The logo that the company uses sits at the top of each pen and has a white star-shape that apparently resembles either a snowy mountain top or a bird splat.
Mont Blanc Logo
For pen users, Mont Blanc is at the peak of the scale that measures quality and craftsmanship. The Mont Blanc logo that the company uses sits at the top of each pen and has a white star-shape that apparently resembles either a snowy mountaintop or a bird splat – depending on your particular vision of the logo.
Before I dig deeper into that part, I want to give you a bit of history related to the company.
Three businessmen, Claus Johannes Voss, William Dziambor and Christian Lausen formed their company in 1910. They named it after the Mont Blanc Mountain which has the distinction of being the largest European mountain in France. The Mont Blanc logo, developed by the trio, first appeared in 1913. It is commonly known as the star logo.
Pen collectors around the globe have more or less used up a lot of ink in the debate over the actual origins of the ‘star logo.’ One such story stems from the fact that the Montblanc headquarters were located in the Sternschanze part of Hamburg, Germany. The word ‘stern’ translates to ‘star’ in English with the word ‘sternschanze’ translated to mean “a fortification with a star shape.’
I’m not sure if I’d consider that a bit of a stretch or if that story just adds to what I am going to call the “Legend of the Bird Splat Logo.”
Speaking of bird splat…
Many who see the Mont Blanc Logo as something other than a snow-capped mountain peak like to refer to it as a picture perfect depiction of bird droppings that would have been released from overhead. I find that to be a creative way of trying to poke fun at a logo that truly is iconic. Imagine the top of a quality writing instrument poking out from the top of your shirt pocket. The one with the tiny circle at the top and white star shape that looks like snow dripping down from the rounded top of your pen would instantly be identified as a Mont Blanc pen.
This is where a simple, yet elegant (I’m not thinking about birds at all here) logo stands out and works extremely well without the assistance of word marks to further explain what the Mont Blanc logo it about.
Where I give the company top marks it the placement of the logo. The top of any pen is dead space. Mont Blanc turned that extremely small piece of pen real estate into advertising..
Smart marketing uses non-traditional spaces for a message that expands far beyond the size and scope of that space. The Mont Blanc pen top is such an example. It’s far more than effective.
I dare you to line a half dozen of those pens in your shirt pocket and look at them closely in a mirror. Now you have a complete mountain range without a bird in sight.
Besides, how many birds can fly to such high elevations, anyway?
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