Chiquita is the name of the company, which specializes in the production and distribution of bananas. Being one of the world’s leading banana companies, Chiquita operates all over the globe and has a perfect reputation.
The company’s roots can be traced to 1871. Its original name was the United Fruit Company, while the name Chiquita was trademarked only in 1947. However, three years earlier, the company already started wrapping the bananas in paper bearing the Miss Chiquita logo inspired by a banana cartoon produced by Disney in the 1940s.
The original Chiquita logo was created in 1944 and stayed with the brand for the first three years of its history. The banana lady was drawn in modest black contours against a white background without any colorful details. The lettering was not there either.
The redesign of 1947 added more details to the image and strengthened the composition by enclosing the cartoonish character into a thick oval frame, where the name of the brand was written in the uppercase of a lightweight sans-serif typeface. This version of the badge stayed active for longer than a decade.
In 1960 the oval badge was redrawn in thin black lines, with the main hero of the composition enlarged and placed in the center of the medallion, above the contoured uppercase “Chiquita” inscriptions in a geometric sans-serif font. The thin frame of the emblem featured the same thickness as the lines of the Chiquita banana, which made the simple badge look very balanced.
The bright colors first came to the Chiquita logo after the redesign of 1963. The oval badge turned into a softened rectangle, with a gradient blue background and a double golden frame, with the main graphical element drawn in intense gold lines against a blue background and above the bold white rosemary, set in the title case of a stylized serif font.
The redesign of 1970 added the enlarged uppercase “Brand” tagline to the composition, enlarged the drawing part of the medallion, and simplified the framing of the square, drawing it in thick white lines with a thin black outline. The blue and gold color palette from the previous version was replaced by a timeless black-and-white one.
The female character was updated to make the design more modern and emotional.
Over the years, the company has also used a range of other stickers, for instance, a promotional version for the Olympics. What has remained the same is that the logo is dominated by the blue color, which makes it stand out on the yellow banana.
The company held a logo design contest. The aim was to make the product more appealing to a younger generation. Quite a few experts were surprised to find out the brand was going to get rid of the iconic banana lady design.
Eventually, though, the Chiquita logo has remained pretty much the same, with only minor modifications.