ŠKODA LOGO HISTORY

Bicycles and motorcycles were made at the Mladá Boleslav workshop under the Slavia brand. The logo was based on a wheel with lime leaves to symbolise the Slavic nations. The names of the company’s founders (Laurin & Klement) were added and went on to become the main motif of a new logo.

The design of the L&K logo was influenced by the early-20th-century Art Nouveau artistic style. Perhaps playing on the similarity between the name Václav Laurin and laurel leaves, the initials of the company’s two founders are surrounded with a laurel wreath, associated with victory.

Starting in 1926, cars were produced in Mladá Boleslav under the Škoda brand. Despite the completely different brand name, the new design shows continuity with its forerunner. Although the Škoda logo has a new, oval shape, the brand name – surrounded by laurels – remains the centrepiece.

The logo with the famous “winged arrow” was first used in 1926. Its origin is shrouded in mystery, though the idea (the stylised head of an Indian wearing a five-feathered headdress) has occasionally been attributed to Škoda Plzeň’s commercial director, Tomáš Maglič.

The black-and-green logo, used from 1995, gave the ŠKODA brand greater originality, with black symbolising the hundred-year tradition and green signalling environmental production.

Under the strapline “The New Power of ŠKODA”, in 2011 ŠKODA presented the core elements of its new corporate design – distinguished by freshness and precision. The traditional winged-arrow logo features a new spectrum of colours to look even more distinct and precise than ever before.

The new ŠKODA logo is based on the core proposition “Driven by Inventiveness. Clever Ideas – Since 1895”, which represents the unflagging drive of ŠKODA towards its customers and their needs while accenting the ŠKODA heritage and brand values. The redesigned brand mark, launched in the second half of 2016, is part of the new Corporate Identity and illustrates the close connection to the VW Group. One significant change concerns the wordmark, which, in the new layout, is underneath the picturemark with the winged arrow in a chrome ring.