Interesting stories behind 10 famous trademarks

Trademarks are everywhere in the urban ecosystem. The trademarks of major companies bombard every aspect of modern life, and it’s easy for us to ignore them all. But if you look carefully, you will find that some of the trademarks you see every day have some interesting stories hidden in them.

10. The original Starbucks logo was rude

Even if you hate coffee, avoid consumer culture like the plague, and live in a cave, you've still seen the Starbucks logo. Whether it's on the outside of a discarded cup, appearing in an Instagram photo scrawled with misspellings, or in various scenes on "Fight Club," the Starbucks logo is unmissable because it's green.

It was originally based on a 16th-century woodcut of a siren; it has changed so much over the years that it is now almost invisible. In fact, recent logos have made it difficult to tell that the woman who adorns millions of coffee cups has a giant fish tail. It's also hard to see that she's topless.

Starbucks’ original trademark, which gave birth to all subsequent trademarks, completely exposed Siren’s breasts. Not surprisingly, the subsequent trademarks either did not depict her breasts, or her hair covered her sexily. Starbucks was afraid that the original trademark would offend people, so the company changed the trademark when it released a "Classic" cup in 2008 to promote the previous trademark. graphics, making the siren's breasts less obvious, but people still complained.

9. Chupa Chups’ trademark was designed by Salvador Dali

Cuppa Chups is the patriarch of the lollipop world. Since entering the market in the late 1950s, Chupa Chu has been a large commercial brand with few competitors. What better proof of how long it's been around? The company's trademark hasn't changed since it was established in 1969. If you have a trademark designed by Salvador Dali, you won't change it at will. Dali painted those melting clocks, had a pet ocelot named Babou, and it was he who designed this logo for the popular lollipop company.

While having lunch with his friend, Dali created this trademark graphic within an hour at the invitation of his friend; his friend was also the founder of Chupa Chups, Enrico Bernat (Enric Bernat). Although the graphic looks simple, Dali's masterpiece always appears on the top of the lollipop, rather than on the side, ensuring it is always visible.

8. The Windows logo was updated because it resembles a flag

If your computer freezes and your computer is running Windows 8, you must hate this system, as much as hate it The pact to murder someone and then kill yourself and the debate over which game controller is better. While Microsoft has made all the changes to Windows to make it easier for users, it has also quietly replaced the iconic Windows logo with a minimalist version suitable for modern devices. Now it looks more like a window than a flag.

When discussing changing the logo graphics, one of the things graphic designers told Microsoft representatives was, "You call it Windows." Why is the trademark a flag? In order to explain this problem, the Microsoft representative thought hard for 10 minutes and finally made up a random nonsense, which basically means whatever you think it means. Unsurprisingly, the designers went back to square one and created a logo that looks more like a window.

7. The McDonald’s trademark comes from the shape of the original store, not the letters in the name

McDonald’s is one of many trademarks that will likely outlast us? They’re too So powerful, so rich. The iconic golden arches have been an important part of the company's brand for decades and are more or less similar in shape to the names emblazoned on the doors of each branch, with few exceptions.

You'd think that the giant 'M' that forms the golden arches comes from the word 'McDonald's' because it happens to have an M at the beginning; but you'd be wrong. The golden arches actually come from the shape of the original McDonald's store? Its prominent feature is the golden arches, which makes this building unique.

The idea of ??designing arches can be traced back to architect Stanley Meston, who proposed that they would channel rainwater to facilitate queues of customers and drivers. In the 1960s, the restaurant updated its brand and decided to make the restaurant's obvious arch on the highway the symbol of the entire brand.

6. The bite of the apple is just to avoid being mistaken for a cherry

There are many rumors about how the Apple trademark originally came about. One of the longest-running theories is that the original professional trademark, the colorful apple with a bite taken out of it, was the masterpiece of the late great Alan Turing. Turing committed suicide after being ostracized for being gay, possibly by eating an apple laced with cyanide. The theory is that Apple chose the Apple logo to commemorate the "father of computer science."

This is a lovely story, but it is all nonsense. For a group of employees, the company was called Apple simply because Steve Jobs thought it sounded good. When Jobs came up with the name, he did not have any intention to symbolize or imply Newton or Turing. He just thought the word sounded "interesting" because he was on a fruit weight loss plan. As for the logo itself, the original designer, Rob Janoff, has clarified many times that it was not designed to pay tribute to Turing or Newton or "Fruit Knowledge" as many people thought. It's just an apple. As for why it was bitten, it was just to prevent people from thinking of it as a cherry. Apple fans will lament that their logo is really just an apple.

5. Imagine? Domino’s Pizza? Not so

For the past 50 years, Domino’s has delivered piping hot disks of cheese-covered dough to the masses; they’ve earned Huge market share, rivaled only by McDonald's, Subway and the remaining fragmented segments. With thousands of stores around the world, Domino's trademark is almost universally recognized in the West.

