Logo Investigation

Disney logo:

The Disney logo is undisputedly the or at least one of the most instantly recognisable logos in the world. The iconic font and instantly recognisable castle in the background is a staple in the film industry, its presence as one of the media giants. However, this media giant has never fully strayed from its original roots.

Apart from the 2nd rendition of the logo, the castle and font are always present. The original logo was introduced in the film,  The Black Cauldron in 1985. 

Its castle design in the background, a homage to the iconic Cinderellas castle, one of the landmarks in Disney's "The Magic Kingdom". This castle would later through the ages be done in CGI into what we today in modern media.

Over the many films in Disney's iconic lineup, we have seen many renditions to reflect the movie that is being played.

The following is a clip of the modern day logo being played in its full 32-second duration.

The things that stand out to make the Disney logo as recognisable as it is now, are the iconic castle, font and the sparkle that forms an arc above the castle. The castle as explained previously is a homage to the film "Cinderella" and its castle. This could be argued to have been placed there due to just how recognisable it is, its presence seen by all who have been to the parks. This immediately helps the logo to stand out to the audience due to the logo's close relation to the company, arguably one of its most prominent faces. The font that is used, has been used by the company since the studio's first original logo in 1923.

This font has been associated with the studios ever since it was founded. Its prestigious and retrospective importance and stance for not just the company but for the audience is potentially one of the reasons it is used. The history it carries helps contribute to the logo being instantly recognisable. The spark/flare that can be seen creating an arc could possibly symbolise a rainbow or as some sources claim, a shooting star. The effect that is created from this is the sense of wonder and arguably, a sense of childlike awe and happiness.

Warner Bros. :

The Warner Bros. logo throughout its history has not changed significantly. The company originally founded by brothers, the initials WB has been the company's face since its creation. This could have been done in order to show the family roots of this company or that the company was that since the company was just simply founded by brothers, the initials would have represented the brothers as a whole, which to this day has still been recognised as we see the WB initials present in all, of the logos.

We, however, have seen a stray off the traditional shield and initials in the 1972-84 period.

Although it was a favourite of many, evidenced by its use even in mainstream media today in the films Argo and magic mike, this stray of the path is probably the only time the company has done something like this. Similar to Disney, the return to the original symbol may have been done in order to give the logo a  more recognisable face that many audiences would have gotten accustomed to over the years.

The most recent logo has been the staple since 1998. It had gone through a recent CGI overhaul in 2011 for exclusively New line cinema films where the logo would be broken up into parts. However, one thing that has remained is the company encouraging producers to make their own edits to the logo. 

The basic outline, in the form of the shield and font, remains but editors can make changes to the colour or even add special features to make it unique to the film.


Paramount Pictures:
The original logo for paramount pictures presented a mountain with 24 stars, which represented the company originally

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The mountain had represented the Ben Lomond Mountain and the 24 stars had represented the 24 original casts that had signed on to act for the company's movies.

As time progressed, the logo went through little changes. It had gone through a change in 1952, however, where now the logo was painted and the focus was now fully pon the peek of the mountain. The word "pictures" was also removed from the title and now remained as Paramount. This was done in order to put the focus of the audience entirely on the word "Paramount" on its own.

The final rendition which has gone through slight changes to follow the times is what the mainstream audience views before any of the companies movies. One of the significant changes of this logo was the transition over to CGI however, the mountain peek focus still remaining and so has the word "Paramount" still being the only word.

DreamWorks:

The brainchild of Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenberg and David Geffen, the companies logo had gone through little changes throughout its lifespan. The logo, originally going to be a man, presents a boy fishing on the moon with the child actually being modelled after the son of the logos artist Robert hunt. This may have been prefered over the man as it portrays the genre of children's movies that this company mainly produces. It portrays a child fishing up in the moon almost being a dream or fantasy. The 3 founding members initials are listed in the form of "SKG" at the bottom of the logo. Like many of the logos in mainstream media these days, the logo has also been remade through CGI, however, the original hand-painted logo is still one of the most recognisable logos in mainstream media history.

MGM:

MGM or Metro Goldwyn Mayer's logo is easily one of the most instantly recognisable logos in modern or past media. The logo itself has not changed much from the original logo as presented above. However, one of the most prominent changes has to arguably be the lion in the logo, the mascot of MGM. In the first logo, the lion used was slats. The inspiration to use a lion was through the director Howard Deitz wanting to pay a homage to his university, Columbia University, whose athletic team had the nickname The Lions. In the original logo, Slats the lion did not actually roar, the iconic roar was only recorded and added in 1928, for the movie White Shadows in the South Sea.

The next lion used was called Jackie. His new logo was used for the first talking movies made by MGM. He also made cameos in many of the studio's movies. After many transitions of different lions, the last lion used was Leo. But in an attempt to keep up with the times, MGM decided to pursue a new modern logo, created by Lippincott.

This modern logo was used up to 1968 where the logo with Leo was reinstated. Throughout the history of the studio, both logos were used.