Starbucks Corporation is a coffeehouse chain based in the United
States. Named after a character in the novel Moby Dick, it is the
largest coffeehouse company in the world, with over 7500 self-operated
and 5500 licensed stores in 39 countries. The current company logo,
modeled after a 15th century Norse woodcut, is a mixoparthenos, or
"twin-tailed mermaid, or siren as she's known in Greek mythology. The
company and the logo have an interesting history.
In Jan 2011,
Starbucks released a new version of the logo with a couple of big
changes and some subtle changes as well. The two major changes made to
the logo are
- They removed the name of the company "Starbucks
Coffee". Their intention behind this maybe to expand the brand to
beyond coffee. They have been talking about expanding into breakfast and
there was also talk of a Bar/Lounge concept. This makes sense if they
want to expand but maybe they should have kept the name "Starbucks" and
removed "Coffee".
- They also removed the circle around the Siren and the logo now features just the Siren.
The
logo has some subtle changes including smoothing her hair, refining her
facial features, weighting the scales on her tail to bring the focus to
her face. The logo refinements were done by Lippincott.
Starbucks was founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 as a local coffee
bean roaster and retailer called Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices.
Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982 and was inspired on a trip to
Italy to develop a similar espresso bar and coffeehouse culture in the
United States. To advance the concept, he founded the company Il
Giornale three years later. In 1987, Schultz purchased Starbucks, merged
it with Il Giornale, and renamed the company Starbucks Corporation. The
logo on the left is that of the Il Giornale company. As you can see,
the Il Giornale logo is somewhat similar to Starbucks logo i.e being
circular and having a band.
The original logo, as seen on the left, the Starbucks siren was topless
and had a fully-visible double fish tail. The original logo has raised
some controvery because of the bare chest, but the logo continues to
appear on some of the products like the Starbucks Anniversary Blend 1 lb
coffee bags. Both the original logos seem to be perfect on wooden
crates.
In the second version, her chest was covered by her flowing hair, but
her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. The
logo also inherited the stars from the Il Giornale logo.
In the current version, her navel and chest are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails.
