It has been there since long; the GRANDE logo of BMW. But I actually never gave much thought in figuring something out of that trademark. The BMW logo seems so natural there, as such not a single time I looked into it deeply till last week. It almost made an indispensable part of the vehicle. Then I learnt about the history of the BMW where I came to know about the past of BMW as an airplane engine maker. All on a sudden it came like a lightening in my mind, could the circle have a link with aircrafts?
I searched for it, and in my satisfaction, results showed, it has. The BMW logo has a link with the aircraft!! Most of my search results showed a positive result. I was happy to have “guessed” genially the link between BMW logo and the airplane; as the results showed, the BMW circular logo, comprising of four quadrants of blue and white color in alteration (or white and blue, depending upon your orientation, clockwise or anti). It reflected BMW’s image as the producer of aircraft engines during the First World War.
But just today I found out something interesting. It quoted a BMW official statement regarding the origin of the logo. It was mentioned that, the alternating white and blue colored logo was not actually a representation of the spinning white propeller of an airplane against the blue sky as previously thought.
Actually white and blue colors were the traditional colors of Bavaria. Therefore the Bavarian spirit lies under the colorful logo, not the airplane propeller! The round logo, also called the 'roundel' featured the Bavarian Free State colors (blue and white). When BMW registered their trademark in 1917, they wanted to imitate their local emblem. However, it was against the law to use a national symbol as a business trademark. Therefore, they slightly modified the national icon by reversing the order of the color sequence (white after blue) and placed the output as today’s well-known logo.
I wonder, whether they anticipated BMW cashing on rotating wheels, not on spinning propellers.