"These skulls, though, are only the latest in a decades-long trend that, according to United States Patent and Trademark Office records, saw the rate of skulls and skeletons in American logos increase by a factor of almost seven from the 1980s to the 2010s. Throughout the last decade, skulls and skeletons appeared in nearly one of every 200 new U.S. logos, a number that has dipped only slightly in the 2020s."
"Logo design guru Bill Gardner is no stranger to skull logos, having cataloged over 2,000 of them in his Logolounge database over the years. And while it's easy to assume that most of these symbols are just variations of the familiar skull and crossbones of the "Jolly Roger" pirate flag, Gardner points out that the ubiquity of that flag in the popular imagination is something of a historical accident."
"And one of those flags just happened to be a skull with crossed bones. In 1911, the illustrator N.C. Wyeth was hired to design a cover for a new edition of Treasure Island, and he incorporated that flag because it was easy to understand symbolically. From that point on, the public assumed that all pirate flags featured a skull and crossbones."
Skulls and skeletons have become prominent in logos and branding, appearing beyond seasonal decorations into political symbols and corporate trademarks. Antigovernment Gen Z protesters have adopted the 'One Piece' Straw Hat Pirates skull-and-crossbones emblem in several countries. Liquid Death and Death Wish Coffee are involved in a legal dispute over similar skull-focused trademarks. United States Patent and Trademark Office records show skull imagery in American logos increased nearly sevenfold from the 1980s to the 2010s, with about one in 200 new U.S. logos featuring such imagery in the last decade and a slight dip in the 2020s. The dominance of the skull-and-crossbones over other pirate symbols traces to N.C. Wyeth's 1911 Treasure Island cover.
Read at Fast Company
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