The British invasion has occurred again this past Wednesday with the entire Beatles music catalog released in a digitally remastered format. You can now play along with the "Fab Four" on the latest version of "Rock Band" on your gaming device. To no surprise "Beatlemania" still sells as copies of their latest venture are making accountants "Twist and Shout". Within days most stores and online retailers have sold out creating a long list of back orders.

All of this excitement has raised the question (for me) about the origin of The Beatles logo. Most of us know the story of the Nike logo designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson who was a graphic design student. Carolyn was approached by Nike founder Phil Knight and paid $35 for her now famous design. I should mention that Knight later gave her a gold "swoosh" ring and Nike stock. Could The Beatles logo have the same interesting beginnings?

The background of "The Beatles" name will take you on a "Long and Winding Road" among a variety of stories relating to its origin. The most common explainations are based on the following:

• Original member Stuart Sutcliffe came up with "The Beetles" as a play on Buddy Holly's group "The Crickets" – a favorite of the band members. Later it became "The Beatles" emphasizing the  "beat"aspect of music.
• John Lennon once stated the influence of the film "The Wild One," which featured a motorcycle gang called the "Beetles." Lennon is generally credited with combining "Beatles" and "beat" to come up with the "Beatles" spelling.
• Lennon was also fond of saying he had a vision as a child of a flaming pie in the sky that said "You are Beatles." (Perhaps too many psychedelic drugs influenced his memory on this version)

The design of "The Beatles" logo goes back to 1963 when Ringo Starr purchased a drum kit with the band's manager Brian Epstein. The story goes that both went to Drum City in London and Ringo decided to purchase a small Ludwig drum kit. The transaction was based on trading-in Ringo's old set and providing a little promotion for Drum City's new Ludwig product line. Epstein wanted the band's name across the drumhead with his only instructions to emphasize the word "beat" in the logo. On the spot, Drum City's owner Ivor Arbiter pulled out a piece of paper from his desk and sketched a couple of crude logos. On one of them, Arbiter isolated "beat" by elongating the "B" and lowering the tail of the "T", leaving the rest of the letters symmetrically the same height. Both Epstein and Starr approved the design. Soon after a London sign painter, Eddie Stokes, finished the design and painted it on the bass drum front. Although the logo was hand-drawn it may have been influenced by several font families like Strayhorn and Friz Quadrata. The cost for the logo was a mere 5 pounds (today $8.35).

So now you have the background on one of the most famous logos. This has inspired me to "Get Back" to work so I can earn some money to buy "The Beatles" box set. What's your favorite "band" logo? Leave us a comment . . .

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