Come on and do the Logo-motion with me..

Today marks the one year anniversary of our rebranding exercise and the birth of the iconic Patently ‘P’.

16th May 2020

Everyone knows that if you have to explain the punchline, it wasn’t a very good joke; some say the same about company logos, that if you have to explain and hidden meanings, it was poorly designed.

We don’t agree, and because our graphic designers Igloo did such a fantastic job with our logo, we want to dedicate this edition of our blog to them.

Before we get to ours, let’s have a look at some of the best known and best designed trademarks and logos in the world.

FedEx

Take a closer look at the “Ex” in the logo, you’ll see the arrow hidden within the white space between the letters ‘E’ and ‘x’. The arrow symbolises FedEx’s speed and accuracy of their deliveries.

Hyundai

The letter ‘H’ in the logo obviously stands for Hyundai, but also represents two individuals shaking hands — the handshake of trust and between the company and customer.

Amazon

You will have seen the arrow in Amazon logo quite often, but as Sherlock Holmes says: “You see but you do not observe”. Have you every noticed that the arrow starts from letter ‘a’ to ‘z’, implying that they sell everything from A to Z. It’s also supposed to represent the smile of a satisfied customer.

Baskin Robbins:

The founders initials, ‘B’ and ‘R’ are quite obvious, but these letters cleverly show number 31 representing the 31 ice cream flavours offered by this brand. (In case you were wondering, Mississippi mud is my favourite!)

Tour de France

Focus on the word “Tour”, specifically the letter “O” and “R”. The “O” is supposed to be the rear tire of a bicycle and the letter “R” looks like a bicycle rider in a racing position. The yellow circle in front of the “R” not only represents the front tire, but the colour doubles as a reminder of the ‘maillot jaune’ or ‘yellow jersey’, traditionally worn by the leader of the race, and the sun above the mountains where much of the race takes place.

Toblerone

Speaking of mountains, as a proudly Swiss company, the reference to the Swiss Alps, specifically the Matterhorn, in the Toblerone logo is easy to spot, but did you see the bear? The mountain graphics includes the bear in negative space. Why? Well, because brand was established in Berne, Switzerland which is known as “the city of bears”.

Now on to the star of the show…

Patently

Our logo incorporates a ‘P’ (for Patently of course) but the stylised letter is also a folded sheet of paper, representing the patent documents our database contains. The paper is a sheet of A4, with dimensions of 1 x √2, meaning that whether it is folded in half (to make A5) or doubled (to make A3) it retains the same ratio of length and width, this is to symbolise Patently’s ability to help users look at patent data at macro and micro level, and everything in between.

Much like the classic Duck vs Rabbit optical illusion, you’ve probably only ever noticed one of them, but now we’ve told you you’ll never un-see them both.

We think you’ll agree that Igloo have done a fantastic job, and that thanks to them our logo doesn’t look out of place in this list of absolute classics.

So ‘P’ or Paper? Duck or Rabbit? what did you see first? Let us know via social media.