginning to recover from the Great Depression so it was cheaply and simply created for the company’s naming and formal launch. The business went through many variations of its logo from 1934-1950 before it started to take character to the one, we are all familiar with today.
This logo below was introduced in 1939/1940 just at the outbreak of World War 2 which did not limit Lego producing toys. The demand for toys were great during this time of crisis, children needed them more than ever. The company’s sales doubled in the first two years of the war. The new logo was the one shown on all toys but mainly on wooden toys, normally in the form of an applied decal. The logo was dark with wooden looking colours and was supposed to resemble a woodcut.
1939/1940 Logo
It was only until after the war when importing to and from other countries began again that plastic become available in Denmark, so it took until almost 1950 before the Lego style plastic building blocks, we now associate with the brand were launched. This consequently led them to the newly designed red logo below which was added to the Lego brick boxes in around 1952.
1952 Logo
During 1953, as well as the one above and these two logos were also used.
As the 50’s went on, three new oval style logos were presented that were quite similar but not identical. Post-war was starting to show the promise of more modern Lego designs. Companies including Lego was starting to realise how symbols and logos could impact people and were beginning to move away from simple purpose made logos and began being more creative and putting more thought and colour into branding their business. This would be the first style of logo using a bold red in the background against the brand name in a playful outlined font.
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- 1952-1953 Logo
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- 1954 Logo
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- 1955-1959 Logo
In 1953 the logo began to take shape with bulky lettering, red background and the two dots with the black all the way up. The bright red was a winner for the company and after the success of the 50’s logos they decided not to go back to the plain blacks or toned-down colours again. The brand wanted to promote fun and games and their logos were clearly starting to reflect this with the colour and font choice. It also made it easy for children of all ages to identify the toys on store shelves.
German Lego logo 1956
After their second factory fire in 1960 which destroyed their holding stock all wooden toy production was discontinued completely making way for the new plastic Lego brick ‘systems’ which were becoming increasingly popular. The 60’s had a significant social change, there was a growth in fashion, music and cinema and graphic designers were also beginning to experiment more with bright, bold and abstract art. A red, yellow, blue, black, white logo was produced for the new Lego system. Below shows a variation of the 1960 logo that includes these colours in bars and contained the word ‘system’ underneath the brand name up until 1964.
1965-1975 Logo
The logo was not amended again until the 70’s which was an era remembered for women’s rights, so Lego decided to use this and expand into new areas of toy making. In 1971 they began to target girls by introducing dolls houses etc. The new logo was given a classic, fun and vibrant new look, they removed ‘system’ which was written in yellow and instead outlined the word Lego in yellow which helps it stand out against the red background and that is very similar to the one we see today.
1973-1998 Logo
The logo above was created in 1973, the same year that Lego began selling to the US. It represents an attempt to cement a sole worldwide logo and remains the most recognisable version of Lego’s brand identity.
1998- present Logo
The logo has been fairly consistent for the past 40-50 years and other than the brief touch up in 1998 has pretty much stayed the same since the 1970’s. This change was to make the logo better suited for digital and online display (or in Legos words a ‘Graphic tightening’) in order to make the colours more visible over the internet. It now has a slightly rounder and larger typeface, with brighter colours but this red, white, yellow and black logo has been the iconic face of LEGO ever since.
Logo Development
After our essay we was then asked to develop 3 logo types for our chosen company. The logo development could be a result of diversification, a response to socio-economic trends or evolution.
My first logo is based on diversification but instead of branding out into another field i decided to go back when the company first started up. The step ladders, ironing boards and stools would now be made with a strong plastic that all clicked and connected together like lego pieces.
I wanted to try keep the newest logo version but at the same time give it a retro style. After trying numerous variations using old style fonts and logos I then settled with the new bulky font logo and mixed it with the 1965 striped logo then simply added the word ‘system’ also used in the 60’s, to give a feeling of mechanism or interconnecting.
My second logo was a response to socio-economic trends and go with a cricket World Cup inspired logo which is on this year (2019). Lego would make some limited edition cricket players and toys for the special event.
I took the World Cup logo from their site and had a play around with a few variations by changing the colours, size and placing it behind the font on the original Lego logo as well as keeping lego’s brand colours.
My last logo was also based on socio-economic and very similar to the cricket themed design, but this time using Olympics 2020. I still used the latest Lego logo and their brand colours throughout.
After all the attempts above, I still wasn’t satisfied until I come up with my metallic gold logo below even though I had no idea or concept behind it at first.
Logo development Presentation
I was in two minds with which one to take to a full corporal brand identity between the systems logo or the metallic gold one. After receiving feedback from my presentation from mark and my fellow students I have decided to go with the ‘Metallic’ logo with an idea that lego have made gold ‘Collectable’ items and figures targeting older children and adults.
Victoria Clegg 