The Story Behind Iconic adidas Logos

Three stripes and trefoils have been forever associated with adidas, but do you know the story behind how these trademarks came to be? The brand has shared an abridged history of their famous logos in a new blog post.

According to the brand, their trademarks began circa 1949, when the adidas name was officially registered. The first logo consisted of a track spike depicting Three Stripes branding, pictured above the word ‘adidas’ with extended tails on the d letters. Below that is the world ‘Sportschuhe’, German for ‘sport shoes’. According to founder Adolf Dassler, there’s no symbolism behind three stripes – it simply looked the best.

Another famous adi logo, the trefoil, was introduced in 1972 to launch their foray into apparel and accessories. Inspired by floral emblems, the classic three-stripe motif still runs through the ‘leaves’ of the trefoil. It then appeared on footwear in 1976 then, decades later, was revived in 2000 with the launch of the adidas Originals heritage and casual line.

In 1989, adidas employed Peter Moore to design a new logo to help launch the adidas Equipment line in 1991. This angled ‘Three-Bar’ logo has become synonymous with the brand in the modern era, which they then adapted to feature the ‘Three-Bar’ with the adidas word mark, calling it the ‘Badge of Sport’ in 1996.

Today, the standalone ‘Three-Bar’ logo denotes the adidas Performance line, and the Badge of Sport now represents adidas Sportswear. Both are rendered in black and white only, while the trefoil is also found in white and blue. This third logo also continues to be the trademark of the Adidas Originals collection.

Learn more about these logos on the adidas website.