this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
6 points (66.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43896 readers
1106 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Example: Warner Bros' logo looks like a shield which makes me think about medieval times.

top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

The catholic church uses a cross, which could be understood as a reference back to when, according to their beliefs, Jesus christ died on a cross to relieve Christians of their sins, which would've been almost 2000 years ago by now. That's quite a throwback if you ask me.

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

You might be touching on skeuomorphs, when a modern object reflects the design of its outdated version. A modern phone that looks like a rotary phone. An LED light fixture that looks like a gas lamp. The save icon resembles a floppy disk even when saving to a solid state drive.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not quite a logo but a symbol, but symbolically rotary phones and floppy discs have become the symbols of calling and saving respectively. There are plenty of other symbols that also draw their symbolism from obselete things.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder how many people do photo editing while being blissfully unaware of why the tools are named the way they are.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What, like the brush? P This sounds quite interesting, so please explain.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pretty much all the basic tools are named after and have icons looking like the original, physical tools used back in the analog days of photography, and also painting and printing in general.

Brush, pen and scissors being the obvious ones, masking should also be fairly self-explanatory. But then there's also stuff like dodging and burning, which is a technique used in the darkroom to increase or decrease exposure of specific parts of the physical image, and a lot more I have to look up the english names for first

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

HMV for obvious reasons.

Both BMW and Alfa Romeo have logos that originate in heraldry.

Cisco - the golden gate bridge was built in the 1930s

Disney - a castle

Starbucks - a mythical figure

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

BMW isn't heraldry, though? It's a stylized aircraft propeller, because they first made airplane engines. Am I wrong?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The alternating blue and white are derived from the arms of the free state of Bavaria. The exact pattern is adapted partly because it was illegal to use it directly but ultimately from there. More details on the Wikipedia page, as always. The propellers idea only came about as a result of an ad campaign later.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Very cool, thank you!

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not sure if it fits what you're after but the stories behind a lot of football (soccer) team badges can be quite interesting.

For instance, my own team, Dunfermline Athletic - here's our badge:

The building represents Malcolm Canmore's tower (a local historical site) the curvy line represents a small river or burn running through the town, and the green area at the bottom represents Pittencrief Park, a large public park gifted to the town by Andrew Carnegie (who was born in Dunfermline).

It can also be interpreted as a visual representation of the meaning of the town's name itself - from Wikipedia:

There have been various interpretations of the name, "Dunfermline". The first element, "dun" translated from Gaelic, has been accepted as a (fortified) hill, and is assumed to be referring to the rocky outcrop at the site of Malcolm Canmore's Tower in Pittencrieff Glen (now Pittencrieff Park). The rest of the name is problematic. The second element, the "ferm" may have been an alternative name for the Tower Burn according to a medieval record published in 1455 which, together with the Lyne Burn to the south, suggests the site of a fortification between these two watercourses.

A lot of club badges will have similar historical references if that's your thing :-)