The Burberry Logo. All its history and secrets

Do you like the Burberry logo? In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to know about the emblem of the popular fashion brand.

Burberry introduced a new monogram and logo in 2018. Designed by Peter Saville, the new logo heralded the new dawn of the company under the new head of the creative department Riccardo Tisci. The updated Burberry logo design was quite radical as it ditched the classic “Equestrian Knight” and tagged the brand with a bolder, more modern font.

The new, austere Burberry logo has the brand name written in all capital letters and a smaller text “LONDON ENGLAND” underneath. It appears that Burberry has taken the well-worn path of simple design approaches employed by Chanel, Tom Ford, Fendi, Céline or Louis Vuitton.

The designers of the Burberry logo also found a way to creatively intertwine the T’s and B’s, creating a“TB” monogram inspired by the initials of the luxury fashion house’s founder. The monogram will feature prominently in the promotion and brings together a stunning combination of the familiar Burberry beige, classic white and honey orange. The monogram dates back to 1908 and came about after Tisci visited the Burberry archives.

In a sense, Burberry’s first experiment in nearly two decades was a balanced tactic of abandoning a world-renowned design feature(Equestrian Knight) and retrieving something from its archives(Monogram).

The Burberry Story

Burberry is a benchmark in the fashion world. After developing its legendary check pattern, the company endured a period of massive imitation by rivals who put it to the test. However, shrewd hiring and license revocations helped the company regain its image, and it has since grown by leaps and bounds.

Below, let’s take a look at Burberry’s phoenix story and why it is one of the most popular and recognized luxury fashion brands in the world.

Let’s start where it all began, more than a century and a half ago!

The beginnings of Burberry

Thomas Burberry created his Burberry brand in 1856. At just 21 years old, he had big ambitions.

He manufactured a tightly woven material known as gabardine that represented a kind of liberation. This material matched his rainwear and was resistant to wet conditions, which propelled Burberry as a useful alternative to other brands of the time.

Burberry’s reputation continued to grow and, in 1891, the founder moved the company to London. It was there that his even more popular designs quickly achieved fantastic success.

Burberry’s most famous designs

Building one of the world’s most popular fashion brands is no mean feat. But someone was determined to do it and did it successfully. And not only that, Thomas Burberry went further and created another classic design that went on to become the official uniform of the British Army.

Here are some of Burberry’s most famous designs:

The trench coat: In 1912, Burberry came up with one of his most iconic creations: the trench coat. But Burberry and Aquascutum, one of its competitors, maintain a never-ending dispute over who officially invented the trench coat.

Despite this dispute of more than 100 years, the Burberry trench coat contributed to making the brand more popular since the British army used it during the First World War. In addition to British troops, a famous polar explorer named Sir Ernest Shackleton wore a Burberry trench coat on some of his expeditions.

Burberry plaid: After the enormous popularity and success of the trench coat, Burberry took it a step further and invented the trench coat, but it wasn’t over yet. The fashion house upped the ante with an iconic design, the Burberry plaid, in the 1920s. This design was made with a beige plaid and accented with red, black and white.

Having transformed Burberry’s fortunes for several decades, it wasn’t long before jealous rivals began making imitations of the legendary Burberry check.

The decline of Burberry

Burberry suffered a double whammy, and nearly lost everything in the process. First, there was the problem of imitation. During the 1980s and 1990s, Burberry checks were one of the most copied designs in the fashion world.

In an attempt to increase sales, Burberry embarked on a large-scale licensing campaign, but this only fueled the fire even more. That fire is known as ubiquity, and it can bring down luxury fashion houses. Ubiquity can weaken a brand because it is seen as commonplace, which goes against the norm of what luxury goods are.

Burberry realized that its ubiquity would cause the brand to lose its status as a luxury fashion house because upper-class consumers were looking elsewhere. To maintain the brand’s reputation, Burberry launched a campaign that ultimately saved the brand.

Burberry’s rebirth

Burberry launched a campaign to reclaim its brand identity under the leadership of Christopher Bailey and Angela Ahrendts.

One of the company’s first actions was to cancel licenses to boost its exclusivity and reduce the use of Burberry checks to 10% of its products.

Burberry drastically reduced the use of its flagship product because soccer hooligans were using the box extensively. The sleazy nature of soccer hooligans was beginning to erode brand equity, so Burberry decided to make the box less ubiquitous.

evolution or revolution? Either way, the campaign produced phenomenal results.

Burberry today

Burberry has recovered its image despite various pressures and now posts sales of around £2 billion a year.

The company now produces ready-to-wear clothing, fashion accessories, fragrances, cosmetics, sneakers, sunglasses and much more.

Today, Burberry continues to move forward and faces its future with much innovation and confidence. With a new logo, created by Riccardo Tisci and Peter Saville and inspired by founder Thomas Burberry, Burberry is poised to have a bright future and is expected to be one of the most recognizable British fashion brands in history.

The Burberry Timeline

1856: Draftsman Thomas Burberry founded Burberry in Basingstoke. Its original purpose was to make outdoor clothing that Lord Baden Powell and Lord Kitchener approved of.

