There is very few game and toy manufacturers as well known as Hasbro. Started by Hassenfeld brothers in 1924, Hasbro has become a juggernaut of the toy and game industry, boasting over $5 billion US dollars in annual revenue. But we are not here to discuss the merits of their business practices. We are here to discuss the merits and evolution of their logo design.
Habro's first logo was designed in 1944. The oval badge layout was common in 1940's logo designs as was the ribbon banner at the bottom of the design. The "HB" in this logo stands out as particularly interesting not just because the "B" flows on from the "H" but also because the "B" also creates the number "3" which represents the three Hassenfeld brothers who founded the company.
It's actually surprising how well this design has held up. You would expect a logo from the 1940's to be a bit over embellished and flashy but Hasbro exercised restraint in an age of fancy script and clutter.
Hasbro redesigned their logo in 1955 and it was largely forgettable, so forgettable in fact that it is hard to find a version of the logo that you don't have to squint at. This logo is stripped of the original 1944's logo's subtle intricacies and is replaced with a script font. Riveting.
While there is something good to be said about the elegance of simple text based logos, I don't think it was the right move on Hasbro's part. Luckily this logo only lasted 4 years... Or perhaps unluckily.
Oh boy. Where to start on this one. The 1959 logo design decided to take risks.
To give a bit of context to this one, Mr. Potato Head was purchased by Hasbro in 1952 and was met with a huge success. Hasbro was even marketing it on network television, which was a first for any toy. Seeing as kids were the main source of income Hasbro decided to market directly to kids. Much to the frustration of their parent's wallets.
In what could be one of the first "fellow kids" moments the logo was redesigned into a happy cartoon child with "Hasbro" written on his shirt. This logo did not age well at all. Besides the child's soulless dead eyes, the design's balance is completely off-center. Add to that inconsistency of the line weight and you have a recipe for a very confusing logo design.
In 1968 Hasbro rebranded, while they had been using Hasbro as a trade name, the company was still officially called Hassenfeld Brothers. So they officially changed their name to Hasbro Industries and decided to go semi-public. While the 1959 logo may have appealed to kids Hasbro now wanted to appeal to investors and so they once again redesigned their logo.
The 1968 design was decidedly corporate. I had a very basic, bold, san-serif font and it's only differentiating feature is the "H". I am not exactly sure what they were going for with the "H", possibly the idea of a folding box or maybe it symbolizes all the interconnectivity parts of the company. Whatever it was it lacked character and was hard to look at for long periods as there is something uncanny about how the bolded "H" is broken up by thin lines.
1978 marks the first Hasbro logo design that incorporated colour. The design uses two shades of pale blue. Blue is a safe colour and even to this day is also the most common colour in logo design. It is often connected to safety and quality.
This design also tried to emphasis the importance of families as their range of board game products were starting quite well. At first glance you might even miss that the blue background behind the house is shaped into a "H".
However, this design does suffer from what I like to call the "babushka doll effect", where there are too many elements nested within one another. First you have the outline, then the "H" then the house and finally the two children (who look like they are conjoined). This design was a significant improvement over its predecessors.
In 1993 Hasbro probably felt that their logo was a bit too complex and decided to return to a more minimalist design. Much more minimalist. Once again they went for a bold, san-serif font. The design also changed the colour from a nice soothing blue to an awful murky green-blue. Perhaps Hasbro wanted to get out of the toy/game industry because the fun was gone out of this design.
It wasn't long until Hasbro decided to bring back the fun. The 1998 redesigned logo wanted to bring back the energy and fun that the 1993 logo lost. So they slightly slanted the logo's box, used a brush font and made it look like a smiley face. This had given the Hasbro's logo some much needed energy as well as personality.
Research shows that smiles are infectious, people are more likely to smile when they see a smile and that can improve their mood. People also tend to interoperate faces really easily from a collection of objects. No doubt Hasbro used this research to their advantage by integrating a smiley face into their design.
Sadly, they didn't change the design terrible colour that makes me feel slightly nauseated every time I look at it.
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Ah much better. Hasbro's 2009 logo took the 1998 logo and improved on it in almost every way. They returned to a nice blue colour, this time using a dark to light gradient (which was in fashion back in 2009). They also warped the box to bend inwards at the side. This gave the design a more energetic feel as the sides look like they are going to bounce out at any second. The text is now bursting out from its original container and spilling outside of the box. It is almost as if the logo itself is trying to contain its excitement.
This is Hasbro's current logo and even though I am not a huge fan of gradients, this design is a good one. That being said I wouldn't be surprised to see Hasbro redesigning their logo soon (if history tells us anything). My predicition is that they will go for an almost identical design with a flat blue colour instead of the dark to light gradient that is used here.
Well that is all for today, I hope you enjoyed taking through history with me in this week Gratuitous Graphics.
Game well,