In 1953, a former military journalist and copywriter for Esquire who had left his former position over a $5 raise, scraped together enough money from friends, associates, and his mother to publish a new magazine.
The publisher initially planned to name it Stag Party, but because of another magazine, changed the name to Playboy. One can only wonder if the bunny logo infamously associated with Playboy would have stuck to a magazine whose name was synonymous with deer.
Today, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, and the Playboy bunny are associated with much more than the magazine that has featured Marilyn Monroe, Pam Anderson, and many other beauties. It is a brand that is engrossed in print, DVD, and Internet. Although currently down, the playful bunny still retains its luster from past days where the open discussion of sex was more than taboo but in many areas illegal as well.
Playboy Brand Origin
The Playboy bunny originally didn’t start out as a logo or a bunny. As mentioned above, initially the name of the magazine was Stag Party. As such, the bunny was actually a deer in the tuxedo designed by Art Paul, a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. The last minute threat of copyright infringement forced Paul to replace the head of the deer with one of a rabbit, though in the original drawings the hooves can still be seen.
Nor was the design considered to be a logo at start. Initially it was to be used as an end note, however, the design was later chosen to be the logo of the new magazine because of its “frisky and playful” nature and because of the humorous sexual connotations. The logo and the bunny thus became entwined with Playboy’s image and has been used ever since (Art Paul, the freelance designer, went on to become the Art Director of Playboy and has been praised for his artwork and design skills).
Playboy Logo Description
The logo is designed as a rectangular box enclosing the head of a rabbit, and is usually colored in either black or white in contrast to the background. One of the running jokes of the magazine is to “hide” the playboy bunny somewhere in either the cover art or the photograph. However, during Playboy’s meteoric rise, the playboy bunny was anything but hidden.
It has been incorporated into the costumes of workers at Playboy clubs and has expanded from the traditional magazine to playboy’s other ventures, which now dwarf the magazine’s revenues two-to-one.
Logo Summary
In short, the Playboy Bunny has allowed Hugh Hefner’s corporation to leap to unprecedented levels of success both in adult entertainment and in publication. Though the bunny has taken a hit in recent years financially because of competitors, the economy, and new media outlets, it still retains some of the rabbit’s springiness and virility, and there is little doubt that it will jump at the prospect of new endeavors and new challenges.
