February 16 , 2024 Posted by admin
The evolution of the Puma logo, an iconic symbol in sports apparel and footwear, has been an amazing trip. From its humble beginnings to its present remarkable design, the logo has captivated audiences, supporting the brand in instituting a challenging global existence. Over decades, it gently changed into the impressive emblem it is now a days.
As the company grew, it made minor improvements to its logo design, making it look more identical across all its products. This logo has stayed almost identical for a long time. It appears on Puma’s shoes, shirts, and other clothes and has become a big part of how the company is recognized and advertised.
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What is Puma?
Puma, founded in Germany in 1948, has become a global giant in sportswear and footwear, with boutiques on all continents. Today, it is one of the premier companies in its sector, with products sold in every corner of the globe.
Puma logo history
Puma, a renowned athletic gear manufacturer, traces its roots to a family member’s feud that split the Dassler brother’s shoe factory in 1948. Initially established in 1924 under the name Dassler Brothers shoe factory, the company acquired prominence in 1925 with the invention of soccer cleats featuring spikes, a novelty in athletic footwear at the time.
This innovative product rapidly acquired traction, propelling the business expansion and prompting the construction of a big factory in 1926 to meet rising requests. Yet, discord among the founding brothers led to a split, with one brother founding Adidas and the other establishing “Ruda,” rebranded as Puma afterward.
In 1948, Puma debuted its initial soccer boots, the Atom, which rapidly gained recognition when worn by multiple national team players in post-World War II matches. Despite this early success, by the 1990s, Puma faced financial turmoil and a tarnished brand image, perceived by consumers as unoriginal and uninspiring.
Enter Johan Seitz, a new CEO who revitalized the brand, repositioning Puma as a symbol of innovation and style in the sports sector. Under Seitz’s leadership, Puma rebounded, reclaiming its status as a prominent athletic brand and solidifying its iconic logo’s status as one of the most recognizable around the globe.
The origins of the puma logo
The company logo, redesigned after its renaming, prominently features the wildcat. Agility, speed, and liberty are their logo moto.
Initially influenced by the founder’s name, it experienced multiple reforms. The initial version has a wildcat leaping through an elongated letter “D“ within an irregular hexagon. Later editions simplified the logo design, using the wildcat frozen mid-leap exclusively.
Rudolf Dassler, the brand’s founder, conceived the iconic logo, selecting the wildcat to show the qualities of an elegant predator: – flexibility, agility, speed, and endurance.
He believed these traits resonated with athletes and that Puma’s apparel and gear would help them accomplish their athletic aspirations.
1948-1951
In 1948, the colors in the Puma badge were reversed. The white cat leaping through a stylized white letter was now put against a solid black hexagon with a horizontally extended base. This logo edition lasted less than three years before being refined in 1951.
1957-1958
In 1957, a fresh logo design emerged for Puma, reverting the cat and letter to black while the hexagon turned white. All outlines adopted a bold black hue. Now, the logo is confined within a thick white frame. The figure exudes remarkable distinction, with capital serif lettering encircling its perimeter.
1958 saw further evolution as geometry and lettering were incorporated into the logo, now encased within a double hexagonal frame. The inscription “RUDOLF DASSLER SCHUFABRIK“ adorned the perimeter, while the wordmark “PUMA“ in bold black font with rounded lines graced the center beneath the leaping cat picture.
This iteration marked the most geometric badge in the brand’s history, although critics noted the cat’s diminutive size failed to entirely embody Dassler’s vision of gracefulness, flexibility, and endurance.
At the same time, in 1958, the “FORMSTRIP,” regarded initially to become stable the foot within the shoe, acquired patents for it. Rapidly becoming equal to Puma, it adorned footwear worldwide and was a prominent design element in apparel, perfectly timed to take advantage of on rising media platforms.
1968-1970
Rudolf Dassler, dissatisfied with Puma’s shoe designs, sought to capture the brand’s essence and stand for qualities like agility, endurance, and strength inherent in the predatory cat. He engaged caricaturist Lutz Backes to revamp the logo, who was studying under his son Gerd Dassler.
Backes ingeniously merged the body of a black panther with the paws and head of a puma to meet Dassler’s vision. At first, gives a commission of 1 cent per product sold with the new logo, but Backes declined rather than requesting a lump sum of 600 marks. Alongside the payment, he was gifted a sports bag and a pair of shoes.
1970-1974
In 1970, the Puma underwent a big change, becoming more vertically oriented, marking the emblem’s genesis that would later become iconic. Its primary hue transitioned from black to white, while the Puma’s silhouette acquired a delicate black contour, refining its elegance and gracefulness. Notably, this emblem was one of three puma badges without accompanying lettering.
1974-1976
The jumping cat is now black again and on the right side of the bold wordmark. The wordmark looks different now; it’s in a rounded font without those pointy parts. This whole logo has a bright background inside a long rectangle.
Another Puma version was presented in 1974, left over with the sportswear manufacturer for merely a couple of years. It has a lively green backdrop with a pale yellow inscription at its center, like a horizontally oriented rectangular banner.
To the right side, the leaping cat is depicted in matching yellow, while a football boot illustration in complementary colors adorns the left corner, combining dynamic balance to the arrangement.
