The emblem presents the buyer with an invention that hits the mark, occupying a global niche in the financial market. The Square logo is like a terminal reading mechanism, promising users an easy and simple way to pay for their purchases.
Square: Brand overview
Founded: | 2009 |
Founder: | Block, Inc. |
Headquarters: |
United States |
Website: | squareup.com |
Meaning and History
Both Square’s logos – old and new – reflect the symbolic name associated with the Square Reader’s square shape. It was the first product of the firm to accept payments. It connected to the audio jack of any smartphone, read information from the card, and transmitted analog data to the application.
What is Square?
This is the name of Block, Inc., a manufacturer of special devices for accepting payments from credit cards in the past. Card readers plug into your phone’s audio jack or Lightning input. The firm was founded in 2009 and renamed in December 2021. Square’s name now only applies to its core product.
2009 – 2011
The first emblem creators decided not to complicate the task and depicted a figure that vaguely resembles a card reader. But it is worth noting that this is not an ordinary square, but a cube – a regular hexagon, each side of which is a square. Usually, hexahedra are three-dimensional, but the designers have presented their 2D version. It seems flat due to the lack of ribs. The imagination completes them, so volumetrics’s visual effect occurs only at the level of associations.
The main part of the geometric shape is colored green. On the front edge, a large white square stands out, inside which there is a green mini-square. Some of the corners are rounded, which makes them less rigid.
2011 – 2016
In 2011, the logo finally lost its volume and became two-dimensional. The developers left three concentric squares, one inside the other. They alternate in color and size: the largest quadrangle is gray, the middle one is white, and the smallest is also gray. The same geometric pattern, but in a green and white palette, adorned one of the cube faces in the first Square emblem.
To the right of the multicomponent figure is the name of a company that provides financial and payment services. A sans serif font is used for the word, corresponding to a minimalistic concept.
The designers depicted the Square Reader as three superimposed squares. This vision was too schematic – in reality, the device looked a little different. But the owners of the company thought that the abstraction would become an excellent corporate symbol because it is simple, memorable, and looks good at any scale.
Round sans serif letters is combined with the rounded corners of three squares. This is another manifestation of the geometric logo. The selected font is vaguely similar to Rutan Regular and Seconda Soft Light, but they have little in common because the designers have developed a custom typeface.
The first emblem was green and white. The second one is more faded in comparison with it, although the palette also combines two colors. The background and middle Square are the same white as before, and the main elements are colored light gray.
2016 – today
At first glance, the redesign brought about minor changes, but they affected all elements. The icon now has a different color (instead of gray-black), and the text has a modified typeface (sharp ones replace rounded letters). At the same time, the marks remained subtle. The only significant difference is the spelling of “a”: the new version has a different form, although it is also in lower case.
Font and Colors
The previous logo featured typefaces lettering that resembled the Avalon Book from FontSite Inc. The name is now typed in a font that echoes the Museo Sans Cyrillic 300 and Aramis SemiLight. Certain details are taken from each. As a result, the text part consists of “Square,” where the lowercase “a” is in Cyrillic form. The redesigned color palette belongs to the pastel spectrum, so it is muted rather than bright.
Square color codes
Arsenic | Hex color: | #3e4348 |
---|---|---|
RGB: | 62 67 72 | |
CMYK: | 14 7 0 72 | |
Pantone: | PMS 432 C |
Why is the logo a square?
Square, known as Block, Inc. since December 10, 2021, had a square logo before its rebranding. It mirrored the shape of a quadrangular card reader that accepts credit card payments. But it cannot be said that it was an accurate illustration – the designers adhered to the style of minimalistic abstraction to establish only an associative link between the logo and the Reader.
What is the logo of the square?
Before renaming Block, Inc., the company used a logo consisting of two parts: a graphic sign and an inscription “Square.” The geometric figure contained three concentric squares with rounded sides: the middle quadrangle was white, and the other two were gray. The designers chose a thin sans serif font for the word on the right.