History of the Batman Logo
The first time the batman concept appeared was in “The Bat-Man” comic books between 1935 -1939. It was published by Detective Comics, and Detective Comics 27 was the first published “The Bat-Man” issue.
Bob Kane was the creator and the original designer of Batman, from the story to the drawings, and everybody knew this for years; but in his later years he finally admitted that he wasn’t the only one and that Bill Finger also contributed to the creation of the comic book, mainly in the story.
The original title was “The Bat-Man”, the word being split in two by a hyphen and with “the” in front of it; it stayed like this till Detective Comics 30 when it lost the hyphen and then in 31 remained only Batman, although it was still split in two usually by the head or years of the batman character.
Design of the Batman Logo
The first ever logo in 1939 was actually the name “The Bat-Man”, a simple logo, written in block-like letters with a drop shadow and on the right there was a shadowed figure of the batman. The logo suffered small modifications every issue of the comic book because Kane was drawing the logo each time from scratch; that’s why there were some small differences like the ears of the Batman grew each issue a little bit more.
Issue 31 has the first logo that lasts for years, small changes were made to it over the years but the basic shape remained the same. The bat wings were added to the head of the character and the name was put over it. The crude block letter font was dropped in favor to a basic shaped one. Simple straight-forward letters were used, colored yellow, with a red outline; the drop shadow was removed too.
In issue 38, Robin, his sidekick, made his first appearance but the logo changed also. Now it was a banner with the “Batman” word on it and the characters somewhere around the cover; it was different with every issue.
Back to the D.C. 31 Logo
In Detective Comics 40 the logo went back to the original issue 31 logo, the one that remains for years, slightly changed depending on the theme. Now the logo is more finished, with strong secure lines, and blue accents to show shadows on the head and on the bat wings. Some issues brought something new to the logo, different colors of the batman, different fonts and colors to the title, but the basic shape remains the same.
– 1966 – The comic book was transformed into TV-Show and the logo was changed also, but this one was not designed by Kane, but by somebody from the TV-Show’s crew. This time the image of the batman remained basically the same, the shape was a bit restrained at the edge of the wings and the title now was written inside the image, copying the shape of the batman.
– 1970 – This time the comic book copied the logo from the TV-Show, but the color was changed. Now the logo is white and the letters are red with a black contour. The only thing is that the proportion of the head to the wings was a little off, the head being slightly small. The designer of the new logo is Gaspar Saladino.
– 1971 – Now the logo went back to the issue 31 logo, again, but it only took the basic shape from it. The version of this one is a red batman, with a black head and inside the image it was written “Batman with robin the teen wonder”. This design was made by Gaspar Saladino too.
In the design process for issue 241 the designer went back to the classic design of issue 31. No colors changed, no font inside the batman. The change made to this design is the bigger head of the batman, which is good because now everything is proportional. The title is again split in half, with “bat” on one side and “man” on the other side, split by the ears and head of the batman, like the original design. The logo was done like this till 1986; the issues had some variations, sometimes without the original logo at all.
The Final Touch to Logo
The 466 issue brought a new logo, based on the old one but now the wings had curved sides, and were not pointing down. This Batman Logo was inspired by the logo Batman had on his chest. This logo was the one that remained ageless; it’s compact, it has beautiful shape, rounded but at the same time sharp.
The 515 issue was the last and final touch to the shape of the batman logo, the body is now smaller and the head is taller. This logo was the same one Tim Burton used in his movie “Batman” in 1989, the movie that actually introduced Batman to the world. This is the only logo that remained in every mind in the world, even though others appeared after this one.
The most common logo for batman is the one surrounded by the yellow oval form that puts everything together and complements the form perfectly. The Batman logo is one of the most famous and easiest to recognize logos in the world. It has a unique shape that easily imprints in your mind, even though the color might be different in every other comic book or it has a different contour you still know what it is.
The logo doesn’t need a title, a name, any writing at all; it’s the perfect logo that speaks for itself.
Batman Nightfall Nr.19, detective Comics, 1993
Batman Beyond, animated series, Warner Bros, 1999
Batman Begins, Movie, by Christopher Nolan, 2005
