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[elessa]

in april 2008 as reported in business week, starbucks decided to return to their salacious original brown logo for nostalgia. in 2005 starbucks had redesigned the logo to give the mermaid longer hair to cover the exposed breasts due to complaints regarding modesty. what we are left with now is a green logo of a woman holding two "things" in her hands. if you had no idea what the logo is supposed to represent, the elements of the mermaid are nearly wiped away completely.

tonight i was browsing one of my favourite blogs, bibliodyssey and discovered this gem. the design of a split tailed, bare breasted mermaid/siren is quite old.


it is from the Entwürfe für Prunkgefäße in Silber mit Gold - BSB Cod.icon. 199 - Augsburg oder Nürnberg 1560 - 1565, a book of silver and gold designs by the sixteenth century silversmith, erasmus hornick.

so, to all the prudes out there, get over it. the logo is art.




i also found an interesting interview with the current logo designer from 2005 at the deadprogrammer cafe along with images of the earliest logos, how they modified a 15th century print of a siren to hide the female naughty bits between the two tails in the original brown logo and packaging for starbucks coffee.

i find the evolution of logos to be interesting, especially when they harken back to other times in history.

Comments

[windrose.livejournal.com]

The double-tailed mermaid is a common figure in heraldry, and is derived from the Medieval legend of Melusine. According to the story, she was a half-fey woman who consented to marry Raymond of Poitou on one condition: he must never see her bathe. Naturally, he breaks this promise and discovers that, when submerged in water, she becomes part fish from the waist down. He promptly drags her before the court and denounces her as a demon, whereupon she transforms into a dragon, snatches up the closest of their children and flies back to Faerie, never to be seen again. King Richard I of England was rumored to be descended from her.

[elessa.livejournal.com]

i like the further extrapolation of her in alchemy.

(http://altreligion.about.com/b/2008/02/24/melusine-alchemical-siren.htm)
A metaphor for sexuality, and the contradictory duality of the female nature as viewed through medieval eyes.

The same dual-nature symbolism is also at work in alchemy, which employs the siren as a more benevolent emblem of enlightenment- the siren of the philosophers. Alchemically, the siren's two tails represent unity -of earth and water, body and soul- and the vision of Universal Mercury, the all-pervading anima mundi that calls out and makes the philosopher yearn to her.