One of the most known telecommunication companies born in the UK, Vodafone was established in 1991. Its earliest logo was just a wordmark given in a bold italicized all-cap font. The white line dividing each letter in two parts gave the wordmark its distinctive look.
The second version of the Vodafone logo, which was adopted in 1997, featured a white-and-red speechmark placed inside a shape resembling a SIM card.
The Vodafone brand appeared only in 1985, but its visual identity was created under the influence of the emblem of its predecessor, Racal Strategic Radio, and since the very first version the color palette of the company’s emblem has never been changed.
The Racal logo, introduced in 1981, featured a red and white composition, where five slightly inclined rectangles with rounded angles had white letters on them. The inscription was executed in all capitals of a bold and clean sans-serif typeface with traditional contours.
In 1985 the company turns into Voda Racal Telecom and changed its logo to a two-leveled nameplate with the “Voda” in stylized red letters placed above the “Racal Telecom” in black capitals, set between two horizontal lines. The “Voda” part of the logo had its lines extra thick and featured a thin white horizontal coming through the whole word and adding lightness and air to it.
The first logo, designed for the Vodafone brand, featured the same style as the “Voda” part of the previous version, but all the letters were capitalized and had their contours refined. The new emblem also had its color palette elevated, with the scarlet red shade perfectly contrasting on a white background.
The brand had its monochrome version of the insignia, but it was used mainly in the official documents.
The redesign of 1997 introduced the iconic Vodafone emblem we all know today. The circular icon in red has a white drop on it and a lowercase wordmark under. The “O” in the wordmark is replaced by the same symbol as on the emblem (for the second “O” The symbol is turned upside-down).
In 2006 the logo was redesigned again, making the drop-like or comma-like emblems three-dimensional. The red image was placed in a silver-gray circle and featured light gradient shades, which added gloss and volume to the badge. As for the inscription, in this version, it was written in a modern sans-serif typeface with smooth lines, and both letters “O” were executed traditionally, with no replacements.
The redesign of 2017 brought the flat design back. The contours of the emblem were refined and the white comma on the red circular background is now more elegant and distinct. As for the wordmark, placed under the badge, it is written in the lowercase of a traditional sans-serif typeface, which is very close to such fonts as Rahere Sans Bold and Conamore Semi Bold.