BMW: the myth behind the logo
As it enters its 90th year, BMW has set the record straight regarding the origin of its world-famous logo, and there's quite a story behind itWe all know the origin of BMW’s corporate logo, don’t we? The blue-and-white roundel symbolises the spinning blades of an aircraft’s propeller, right? Wrong – and as BMW begins the celebrations of its 90th anniversary, it’s setting the record straight.
In fact, the whole ‘spinning propeller’ thing is nothing more than a myth – a myth sparked by an evocative 1929 advertisement. That year, also the start of the Great Depression, saw BMW acquire the licence to build Pratt & Whitney radial aircraft engines, and the ad in question (as pictured) featured the BMW logo as a backdrop to an aircraft’s props.
The myth was then cemented by an article by Wilhelm Farrenkopf that was published in a BMW journal in 1942. This also featured an aircraft with the logo as its propellers, and this time the story stuck.
So if the BMW logo isn’t a stylised impression of spinning propellers, what is it? The logo in fact has a somewhat simpler, rather more geographic origin. BMW explains that blue and white are the colours of the Bavarian Free State, but at the time of the roundel’s birth, which actually predates the birth of BMW's first bike by some five years, it was illegal to represent national symbols in a corporate context.
Instead, Franz Josef Popp – one of BMW’s founding fathers – reversed the colours, thus neatly circumventing the law while retaining a strong visual link with Bayerische Motoren Werke’s (Bavarian Motor Work’s) home turf. Popp, of the former Rapp Motorenwerke aircraft engine company, was seeking to attract new clients with a new company, and so BMW was born. The BMW logo also bears a number of ties, in shape and format, at least, with the Rapp logo. While the BMW name was officially registered in July 1917 and the logo was trademarked in October of that year, the first BMW motorcycle, the R32, didn’t arrive until 1923.
In the years since the BMW roundel has changed several times, even if it’s never deviated far from Popp’s initial design. Today it’s one of the most recognised corporate logos in the world, and, as BMW itself points out, it’s simplicity and symbolism has truly stood the test of time
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