Converse Logo
The Converse shoe brand has a fascinating history that starts at the beginning of the last century. During this time, it has gone from ordinary rain boots to universal sneakers that people wear for various occasions and combine with any clothes. It has many sports stars representing the brand and making it recognizable and popular around the world.
Meaning and History
The history of the Converse brand began in 1908, when the manager of the shoe company, Marcus Mills Converse, opened a rubber shoe company in Massachusetts. A few years later, they began making sports shoes. It is interesting that initially the company made not only sneakers with rubber soles, but also car tires, which were in great demand, but later the choice was made in favor of sneakers. It was not long before an American basketball star Chuck Taylor suggested adding a patch to the shoes, which later became the brand’s hallmark. Until 2001, shoes were made only in the USA. Having changed several owners from 1995 to 2003, the company was in the safe hands of Nike, which opened factories in other countries.
What is Converse?
The Converse brand is well known for its sneakers across the world. It constantly surprises its fans by re-release iconic models in collaboration with various brands and celebrities.
1963 – 1977
Although the company existed for half a century already, the first logo appeared only in 1963. It featured a black five-point star with the name of the company to the right of it. The star was chosen to represent the company as it was already successfully used by the company for All-Star shoes. The name was also done in black with all lowercase letters of the same height. The image of a star and the word were set on a light background and framed with a thin black border, which created a rectangular shape.
1977 – 2003
The brand continued to use a star as the main element of its logo. This time, though, it was white and significantly larger. The star was set on a black background for contrast. It was a square that was just a bit bigger than the star itself and had rounded corners. Under this image, there was the name of the company that was just a bit longer than the width of the square. The name was done in all uppercase letters of the same height. They were bold, very close to each other, and resembled the Pump font.
1977 – 2003
A black star was used by the brand once again. It was still significantly larger than the wordmark. It was placed to the right of it in such a way that the top lines of the two points aligned with the top of the wordmark. The wordmark has not changed much. The only adjustment made was the swapping of the letter “o” for the rounded square with a star inside that was seen in the previous version.
2003 – 2007
The brand maintained a recognizable visual identity and made only small changes to its logo. It resembled a logo introduced in 1977, but instead of the square, the brand used a white circle with a thick black border. It was placed right above the wordmark. The star was a contrasting black color and had more space around it. Although the font was not changed, the letters were thinners and spaced out further apart. There were no unnecessary details, so the logo looked clean and professional.
2003 – 2007
An alternate logo during the same period featured the same wordmark. However, instead of a circle element, it had a large black star that was about the same size as the circle in the other version. This version was just as recognizable and powerful.
2007 – 2011
The company brought back the wordmark it used at the end of the last century. Instead of a square, though it place a large thick arrow that pointed to the right. On the left side of the arrow, there was a star that had one end pointing in the same direction as the arrow. It was about half of the height of the arrow. Both elements span over the same length as the word. The company also maintained the color palette, which further strengthened its brand identity.
2011 – 2017
An alternate version of the logo for six years was a wordmark already seen being used by the company. It was the brand’s name with the “O” being a rounded square with a star inside. It was quite recognizable and truly had a timeless look.
2017 – Today
The brand decided to further simplify its logo. It did not invent anything new but played with the existing logo. Converse used the arrow and star element seen on the logo introduced in 2007. Considering the popularity of this brand around the world, there was no necessity to have the name of the brand on the logo. The star was all the true fans needed to recognize the brand they love.
Font and Color
In terms of their font, Converse has for a long time used a blocky sort of typeface with abrupt turns, sharp angles and big bold letters. They were still round, which seemed somewhat futuristic or military. All of that made them look heavy. The current font also uses bold capital letters, but it’s mostly a simple sans-serif now.
The colors were just black throughout much of the brand’s history. The early logotypes used olive green to better connect with the military that they supplied for some time. After that, they’ve only used a clean black color for both the name and the emblem, besides the occasional white used for stars and such.
