LogoArchive

By the close of the 1980s, the Japanese financial sector was entering a period of structural change. For Toho Bank, the principal regional bank of Fukushima Prefecture, this period coincided with an approaching milestone. In 1991 the bank would mark its 50th anniversary, and it chose to treat the occasion not simply as a commemoration but as an opportunity to define a new institutional identity for the twenty-first century. Before any visual work began, Toho Bank surveyed around 4,000 employees, clients and members of the public to shape its new corporate philosophy. Shinji Harada’s TOHO Square divides a square into four lettered quadrants, referring to the square as a public space and the bank as a meeting place for its community. Five corporate colours, including an unusual pink, each represent an aspect of Fukushima Prefecture, from its skies and landscape to the vitality of its people. Read the full story behind the logo → logohistories.com/p/toho-ban…

When Japan’s Sanyo Sogo Bank transitioned from a mutual savings and loan bank into a commercial bank in 1989, it used the moment to announce a new, more progressive and friendlier way to bank, with a bold new name: Tomato Bank. Rather than writing Tomato Bank, Shigeo Katsuoka used an image of a tomato and the word bank to form a simple rebus. A playful pictogram of a bright red tomato topped with a radial, star-like green calyx delivered an immediacy and familiarity, but also, in its abstraction, created a highly functional asset that could be easily scaled. Read the full story behind the logo → logohistories.com/p/tomato-b…

The Lufthansa logo began life as the symbol of airline Deutsche Luft-Reederei, which was established in 1917 and began operations two years later in 1919. In the intervening year of 1918, between its establishment and the beginning of commercial flights Professor Otto Firle designed the stylised and iconic crane in flight symbol. Light and aerodynamic, the symbol delivered an efficient and elegant visual gesture, either alone, or sitting over the outline of sun or globe, bronze on blue. In 1926 the German government forced the airline to merge with Junkers Luftverkehr, forming Deutsche Luft Hansa (Deutsche Lufthansa from 1933), which was the flag carrier of the Weimar Republic. This new airline took with it the crane. At the end of WWII, following the defeat of Nazi Germany; all services of Deutsche Lufthansa were terminated. In 1953, in an effort to create a new national airline, and while West Germany had not yet been granted sovereignty over its airspace, Luftag was founded and started ordering new planes. It also acquired the name and logo of the liquidated Deutsche Lufthansa. On 1 April 1955 Lufthansa won approval to start scheduled domestic flights. Between 1923 and the 1960s, the symbol would vary slightly in its drawing depending on its application, and was paired with different typefaces and different blue. Otl Aicher It wasn’t until 1963, during a period of expansion and modernisation, which introduced the jet engine to the Lufthansa fleet, that the logo was formalised and a new visual developed under the direction of German designer Otl Aicher. Before settling on an update, various degrees of abstraction, between a crane and an arrow were explored. In the final design, small details such as a slightly heavier line weight, square terminals, and improved negative space rationalised the logo, increasing its flexibility across a growing number and diversity of applications. In the spirt of the time, and under the influence of modernism and the Swiss International Style, Helvetica was used to construct the Lufthansa wordmark and became part of the design policy. Although the yellow and blue pre-dated Otl Aicher’s system, a warmer yellow was introduced as a way to feel more welcoming as more people began flying. Martin et Karczinski In 2018, the “Lufthansa Blue” project saw the airline’s yellow and blue tailfins replaced with just a deep blue for a more premium feel with yellow being used only as small accents elsewhere. Helvetica was dropped for the digital era and replaced with a custom typeface. Even after historical upheavals, the crane remains in, with only slight updates by Martin et Karczinski.