Wednesday, January 27, 2010

logo design history (G)


Good Year

Good Year

It took Charles Nelson Goodyear five years to convert india-rubber into permanent elastic rubber. But his expensive and unsuccessful attempts at making this work only served to upset Goodyear's wife. In secret one day, Goodyear missed the burning rubber with sulphur and white lead in the furnace. The glowing heat suddenly began to transform the sticky moldable mass into a vulcanized rubber. Based on the Roman God of the Fire - Goodyear - the creator therefore called his invention "Vulcanus." While the invention was successful, it did not make him rich. After years of struggling to make ends meet, the business collapsed in 1860, and Goodyear ended up in prison, leaving debts of more than $200,000 to his family. Some 38 hours later, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber company formed and its two founding fathers, Frank Augustus and Charles Seiberling, worked tirelessly in honor of the great invention. Firstly, the company produced horse hoof pads and then moved into bicycle wheels until 1900, when they also begin to manufacture tires for cars. The logo that is used these days dates back to a statue that was found in the stately home of the Seiberling family. The statue depicted the Greek God Hermes (known by most Romans as "Mercury"), who was synonymous with what Goodyear stood for, according to Seiberling. In 1900 the company decided to develop a logo to brand its operations, and as a result they developed a wingfoot picture that would sit within the Goodyear name. That logo is virtually the same as the logo that is used today.


Google Logo

Google Logo

Google is known as a strong leader of the web-search industry. Its goal is to provide relevant information and groundbreaking products to its customers. It all started in 1996 as a research project by two Stanford University's students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The Google logo has had many different versions since its renaming from BackRub. The current official logo design of Google Inc. represents the name "Google" in logotype based on the Catull typeface and was created by Ruth Kedar. Its almost amateurish simplicity may correspond to the simplicity of the search engine. Every once in a while, the company uses various features of the logo which compliment and refer to birthdays of illustrious personalities like Leonardo Di Vinci, Albert Einstein, Edward Munch; holidays like 4th of July, Christmas, Mother's Day and specific events such as The Olympics, World Cup etc. These special modification have become known as Google Doodles and were first created by the fondaters of the company in 1999. The doodles are currently designed by Dennis Hwang who has created over 150 doodles since the year 2000.

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