Six drastic technology company logo evolutions

We’ve all looked back at photos from our

misbegotten youth, seen the fashions we once

thought were cutting edge, and asked ourselves,

“What were we thinking?”

Well, technology companies are certainly not

immune to this phenomenon.

These six early technology company logos show

that its not only hair styles and clothing that

have come a long way over the years.

By Jeff Jedras

Image courtesy of luigi diamanti at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While Adobe is now a leader in digital

design, fonts have always been at the core

of its business, which makes the font

choice in their first logo … well,

interesting.

But as a startup on a shoestring when it

was founded in 1982, co-founder John

Warnock’s wife Marva was drafted to

design the original logo.

Adobe

Before moving to an ever-evolving series of

more literal apple logos, Apple’s first logo

was a bit more artistic, perhaps

representing the interests of co-founder

Steve Jobs.

Drawn by fellow Apple co-founder Ronald

Wayne (who shortly thereafter gave up his

share for just $2,300 – ouch), it depicts Sir

Isaac Newton, he of the theory of gravity,

sitting under an apple tree.

Apple

Japanese camera manufacturer Canon was

initially known as Kwanon, as this logo developed

for the launch of its first product in 1933 shows.

This logo only lasted a year, moving to a more

simple word-only logo. It became Canon in 1935,

and would evolve over the years into the familiar logo we know today.

Those that find their zen in photography will no

doubt appreciate the original, though.

Canon

Designed in 1975 when Bill Gates and Paul

Allen founded the company to develop and

sell Basic interpreters for the Altair 8800,

Microsoft’s first logo was simple, at least –

no falling Apples or religious deities --

although we can’t say much for their font

choice.

A few years later the Micro and the Soft

would come together.

Microsoft

IBM traces its roots back to the Bundy

Manufacturing Company in 1888, which in 1889

became The International Time Recording

Company (ITR), and created this logo as it

brought its line of mechanical time recorders to

market.

It would be 1924 before the company became

International Business Machines, and 1947

before the logo would be recognizable to us

today.

The current logo does owe much though to the

simplicity of this original.

IBM

Along with Canon, and perhaps Apple, Nokia

has to share the prize for largest logo

evolution.

While they’re all about mobile phones today,

Nokia was actually founded in 1868 as a

wood pulp mill – its riverside location both

powering the mill and explaining the fishy

logo.

It would later merge with a cable works and

a rubber works, before moving into

telecommunications.

Nokia