The Prodigy is a British electronic music group playing in the genre of electronic music. The band was among the pioneers of the big beat style in music. It was founded in 1990 by Liam Howlett, who was also the author of the songs that made up their first mini-album released in 1991. Quite soon the musicians became popular at home and then abroad, first in Italy and some other countries. By now, the group has sold more than 25 million copies of its albums.
The logo, its meaning and history
During the three decades of its history, the band has changed several logos. The very first existed only from 1990 to 1991. The logo was futuristic, showing two palms pointing upwards against a square background with undulating black and white lines that resembled sound vibrations. Under the emblem was the name “Prodigy” written in capital letters made up of white dots on the background of the individual black squares. A similar logo was used as a sticker in the band’s catalogue till 1966. It was a circle with round black and white rings inside with a recognizable silhouette a capital letter “P” in the centre and the brand name “The Prodigy” written in the extreme white ring.
In all the logos across the three decades of the band’s life as a mandatory element was present the name of the band. The story behind the name “Prodigy” is quite simple. The group was named by its founder Liam Howlett, who took it from the trademark of a keyboard “Moog Prodigy” which had been the first instrument acquired by Howlett not long before he got together the band.
From 1995 to 2000 the band’s emblem featured an image of an ant. In certain years it used to appear in a separate circle next to the group’s name, in an ellipse or in the counter of the letter “O” which was extended to an ellipse to fit the long figure of the ant. The Prodigy musicians explaining the meaning of the emblem used to say that the ant represented their idea of themselves, i.e. “small and powerful”. One may not notice them when they are silent, but then the band comes with a loud premiere of a new song.
Starting from 2004 the Prodigy logo is using only the band’s name with no special emblem. Since 2009, the graphics of the wordmark letters are not changed. The stems of the letters have a characteristic fracture at half their height. The latest version, introduced in 2017, has white letters with black edging on a pink background.