Domino's started as DomiNicks, an independent pizzeria. In 1960, Tom Monaghan (Tom Monaghan) bought the small store with his brother; after a few years of struggling to operate it, he used a dilapidated Volkswagen Beetle to buy out his brother's half of the business. Tom then changed the name of the store to Domino's and set his sights on franchising. Tom's original intention was that every time a branch was opened, an origin point would be added to the now famous trademark graphic. However, after just one year, the idea was abandoned because it was difficult to implement.

Today, the logo graphic has three dots, representing the three original stores that Tom opened. Is this a huge difference from his original idea? Just imagine if he sticks to the original plan, there will be 10,000 origin points on this trademark.

4. American Professional Wrestling (WWF) changed its logo to avoid confusion with animal charities, but the controversy continued

Analytics tells us that about 50% of our readers are Male, so you can safely assume that 90% of readers grew up watching WWF. Rock music teaches us more about life than our closest friends.

Even if you don’t care about wrestling, you may know that WWF became WWE (American Professional Wrestling, also translated as World Wrestling Entertainment) in the 1990s because of a trademark dispute with the World Wildlife Fund (WorldWildlifeFund). You may not have noticed, but even though the two companies reached an agreement on the use of the acronym in 1994, their dispute lasted until 2012!

That means the two sides have been arguing about this issue for 18 years. Although an amicable agreement was quickly reached in the end. There's a joke about the wrestling federation never coming to a satisfying conclusion at trial; but we don't have time to imagine that wrestling's pandas will win.

3. Deadmau5 was threatened by Disney for trademark infringement and immediately responded with song infringement

Deadmau5 is a musician who has faded out due to illness in the past 10 years; when he performed Wearing a giant plastic rat helmet. With Rat Helmet he has created a respectable brand that is even recognizable to those unfamiliar with his music. So far, Joel Zimmerman, who wears a mouse helmet, has had his trademark entered into more than 30 countries.

But when Zimmerman's trademark tried to enter the U.S. market, Disney thought it was too similar to its own trademark, Mickey Mouse ears, and blocked his application. After a simple search, Zimmerman discovered that Disney had used one of his popular songs in an episode of Disney Re-Micks without his permission.

What's even funnier is that this episode also features a giant electronic mouse logo? Disney thought people would confuse such a logo with its own.

Disney threatened him for using a similar trademark and illegally profiting from his music; Zimmerman found Disney's hypocrisy amusing, so he mailed a cease-and-desist letter and included the The video of the episode is sent to fans via Twitter. To explain what Zimmerman meant, Disney spent 10 years watching his trademark, but only a few days to remove the video. This case is still ongoing. Disney's simple and crude method of preventing Zimmerman from applying for a trademark has made the trademark more famous and appeared in various media.

2. Walt Disney’s trademark is very famous, but it brings trouble for Walt Disney’s signature

There is an interesting phenomenon: Walt Disney’s trademark appears in all Disney media The signature, in fact, looked nothing like his. The company’s iconic global symbol wasn’t even based on Walt’s signature? Instead, it was based on an employee’s signature.

Imagine the size of Disney. Even in its early days, Walt Disney didn't have time to sign all the fan mail he received. Therefore, it is common for him to delegate this task to his secretary or other employee authorized to sign on his behalf. Similarly, Disney cartoons all have Walt's signature, yet he never draws a simple line. Artists signed "Walt Disney" everywhere because it was easier.

This leads to an embarrassing situation: there are more fake signatures than real ones. Eventually, the formal version used by artists and various secretaries became world-famous, and Walt Disney himself had trouble signing autographs for others because his own signature did not match the signature used by the company in his name. It is now almost impossible to find an authentic Watt signature without the help of experts, partly because Watt changed the signature several times to make the signature as beautiful and standardized as the version familiar to the market.

1. The MGM lion trademark is worse than you think

The MGM lion is a mysterious trademark. Although it is not as widely spread as the Disney trademark and not as famous as the Apple trademark, some people think it is the best because there is a lion in it.

The logo has undergone several significant changes, to put it mildly, they replaced 4 dead lions. But there is no need to be sad, because although lions continue to exist, their terrible shortcomings do not. For example, when Slats, one of the lions used by MGM, died, his body was buried beneath a giant marble slab. When asked why, Slatus' trainer said it was to "suppress its soul." That's a cool statement.

Similarly, the second lion, Jackie, experienced a train crash, a plane crash, an explosion, a shipwreck, an earthquake, and another train crash. And if that wasn't enough, Jackie adopted a bunch of kittens because she loved it. The next time I watch a movie, I happen to see the MGM lion at the beginning, and I remind myself that maybe the lion in front of me is the one that appeared in three consecutive Liam Neeson movies.