LogoShop Part 3: Superman
Reimagining the Superman shield, the logo from another world.
This is part of a blog series on logo design. Read additional articles on DC Comics, the Justice League, LexCorp, Nightwing, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Punisher, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Adidas.
Hello and welcome back to LogoShop, a blog series where I explore and refine some of the most recognizable logos in popular culture.
Today, I’ll be looking at the Superman shield, which has gone through a ton of variations over the past 80+ years. Despite its long history, there is one version that stands above all others as the definitive mark of Superman. Unfortunately, it has a glaring mistake. So let’s take it into the Shop.
Disclaimer: I don’t work for DC Comics, and am in no way affiliated with them. This blog series is purely the result of my love of logos and the brands they represent.
The Background
Superman made his comic book debut in 1938 in the pages of Action Comics #1. As one of the first superheroes in history, his design would become the template for many of the heroes that followed, including Batman, Green Lantern, and countless others. A key tradition that Superman started was the idea of wearing a logo on his chest.
It started simply. Superman’s logo was the letter “S,” contained in a yellow shield. The design varied greatly in his early years, with the shield becoming an inverted triangle, then evolving into five-sided diamond. The “S” morphed right along with its container, expanding and stretching into a stylized letter with top and bottom serifs. By 1944, the logo took on its most enduring design, which has had only had slight variations since.
(Designer Kate Willaert did a comprehensive infographic of the progression of Superman’s shield, which you can see here.)
The Problem
The Superman logo is iconic. I won’t argue that. But that doesn’t make it perfect.
The most obvious flaw with the logo are the serifs. For most serif typefaces, the style of the serif is consistently applied. With the Superman “S,” it’s not. The upper serif is squared off, and the lower serif is rounded. In my opinion even a stylized typeface should be internally consistent.
It’s worth noting that artist Jim Lee removed the lower serif in his redesign of the costume in 2011, but the logo has since reverted to its original state.
Despite all that, there is a key piece of Superman lore that’s relevant here. Originally, the logo simply meant “S” for “Superman.” But starting with the 1978 film, the shield came to represent Superman’s Kryptonian heritage, specifically as his family’s coat of arms. In time, comics and other adaptations would describe Superman’s logo as the Kryptonian symbol for hope, which just so happened to resemble the letter “S.”
So. If that’s the story we’re going with — that Superman’s logo is indeed an alien symbol — why make it look so obviously like the letter “S?” Why not take a few liberties?
2013’s Man of Steel took this idea to heart, and made the logo a little more alien. Although, the descending upper serif looked a little sloppy in my opinion. The design was clear callback to the 1941 version, but I wouldn’t call that a high water mark.
The depiction of Krypton in media is wildly inconsistent, but one characteristic remains the same: It’s a sleek and high-tech civilization. Cold even. Maybe that should be factored into the design of Superman’s logo.
The Solution
The idea was to keep the iconic diamond shape of Superman’s logo, and fit the “S” into it more completely, taking the decades-long evolution to its natural end.
A major source of inspiration was artist Alex Ross’s minimalist design from the Kingdom Come series, with a strong diagonal line dominating the shape. It has an elegance to it, but I wanted to pull it back a little bit, and make the “S” shape a little clearer.
Taken as a whole, this logo speaks to Superman’s alien origins, coming across as a glyph that could be interpreted as an “S,” without being too obvious about it.
One of the most enduring and iconic logos in popular culture, taken to its logical extreme by way of its (now) alien origins.
This is probably the most dramatic reimagining of an existing logo you’ll see here in LogoShop, but I think it’s warranted.
If you want a complete set of desktop wallpapers from this installment, including the character application, download them here.
Join me next time as I take a look at the corporate brand identity of Superman’s arch nemesis. See you then.
Hi, I’m Daniel Beadle, writer, artist, and design consultant. Follow me and my work at DanielBeadle.com.