However, this logo design lasted only a short time, rapidly replaced to balance with expanding brand aesthetics.
1976-1978
In 1976, a new edition of the Puma logo was released, lacking the iconic leaping cat. This edition has the sleek, plunging line of their athletic footwear with the brand name.
1978-1980
Even today, the basis of Puma’s brand image lies in the 1978 edition of its logo: a leaping puma cat placed above the Puma wordmark. The leaping Puma covers the upper side of “M” and the right and upper side of “A.” It’s drawn on a plain white background with nothing else around it. This Puma looks merely like the one drawn on a badge from 1974.
1980 – 1988
Since 1980, the initial shift saw the removal of the wordmark, leaving the iconic puma cat to represent the brand’s strength exclusively. Even nowadays, this standalone cat logo epitomizes Puma’s enduring strength.
Between 1982 and 1988, Puma reintroduced the wordmark with a delicate change. The wordmark now featured the white shade of the famous form strip, building a fusion of the brand name and the leaping cat. This logo edition lasted for six years, from 1982 to 1988.
1988-Today
In 1988, the company created another adjustment by eliminating the white form strip from the wordmark. Despite this change, the emblem retained its essence with the brand name alongside the leaping cat. This edition has since remained the essence of Puma’s brand identity.
Beyond these well-known changes, intriguing lesser-known facts about the Puma logo are worth exploring.
3 Main Factors to be aware of about the Puma logo
The logos of the most well-known companies in the globe are immediately recognizable. After becoming joined with a brand, the audience recalls it. Audiences interconnect Puma with high-quality footwear and athletic wear, combining Puma cricket shoes. Nevertheless, the logo has a history of development.
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The Puma logo is known for three things that can pique your interest: –
The initial Puma logo contains a ‘D’ in upper case
In 1948, Puma introduced its initial logo, which appeared considerably different from the present design. At that time, the puma animal was depicted leaping through the letter ‘D’ in the logo design. The letter d represented Rudolf Dassler, the business progenitor. Afterward, years saw the addition of the word Puma to the logo.
Although this monochromatic picture lacked aesthetic appeal, it captured audiences’ attention effectively. An alternative iteration of the puma logo, with a cat leaping through the letter d, was displayed within a hexagonal frame.
At one point, the form strip was misidentified as the logo
In addition to the iconic leaping puma logo, the form strip was a well-known component of the business brand. Its immense acclaim and recognition led individuals to attribute it to the company’s actual logo.
However, the form segment served a particular function. During the 1950s, athletic shoe manufacturers began combining lightweight materials. Nevertheless, the players’ limited ability to exert control above their foot motions resulted from the shoes’ lightweight construction. They needed to sprint, kick, and carry out other actions on the field.
In 1958, Puma introduced footwear featuring the form strip. A leather strip on the side of the shoe helped support the players’ feet, allowing them to move more rapidly.
The company supplied a description of the form line on the shoe at that time. According to its description, a form strip shoe safely cradles the foot without restricting its range of motion or applying excessive pressure. Also, it prevents the leather from becoming overly stretched to the side or toward the heel, as well as ankle twisting.
It is said that the logo is the “no. 1 logo“
Another notable aspect concerning the Puma logo is that it was designated the “no. 1 logo“ by the firm in 1968. The logo design featured a cat leaping above the wordmark.
The company has since maintained the original design, making only minor changes, such as eliminating the eye and nuzzle and making the ears more prominent.
The Puma logo design elements
The Puma logo has a sleek and easy black color design. Anyone can, on the spot, identify it. The logo is a stickout symbol in the sports goods world. It stands for quality with merely one typeface, a remarkable black puma picture, and a cheerful black color. Its design elements can be described as follows.
Color
The iconic Puma logo is typically black. The brand’s athletic strength in a logo redirects the agility and rivalry necessary in sports. However, the firm occasionally applies different colors based on context.
For example, certain products feature a white logo on a solid red background or a white and dark navy mixture. Such variation indicates a logo’s fruition over time and matches Puma’s vision to be a global athletic products business.
Images and shapes
Puma uses different styles and shapes, sometimes rectangles, sometimes only PUMA pic and sometimes only name, and sometimes all in one, to exhibit different strong aspects of the company, like what it stands for, what its ideals are, what it sells, or who it desires to market to.
The silhouette of a puma cat has been a regular motif. The speed, agility, strength, and endurance inherent in its products are denoted. The brand emphasizes sports fans, and these traits echo strongly within the target marketplace.
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Font
The Puma logo has its name in bold capital letters, which shows its brand nature. The sans-serif lettering in the logo design has somewhat rounded edges. These give a tactful touch to the brand’s image. Although Puma has yet to disclose the exact typeface used in the logo, experts speculate that it might be “FF SOFTSOUL STD BOLD” or “QUANDOR REGULAR.” The font Puma uses now looks different from how it was seen before.
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Final verdicts
The Puma logo is highly valued in the sports market for shoes and apparel. Its many minor changes give it a renewed look that can last for the next generations. The company logo design performs highly well in the sports industry and wins it, with a focus on speed and agility.
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