Dodge has had a variety of logos since it began operation in the 1900's. Here is an interesting look at the evolution of branding for an American icon.
Dodge is a major automobile manufacturer in the United States. This company was founded by Horace and John Dodge,
two brothers. John and Horace originally began their business in order to provide parts for other car manufacturers. They started their parts company in 1900 and grew it over time. By the year 1914, the first full vehicles began to roll off the assembly line bearing their family's name. The models, appearance and logos have evolved over time just like the company itself. Any long term entity will shift its image to meet the needs of customers as well as the changing times. A company that's been around for nearly one hundred years is no different.
The word "logo" is short for "logotype." A logotype is a symbol designed to be recognized as a reflection of the business's image. In advertising, brand recognition is crucial. One way to create recognition is with signage in which all fonts are consistent, jingles or songs that are associated with the product and emblems known as logos. Some examples of recognizable logotypes include the Red Cross's small red cross, Nike's swoosh, Firefox network's fox wrapped around the earth, McDonalds' golden arches and Apple Computer's rainbow striped apple with a bite taken out of it.
This particular manufacturer has had multiple emblems associated with it over the years, first beginning with a star and progressing to a ram, a crest, a "forward look," a fratzog, a pentastar and finally a ram's head.
- Star: This was the first emblem to be associated with the company. There are six points surrounding the initials DB. "DB" stands for "Dodge Brothers." This trademark symbol remained until the late 1930's.
- Rams: The earliest ram symbol was a hood ornament sculpture of the animal jumping. In later years, the ram's head was adopted as the logotype.
- Crests: Historically, many families have had a crest, which is sort of like the familial emblem. Historians often track archives to learn about their relatives' crests. The Dodge family crest was that of a knight's head and four stripes surrounding an oval.
- Forward look: This was to represent the evolution into the space age. It appeared to represent motion going forward through the use of boomerang-like arrows.
- Fratzog: The fratzog is triangular with a hollow center. The triangle is made up of three separate components, and when combined appears star-like.
- Pentastar: A pentastar is a five pronged star inside of a five sided geometric figure called a pentagon.
Logos are important pieces of company property due to their branding recognition. They are, in fact, so important that they are copyrighted in order to keep others from replicating them without permission. When people think of, for instance, the Red Cross, they think of the actual image of a red cross. When they think of Nike, they visualize the swoosh. When someone is hungry for a Big Mac, he or she is scanning the streets for those golden arches emblematic of McDonald's. When a person wants to see if Dodge manufactured a certain car on the road, he or she will look for the vehicle's logo.
