Logos With Hidden Meaning - [0:00:00] Let’s start things off with a logo we’re all familiar with, the Nike Swoosh. Now, you may know that Nike is the Greek goddess of victory, and the Swoosh represents her wing. Now, what you may not know is Nike founder, Phil Knight did not design that logo.
That was Carolyn Davidson. She was an art student who Phil Knight paid $35 in 1971 to design this logo. And, if you know that, you may not know this.
In 1983, Phil actually gifted Carolyn 500 shares of original Nike stock, now worth over a million dollars. So, it has a happy ending. In today’s video, we’re talking about the secrets behind some of the world’s most famous fashion logos.
[Music] Next up on our list, the Versace logo. So, the Versace logo starts with the founder, Gianni Versace, and his fascination with Greek mythology. So, Versace grew up in historically significant city in Greece where he was surrounded by ruins.
Apparently, he’s going through one of the ruins and on the floor he sees this amazing mosaic of Medusa, and this inspires him. Now, if you know your Greek mythology, you know that Medusa was a very beautiful woman that apparently really upset a god and she basically turned Medusa into this monster with the snakes for hairs. Basically, upon Medusa gazing on you and if you lock eyes, all of a sudden you were turned to stone.
So, why would Versace use a Greek monster in his logo? Because he wanted to create clothing that whenever you saw it, you would stop in your tracks. You would freeze because the clothing is so amazing not that it’s going to turn you to stone, but you aren’t going to be able to look away.
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I absolutely love this one of the history I love the story behind it, and as we’re making our way through all these logos, let me know down in the comments which one is your favorite. Next up, we’ve got the Rolex Crown. Now, most people recognize the Rolex Crown especially in the watch world when they see it, but what you may not know is the slogan for Rolex, a crown for every achievement.
This marks the occasion of giving watches as a gift whenever you reach a certain milestone. Now, the name, Rolex, it wasn’t named after the founders. The founders chose that name because it sounded and it worked in a number of languages.
In addition, we look at the number R-O-L-E-X of letters in the name and you look at the five points of the crown, notice how it all works? And, the colors are also symbolic. So, Wilsdorf and Davis, they wanted gold to symbolize the excellence in watchmaking and the green to symbolize prosperity.
And to this day we see the logo, we see the colors, we see the symbolism in every product Rolex puts out. Next up, we’ve got the company, Burberry made famous by the trench coat. Now, they didn’t invent the trench coat, but they definitely made it popular.
They were the most prolific producers of the trench coat at the first part of the last century, and what we’ve seen is these guys have continued to expand over the last hundred and seventy years of the company’s existence. So, for a hundred and seventeen years the logo of Burberry was the equestrian knight. Now, the knight is carrying a banner with the Latin word Prorsum which means forward.
Now, the banner along with the knights armor is a symbol of the company’s pioneering strides in outerwear. Sadly, they got rid of this logo in 2018. Next up, we’ve got adidas.
Now, many people believe adidas stands for all day I dream about sports. As nice as that sounds, that’s not the case. The word adidas comes from the founder’s name, Adolf Dassler.
Now, the original adidas logo simply had three stripes, and in fact, the slogan of the company was the company with three stripes. Now, in 1972, adidas broke into clothing and they wanted to bring in a new logo, that’s when we saw the introduction of the Trefoil. And then, in the 1990’s, we see the mountain three stripes.
Now, the mountain represents the climb, the going after your goals that every athlete has to overcome. Next up, we’ve got Levi’s. And, it’s important to note that Levi’s was founded in 1873, but up until 1928, it was known as the Two Horse brand.
What’s going on here? The idea was most people that were buying Levi’s in the 1870’s, 1880’s, they were illiterate, and the founders of the company wanted to show just how tough these pants were. So, the symbol were two horses basically trying to tear a pair of pants apart.
What was key about these pants were the rivets. Basically, they had reinforced metal parts on areas of the stitching that would tear the pant basically other pants that were inferior would fall apart. And, the whole idea here was to be able to show illiterate people that these were very tough pants.
So, in 1928, they officially changed the name to Levi’s, but to this day we still see the two horses pulling the pants apart in the logo. Next up, we’ve got watchmaker Patek Philippe. So, this renowned watchmaker’s logo is a cross made up of four fleur-de-lis.
So, apparently this is the symbol of the knights of Calatrava, an order that fight in the crusades during the 12th century. So, apparently these guys took their vows to always wear their armor so they would be battle-ready. And, another interesting fact related to this is the founder of Patek Philippe apparently was a Polish Catholic, and he wanted to institute Catholic rule in Poland and he used this symbol on his company to basically express that.
And, apparently it got him some recognition because in 1865, Patek was knighted. [0:05:04] Next up, we’ve got Tommy Hilfiger. Now, with the Tommy Hilfiger logo what we see is a very preppy nautical type of look.
So, apparently the white and red in the logo is a flag symbol for the letter H. H standing for Hilfiger, and the addition of the blue basically goes towards the pretty maritime style and the all American field. Next up, we’ve got the Lacoste crocodile.
And, if you’ve ever bought a polo shirt or a tennis shirt, you’ve seen this logo. So, the story with this logo began over a hundred years ago with a tennis player named René Lacoste. This guy was very smart, not only was a great tennis player, but he was a smart businessman, and he understood, okay, my tennis career is going to end, he started to have an impact like many modern day athletes on style on image and he started to dress down he started to wear things on the tennis court that other people hadn’t.
One of them was a very comfortable shirt that became known as the tennis shirt and then the polo shirt. So, Lacoste being a smart businessman understood the importance of branding. He took his on court nickname, the Crocodile and he transferred that into a logo into his shirts and a hundred years later, an amazing company.
And now, let’s talk about the Michael Jordan Jumpman. So, it was in 1988 on Air Jordan 3 that we first saw the Air Jordan Jumpman logo. Now, what’s really interesting about this logo, it was a base off a 1984 picture taken prior to the Olympics of Michael Jordan basically holding the ball with his left hand which normally he would dunk with his right, he jumped up into a ballet pose.
Yes, that’s what they actually said and he’s like, yeah, I wasn’t dunking or anything, I just simply was going for a good photo for the photo shoot. Now, the actual Jumpman silhouette, that was created from the photo, but the artist that created it he went off to another venture, it was put to the site a couple of years later, it was found by another artist that Nike and they’re like, hey, this is good, and the rest is history. So, if you like this video, you’re going to love this one, seven strange style hacks that most guys do not know.
I had a lot of fun with this video. I talk about things that, yes, most guys have never tried and they’re going to make you a better dressed man. So, go check out this video right here.
I’m linking to it down in the description. And, if that doesn’t float your boat, check out this video, twenty one wardrobe essentials that every man needs. I go into a lot of detail in this video.
I break out the wardrobe essentials. If you’re just getting started if you’re rebuilding your wardrobe, you’re going to want to check out this video. I will link to it down in the description.
