Do you know what the letters in the name IKEA stand for? Or what inspired the Android logo’s creator? We didn’t know these things either until we decided to write this article.
Pepsi
According to Davis Bradham, the creator of Pepsi, his drink made of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, and nutmeg stimulated the digestion process. This is why he came up with the name Pepsi based on the world dyspepsia which is a catch-all term for all digestive disorders.
In more than 100 years of its existence, the logo has changed numerous times. Today, it’s a circle made of blue and red halves separated with a white wave. Interestingly, the company had to pay more than $1 million for this logo. According to its creators, it references the earth’s magnetic field, Pythagoras’ theorem, and the theory of the golden ratio. But the reference to the US national flag is far more obvious.
IKEA
Most of the products in this store are named with hard-to-pronounce Swedish words but the name of the company is very different. The creator of the company, Ingvar Kamprad, came up with an acronym using the first letters of his name and the name of the farm Elmtaryd in Agunnaryd where he was born. The logo is pretty simple and references the Swedish flag’s colors.
Android
According to a legend, the founder of the company, Andy Rubin, was called android because of how much he loved robots. So when he started working on his own operational system, he chose this name for it.
The Android logo was designed by Irina Blok. She said that she pictured a robot but just couldn’t come up with the right image. It’s funny that the pictures drawn on restroom doors helped her come up with an idea for what she wanted.
Starbucks
The name for the famous coffee chain was made up by the owners almost by accident. They gathered one evening and started making up words that started with "st"— they thought that these 2 letters would be a great match and they sounded cool. Then, someone found an old mining map and found the town of Starbo. The friends then remembered one of the Moby Dick characters, Starbuck. This was how the name of the iconic coffee company came to be.
But why is there a siren of the sea on the logo? This is a reference to the book. Starbuck from the novel was an assistant on the ship. The creators decided to go along with the sea theme, choosing the 2-tailed mermaid from Ancient Greek mythology as their logo.
The founder of the app, Kevin Systrom, was interested in photography before he created Instagram. He really loved the instant photos made by Polaroid, for example. This is where the word “instant” came from. Photos can also be sent as messages or telegrams, hence the combination of instant and telegram to make Instagram.
The logo of the company, in turn, was inspired by the name: a slightly altered picture of the retro camera Polaroid OneStep. Later, it was changed to be more minimalistic but you can still see the camera in the logo.
