Friday, March 2, 2012

The Nike Logo Design and How Swoosh Started

The Nike Logo


One of the most, if not the most, recognized logo in sports is the Nike logo. This logo is well known around the world, standing for sporting excellence. Many different people, some of the greatest in their sport have worn this logo, including Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.
The Nike logo is astonishingly simple. It features nothing but a check mark, it has no name, yet it is easily recognized as the Nike logo by everyone who sees it.
Featuring a checkmark, many recognize it, but no one really knows why the swoosh logo was chosen as the company logo.
The Nike logo was designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, who was a graphic design student Portland State University. She had started doing freelance work for Blue Ribbon Sports after meeting Phil Knight while he was teaching her accounting class. When the time came for a new line of footwear, Knight asked Davidson for some ideas, which she designed for two dollars an hour.
By June of 1971, she had presented several design options, and they selected the swoosh. For her work, she was paid $35, however in 1983, Knight gave her a gold swoosh ring and an envelop filled with Nike stock to say think you.
The swoosh officially made its debut at the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials in 1972.
That simple design, which has proven to be so popular, is easily one of the greatest stories in the history of marketing.
The Nike logo has proven that simple can be better. When a logo is highly complicated, it can be hard for the consumer to remember, not only what it represents, but the company that it is for. The Nike logo, which is nothing but a swoosh, which can represent the speed that the company exemplifies, is something that people do not need to be told what company it belongs to. Any athlete, from anywhere, will be able to tell exactly what company that logo belongs to.
That is the greatness of the Nike logo. It is simple, yet effective. Revolutionary, yet ordinary. It is easily, one of the greatest logos in the history of corporate logo design.


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