1. Introduction
Starbucks logo has evolved during the 40 years that the company existed. Its colour and shape changed, but the central figure, the siren, remained. The current version of the logo was created in 2011 with the help of Lippincott, a branding firm.
The target audience of Starbucks is the middle class, the company’s development strategy and branding (the logo being a huge part of it) are designed to attract that audience, and so far the company has been successful in doing so.
2.1 Symbolism in Logo
The logo is highly symbolic. The siren is a well recognised mythical creature, that is present in many cultures and folklores. She is a symbol of femininity, mysterious and desirable. At the same time she is infirm and malign (Cirlot 2006). In the Greek mythology sirens, although bird- not fish-women, enticed travellers with their songs in order to devour them. Sirens with fish-tales behaved in a similar manner, only they caused men to drown. The twin-tailed siren that became the centre of the Starbucks logo was based on a sixteenth century North woodcut (Simmons 2005: 31). The two tails can either be a symbol of adoration (akin to raised arms) or duality and conflict (Cirlot 2006), more importantly for the logo, the two-tailed siren looks
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They felt that the central image, the siren, and the green circular shape were recognisable enough so it was safe to eliminate the company name. It also made sense to get rid of the text because Starbucks is an increasingly global company that is present in countries where English is not spoken, there was no need to translate the company name any longer, so the logo became universal across the world (Simmons 2005). Another reason is that the range of products the company offers has gone beyond coffee (Starbucks also sells an arrangement of non-coffee based drinks, ice cream etc), and the company is planning to keep developing in that