Starbucks Coffee Logo History

Starbucks Coffee Logo History

Date: Author: Category: Forwarded
Starbucks Coffee Logo History

Starbucks Coffee Logo History

Starbucks is the largest coffee house retailer in the world today, with over 15,000 stores in over 42 countries. With a Starbucks store at almost every corner, millions of people see the famous Starbucks logo every day.

The original logo, conceived in 1971, was fashioned after a 15th century Norse woodcut, the image of a mythical two-tailed mermaid siren. The siren, as you may recall from Greek mythology, was an alluring and irresistible female figure, typically half-fish/half-women (the mermaid variety). The siren’s objective was to a seduce the seagoing mariner with a powerful enticing song most often to the unfortunate demise of the susceptible sailor who could not resist temptation.

The original logo, conceived in 1971, was fashioned after a 15th century Norse woodcut, the image of a mythical two-tailed mermaid siren. The siren, as you may recall from Greek mythology, was an alluring and irresistible female figure, typically half-fish/half-women (the mermaid variety). The siren’s objective was to a seduce the seagoing mariner with a powerful enticing song most often to the unfortunate demise of the susceptible sailor who could not resist temptation.

After the purchase of Starbucks in 1987, the Starbucks logo was cleaned up a bit, a little more befitting of a new corporate image. The bare breasts were covered up by the mermaids flowing hair, although her belly button was still visible. And the color scheme was changed from a coffee brown in the original logo to the familiar green established by the Il Giornale logo. The text in the surrounding circular band was changed to simply “Starbucks Coffee“.

A third revision of the Starbucks logo in 1992 crops the image of the mermaid with a close-up view. Her navel is no longer visible. The mermaid’s tails on either side are mostly obscured which creates some mystery and question for those not familiar with the earlier logo.

The mermaid/siren may be a vestige of ancient myth and folklore, but its lure is as pervasive and as powerful as ever and can be seen through Starbucks success. However,some people believed the logo was too lurid and sexually suggestive so when Howard Schultz was combining the logos he used the waves of the siren hair to hide her breast and later cropped the image so now you can only see part of the siren’s tails and no navel. Even through the progression of change, the meaning behind this symbol still seems to attract coffee drinkers everywhere.

Author’s Note: I do not own this article. It’s only posted in my FB wall and decided to repost this.

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