The recent furore over Instagram’s colourful logo revamp had the DigitalRev team thinking what other photography brands looked like before they became the logos we know and love.
This Then and Now series, created using Logopedia’s vast database, reveals the brands that have stayed faithful to the company’s symbolic heritage and the others that decided to modernise by jazzing things up instead.
1. Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe was founded in 1982 after John Warnock and Charles Geschke left Xerox to carve out their own legacy, the current logo was born in 1993 and continues to be used today.
2. Canon Inc.
Canon was originally named Seikikōgaku kenkyūsho in 1934, it produced a protype camera called the Kwanon. The company was later rebranded Canon Camera Co., Inc. in 1947, and then shortened to Canon Inc. in 1969.
3. Carl Zeiss
The German manufacturer of optical systems, Carl Zeiss, was founded in 1846 and has gone through numerous logo changes since; the current logo, using Pantone Reflex Blue C, replaced the light blue palette tone in 1997.
4. Fujifilm Holdings Corporation
Fujifilm featured its mountainous namesake in the original 1934 logo, eventually doing away with it in 1960 for a stripped down colourful look. Fujifilm reverted back to basic colours in 2006.
5. GoPro, Inc.
The fledgling company has only been around since 2002 in the grand scheme of things, so the need to rebrand has not yet come about; although, the action camera maker is looking to liven things up so perhaps a new logo wouldn’t hurt.
6. Victor Hasselblad AB
In 1941, the Victor Hasselblad AB logo featured a prominent V in recognition of the founder, this eventually was replaced with the Hasselblad larger than life H and its brand prestige endures to this day.
7. Instagram
No. Words.
8. Kodak Company
The original mess of a logo from 1907 reads EKC and stands for Eastman Kodak Company, it was updated in 1935, three years after founder George Eastman commited suicide.
9. Leica
The beautiful red dot didn’t appear in the original iteration.
10. Lino Manfrotto + Co. Spa
From one dot to another, Manfrotto’s current logo has not changed much since its founding in 1972.
11. Konica Minolta, Inc.
In 1978, the blue symbol was introduced into the logo. The next visual shakeup would happen in 2003 when Minolta merged with Konica to form Konica Minolta.
12. Nikon Corporation
Nikon was founded in 1917. That’s right, the company turns 100 next year! However the typographic font we’ve come to know and love was only established in 1953, with the most recent yellow block appearance showing up in 2003.
13. Olympus Corporation
The Olympus brand was introduced in 1921, a new logo was designed in 1970 to give impressions of quality and sophistication. It was later updated with a yellow line underneath to represent light and the boundless possibilities of digital technology.
14. Panasonic Corporation
The major consumer electronics company was founded in 1918, the logo seen on the left was the earliest Panasonic image we could find (1955 – 1966 era).
15. Pentax
Update: Asahi Optical Co., Ltd. introduced the Pentax SLR camera in the 1950’s and the rest is history.
16. Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid was founded in 1937, it’s current logo has been used since 1996 and follows the rather upsetting dark period from 1991.
17. The Ricoh Company, Ltd
Much like Pentax, Ricoh has been red since its inception.
18. Rollei
If you’re wondering what F & H stand for in Rollei’s founding graphic; the company was originally known as Werkstatt für Feinmechanik und Optik, Franke & Heidecke in 1920.
19. Samsung
Korea’s most well-known business conglomerate has a hand in everything. It originally began in 1938 as a trading company and has diversified into food processing, textiles, insurance, and electronics. The transformative nature of the company is evidenced in its logo history.
20. Sony Corporation
From one multinational conglomerate to another, the Sony brand has been kicking around since 1955; although the company can be traced back to 1946 when the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation was founded.
21. Bonus
There are murmurs that DigitalRev has been undergoing a few changes lately, could a new logo be on the way?
