Nintendo logo overview

Nintendo fan Gustavo Acero rummaged through my post on Nintendo's logo through the years, and created a neat little overview based on that. I quite like his result, which you can see below.

The original post of the overview by Gustavo can be found here.

Nintendo's logo through the years - part 2

A previous blog post on Nintendo's logo's through the years showed the many different logos that Nintendo went through until they settled on their current company logo.

When I gathered the visuals for that article, I was surprised of just how many different styles Nintendo had used in the period from around 1965 until the early 1980s.

Some of the many logos that Nintendo has used over the years

That article however failed to mention an important logo that Nintendo had used for a number of years from the 1950s to the mid 1960s: the 'Ace of Spades' logo.

Nintendo's 'Ace of Spades' logo introduced in the 1950s
(image courtesy of GameScanner)

This logo obviously stems from the period in their history when Nintendo was still primarily a playing card manufacturer. It has two specific style elements: the white spikes that are drawn around the inner spades shape and a circle in the middle with a gothic-style letter 'N'.

So, Nintendo already used a big 'N' in their logo years before they themselves would be addressed as "The Big N". I think this is called destiny.

Typical trump cards sold by Nintendo in the 1950s

It was introduced around the time when they increasingly started selling Western style trump card sets, many of which were illustrated with Disney characters.

Ever heard of the Nippon Game company?

Some time ago, I posted a story about the various logos used by Nintendo over its long history.

I forgot to mentioned one interesting piece of information, though. When Nintendo branched out from playing cards to board games, they decided to do this under the name Nippon Game. This name was only used for a brief time, but if it had stuck we would be waiting for the Nippon Game Wii U right now!

In the early 1960s, Nintendo released games under the name Nippon Game

Nintendo's grey band games (1966-67)

In order to stand out in a toy store - with hundreds of purchase options calling for attention - the box is crucially important.

Foremost, it should have eye-popping box art that depicts the gameplay joys that will be provided by the toy or game. But also important is a recognized brand that assures quality and provides reason for the customer-to-be to believe that this promise, made by the image on the front, will be delivered.

Nintendo's 'grey band' games (1966-67)

In order for a brand to be recognized, a signature box design helps a lot; a standardized format by which the toymaker can be identified in an instant, by a mere glance at the box.

Nintendo introduced such a signature design around 1966. The design's main feature was a grey band on the left side of the box.

This grey band includes a 'Nintendo Game' logo on the top, and a 'Nintendo Company Japan' mark on the bottom.

Nintendo borrowed this box design of Milton Bradley (MB), the American game company (founded in 1860!) from which they licensed some games for release in Japan, including Twister and Skill-it.

MB's The Game of Life (1960)

It is likely that the first Nintendo games with the grey band where the rebranded licensed MB games. However, Nintendo expanded the use of this design to all their games in this period, including many original Nintendo games, as well as for licenses from other companies.

Below an overview is presented of (almost all of) the games that Nintendo released with the 'grey band'.

Nintendo's logo through the years

Since the conception of the Game & Watch handheld games and the Family Computer (NES) and the birth of Donkey Kong and Mario, Nintendo has slowly but steadily risen to become a household name. These days it is one of the most well-known and valuable brands in the world.

For a brand of this stature, a logo is a key asset, allowing products to be recognized instantly. The brand's characteristics and values, developed and earned over the years, are carried by the brand name and embodied in the logo.

Nintendo has used the familiar "racetrack" logo (referring to the line surrounding the name) since the early 1980s, only tweaking the design ever so slightly. The typography used even dates back to the late 1960s.

But Nintendo has not always used this logo. For the first seventy-five years or so since its start in 1889, the logo consisted of the company name in kanji.

Nin - ten - dō

These three kanji '任天堂' spell the name: 任 (Nin) 天 (ten) 堂 (dō). [For a discussion on the meaning of these characters, check out this article on Kotaku.]

Up to this day, these kanji are used in Japan as the formal company name, and they continue to appear on Nintendo's products, although the racetrack logo is always used prominently in all marketing communication.

However, the racetrack logo was not created overnight.

During the 1950s, Nintendo first introduced a logo used mainly for its Western style playing cards: the so-called Ace of Spades logo. [More about that here.]

During Nintendo's modernization in the 1960s, while it also set the first small steps on the path of international distribution, it decided to introduce a logo using the roman script; readable by a Western audience and looking more modern for the Japanese home market.