How RadioShack’s logo shows changes in graphic design

You should be able to tell a lot about an entity through the logo they use, whether they are a company, government agency, or any other kind of collective looking for a wide audience.

Bloomberg Business recently profiled the visual history of RadioShack, an electronics company with a history of more than 90 years that recently filed for bankruptcy. Although it will be closing half of its brick-and-mortar locations, what does the way this business' brand name changed over the years say about them?

According to this article, when it began in 1921, the company was called "The Radio Shack" and used a simple typeface, usually accompanied by a slogan. Over the decades, it would tweak the logo's style to fit the times, whether that meant a bold font in a waving banner during the 1960's (when it became simply "RadioShack") or a computerized font to match the 1980's.

The year 1995 saw the introduction of a standalone "R" in a red circle to accompany the name, which would stay a part of the logo until the recent bankruptcy announcement.

The staff of Entrepreneur Media Inc. recently wrote about the process of creating an appropriate logo for a new business and recommended finding a professional design company to help with this all-important task.

"Even if you have a good eye for color and a sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still consult a professional designer," they write. "They know whether or not a logo design will transfer easily into print or onto a sign, while you might come up with a beautiful design that can't be transferred or would cost too much to be printed."

Vinyl signs and other materials can be host to well-designed logos that signal to customers where your company is in its evolution and what its values are.