The Origin of the BMW Logo
Source:
Pursuitist.comInside
white and blue. Bordered in black. On it the letters
BMW. For more than
90 years this is the icon symbol for sheer driving pleasure. But how
was this logo developed? The team at
BMW set out on a search for clues
in the video above.
The true meaning of the ‘sky blue and white quartered’ BMW logo is
the most controversial issue of the company. According to Dr. Florian
Triebel, Executive Board Member of BMW AG, “There are two traditions
concerning the significance of the BMW logo and trademark, offering two
different interpretations of its sky blue and white fields. One
interpretation points to a rotating propeller. The other relates the
BMW logo to Bavaria as the place where the products are manufactured”.
The current BMW logo is said to be inspired from the circular design
of a rotating aircraft propeller. The white and blue checker boxes are
supposed to be a stylized representation of a white/silver propeller
blade spinning against a clear blue sky.
For BMW, it was ‘a happy coincidence’ that the BMW logo symbolized
the Bavarian flag colors and represented the company’s origin. When the
BMW logo was first created, it was prohibited by the Trademark Act to
feature ‘national coats of arms or other symbols of national
sovereignty’ in a trademark. This led the BMW marketers to come up with
a solution of ‘incorrectly configuring the color elements in the BMW
logo from a heraldic perspective’, while also keeping its relationship
with Bavaria evident.
This had been confirmed by BMW, courtesy of the NY Times: “In
last Sunday’s Automobiles section, I wrote about visiting a quartet of
German car museums. At the BMW Museum in Munich, my affable tour guide,
Anne Schmidt-Possiwal, explained that the blue-and-white company logo
did not represent a spinning propeller, but was meant to show the
colors of the Free State of Bavaria.”
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