1879: Burberry manufactures the gabardine, a tightly woven fabric.

1891: The first Burberry store opens in London.

1901: The Burberry “Equestrian Knight” logo is designed, containing the Latin name “Prorsum”, meaning forward.

1911: Burberry becomes the clothing supplier to the first person to reach the South Pole, Roald Amundsen.

1914: During World War I, the British Army uses the Burberry trench coat in the trenches. Named “Tielocken”, the trench coat protected the entire body and had a belt but no buttons.

1999: Burberry changes its name to Burberry. The company’s flagship product, Burberry plaid, sells widely and, in some cases, hurts the brand.

2001: Designer Christopher Bailey is appointed creative director of Burberry. He is tasked with reviving the company’s flagging fortunes.

2006: Burberry CEO Rose Marie Brave resigns and Angela Ahrendts (then Apple VP) takes over. During Brave’s tenure (2006-2014), Burberry’s sales soar to more than £2 billion.

Together, Ahrendts and Bailey removed the plaid pattern from all but 10% of products and took back the beauty licenses for fragrances. Bailey gave the brand a strong British identity and put it back on the global fashion map.
2009: Burberry’s headquarters move to Horseferry House, designed by the same firm that designed the London Stock Exchange, the New York Times building and Apple’s European jewel on Regent Street.

2013: Burberry creates the see-now-buy-now program, allowing customers to directly purchase runway items from the spring/summer 2014 collection online and via mobile shortly after the show.

2014: Bailey is appointed CEO of Burberry and also retains his role as creative director.

2016: Céline CEO Marco Gobbetti takes over as CEO of Burberry, replacing Bailey, who continues as president and creative director.

Burberry London (accessories and trench coat), Prorsum (ready-to-wear) and Brit (casual wear) are eliminated and grouped under one brand, Burberry.
2017: Bailey retires.

2018: Bailey is replaced by Riccardo Tisci.

Burberry unveils its new monogram and logo inspired by Thomas Burberry and designed by Peter Saville.
Burberry bans the burning of all unsold items and begins using fur to make products.
Riccardo Tisci presents his first collection for Burberry.

The evolution of the Burberry Logo

For more than 100 years, Burberry’s visual identity has been represented by an equestrian standing next to his packhorse. The iconic logo hasn’t changed much throughout Burberry’s existence, but the company opted to make a significant change in 2018, removing the equestrian from the prominent emblem.

Here’s how the Burberry logo has evolved over the years since the original version was introduced in 1901.

1901-1968

The Burberry logo was originally designed in 1901 and featured a red emblem over a word mark. The emblem depicted a horseman with a shield and a pike and took up most of the space.

The pike was a woven flag, and the shield featured a decorative letter“B” and the inscription“Prorsum“. The legend below the emblem was executed in capital letters with a thick serif typeface, looking strong and authoritative.

1968 – 1999

This time, the inscription stole the spotlight from the emblem. The emblem was abstract and small, just a solid black shadow, with no lettering or detail. The Burberry lettering was rendered in capital letters with a faint slogan “Of London” in capital letters underneath, written in a serif font like the main lettering.

The Burberry logo now more closely resembles the visual identity of a luxury fashion house, signifying elegance and style and representing an influential brand with legacy values and history.

1999 – 2018

The 1999 redesign balances the logo, making the emblem larger and the lettering slightly smaller. The rider has its white outlines back, and the wordmark is now in uppercase letters in an elegant serif font, which looks much more like the Bodoni font family, with fine serifs and silky, sophisticated lines.

The tagline is now just “London” in capital letters, with the same typeface as the main lettering, but with finer lines and smaller size.

The logo design is harmonized and looks elegant and professional, reflecting the best aspects of the famous fashion house and accentuating its immense expertise and experience in garment making.

2018 – Current

The current Burberry logo was designed in 2018 and reflects the new era of the brand. It portrays a youthful and modern approach to design, emphasizing the fashion house’s energetic and progressive character and its inclination to follow the latest trends and make them.

The lettering is usually used alone, but is sometimes accompanied by the slogan “England London,” which also appears in capital letters. The “equestrian knight” has been removed from the logo, but it still appears on the brand’s labels and packaging, not to mention the prints on the brand’s garments and accessories.

Burberry logo design elements

Symbol: One of the most recognizable emblems in fashion is the Burberry “equestrian knight” logo. It was created in 1901, with the Latin name “Prorsum”, meaning “forward”.

As the owner and founder of Burberry, Thomas Burberry was very careful and cautious in protecting his business interests. He had the logo registered in 1904 and, in 1920, registered the eponymous Burberry painting. The paintings did not begin to appear on the lining of trench coats until 1924.

Burberry’s visual identity embodies a horseman carrying a shield. While the shield symbolizes protection, the rider represents greatness, pride and purity.

Colors: The black of the logo represents the elegance, durability and strength of Burberry products.

Font: The actual Burberry inscription in capital letters is rendered in a contemporary sans serif font, which closely resembles the Urania Extra Bold typeface, created by Dieter Hofrichter. The inscription is an elegant twist on the old sans-serif, with clean, bold lines and distinctive cuts and angles.