Advan is a brand of tires introduced and owned by the Yokohama Rubber Company, which is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The colors and shape of the Advan logo were inspired by the tire it represents.
The roots of the Yokohama Rubber Company can be traced as far back as 1917. It began as a joint venture of Yokohama Cable Manufacturing and B.F. Goodrich. It started working in the US in 1969 using the name Yokohama Tire Corporation.
In 1978, the company unveiled its new product, the ADVAN-HF tire. On its official website, the brand called it “the tire with the world’s highest level of wet performance.” The product was quite successful, and a whole series followed. It became so popular that the company often replaces its name with the Advan brand, especially in Japan.
The centerpiece of the logo, from the point of view of its meaning, is the combination of three red parallelepipeds. These shapes were inspired by the trace left by the tire on the highway. This is how the emblem represents the product.
The shape of the letters was chosen to echo the parallelepipeds. You can notice how the angle at which the elements of the “A’s,” “V,” and “N” are positioned coincide with the angles at which the parallelepipeds are positioned.
Similar to the shape of the Advan logo, the palette also echoes the way the product looks. When you look at the black background dominating the logo, you can only think of the color of the tire. The white letters were chosen to create enough contrast (the most contrastive color for the black), while the red was used to add a bright accent.