From the Nike swoosh to the Chiquita banana lady, a tour of what matters in a company's logo.
It’s not my favorite logo, though. My heart lies with the Chiquita banana lady. Brand recognition is undeniable with the Chiquita banana—their logo of a lady wearing a fruit headdress on each and every one of the bananas they sell. I can’t think of another fruit company that markets and places such a strong emphasis on packaging. What was once a commodity has now become a household name.
Simplified logos by Antrepo.
When we were establishing our brand and our logotype, we struggled with what we had to include and what we could leave out. Start up brands tend to over-explain and over-label because designers believe education is needed to explain a new company and what sets it apart from its competitors. Other times, the logo is an afterthought; dreamt up the night before the business opens its doors for the first time, or even worse, designed by committee. This can lead to less than desirable results.
Andrew pushed for a signature color (fun fact: purple was the frontrunner for our brand color) but in the end we decided against it. It might run the risk of being a flavor of the month (no pun intended), so we desaturated. The logo was drained of all color, making it starker but keeping the playfulness that we wanted simply by choosing an aardvark to symbolize Boba Guys. The final version conveyed the brand's attempt to be both premium and inclusive, two qualities we both agreed we stood for.