logo design history

Harley Davidson is not only a name, but a legend. It evokes images of long highways through classic American landscape, the roar of an engine sounding like a thunder clap and the polish of chrome doing its best to imitate lightning. The history of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle began in Milwaukee in 1902, when a 21-year-old William S. Harley created a design for a one-cylinder motorcycle. A year later, in 1903, he partnered up with 20-year-old Arthur Davidson to assemble the first Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. Harley-Davidson motorcycles are distinctive in design, attract loyal customers, and hold their resale value very well compared to other vehicles. A well maintained Harley might never drop in value at all. The Harley-Davidson logo commonly referred as the “Bar and Shield” logo, was created in 1910. It became famous also because the company made a profitable side business by licensing the logo (about USD 41 million income in 2004). Interestingly, each Harley-Davidson dealership has its own shop logo with a design that says something about that dealership and sets it apart every other dealership in the world.

This logo is representative of the end of the year 1999, after the merger of Rhone Poulenc in Aventis and now, more recently, after the later merger with Sanofi, to become the Sanofi Aventis company. The first Logo (not shown here) depicts a lion laying down, holding in its right paw a coat of arms with the initials MLB, which stands for “Masters Lucius & Bruening” – the original owners and founders of the company. In 1947 the company introduced a more circular icon (not shown here) that depicts a tower and a bridge. This logo was designed to show that the company was steeped in history. It was created by famous designer Peter Behrens for the most part, with some consultation from others involved with the business. In 1951, the logo was revisited again and, while retaining the logo in its purest form, the tower was relocated to the left side of the image (shown here) and the bridge inclined upwards to the right of the circle. A further alteration occurred in 1960, as it was felt that a simple, thin round circle did not highlight the logo enough, and so at this time the surrounding box was added. The final and most recent change came in 1997, when the logo became far more abstract with a simple blue typeface of the name of the business, followed by a single blue square in the upper right corner of the logo. It was felt that this logo was far more representative of the bold and confident statements that the company wanted to make in relating to quality standards, innovation, progression and growth, as opposed to the unconventional and often misleading image projected in the previous iterations.

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Hummer is the brand of sport utility vehicles (H2, H3, SUVs) and large off-road vehicles (H1), manufactured and sold by AM General Corporation – also referred to as General Motors since 1999. Hummers were originally manufactured for military use. These huge 4x4s have come to spend as much time in the limelight as in the battlefield, soon becoming the ultimate off-roaders. In 1992, AM General started out selling a civilian version of the M998 Hum-Vee or HMMWV vehicle under the brand name “Hummer”. The first two Hummer models are heavy, large vehicles with complex drivelines and large engines. The H3, is smaller and geared more towards people who want an economical SUV. Hummer dealerships are built around a huge “H” that serves as supergraphic visible from highways. The best Hummer logo was that of Horch. Its H was formed to suggest the gateway of a castle or city — an image of sturdy tradition. General Motors has been very effective in licensing the Hummer. A large number of companies have licensed the Hummer trademarks for use on flashlights, colognes, bicycles, coats, shoes, skateboards, hats,laptops, jewelry, clothing, CD players and other items

The Hyundai Motor Company is a South Korean company fabricating automobiles. Their vehicles are available in many countries around the globe. In 2003 HMC was the world’s seventh largest car manufacturer and South Korea’s largest car manufacturer. The founder of the company is Chung Ju-yung, who established the Hyundai Motor Co.in 1947. HMC was founded later in 1967. The company began to manufacture models with its own technology in 1988. Hyundai cars are often perceived as unreliable, undrivable and low-end cars, due to their build quality. Hyundai Motor Group, began investing heavily in the manufacturing, design, quality and long-run research of its cars starting in 1998, in an attempt to establish itself as a reliable brand. Hyundai is now one of the top 100 most valuable brands worldwide. The Hyundai logo appears to be an oval shaped H (symbolizing the company itself). The ellipse outline indicates the company’s global expansion and the stylized, slanted ‘H’ is symbolic of two people (customer and company) shaking hands. The colour of the logo is called HMC Blue. Other colours also used for the Hyunday logo include HMC Gold, HMC Silver, HMC Dark Gray and HMC Light Gray.