What Does the Starbucks Logo Mean?
She is a siren, not a mermaid, and she has been edited four times in fifty five years, mostly to cover her up. The last change removed the company name entirely. Here is what each version was doing.
Most people call her a mermaid. Starbucks calls her a siren, and the difference matters to the reasoning behind picking her.
Why a siren
Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971 selling coffee beans, tea and spices rather than drinks. The founders were looking for imagery that suited a port city and a product that arrived by ship.
In mythology a siren lures sailors toward her with a song they cannot resist. As a metaphor for a stimulant that people find very hard to give up, that is about as on the nose as branding gets, and it fits the maritime theme at the same time.
The name works the same way. Starbucks is named after Starbuck, the first mate in Moby-Dick, so the whole identity is built on the sea.
The figure itself is a twin tailed siren, sometimes called a melusine, a form that appears in old European heraldry and woodcuts. The two tails are why she does not look like the single tailed mermaid most people picture, and they are the reason the original design was so hard to fit into a circle.
The four versions
| Year | What changed | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Brown, full figure, bare chested, ringed by the words Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices | The original, drawn by Terry Heckler |
| 1987 | Brown to green, siren simplified, shorter name around her | Il Giornale merged with Starbucks under Howard Schultz |
| 1992 | Zoomed in so her face dominates, tails cropped by the frame | Works better small, less anatomy on display |
| 2011 | Company name removed entirely, siren alone in green | 40th anniversary and expansion beyond coffee |
The nudity problem
This runs through the whole history and is the reason for most of the redrawing.
The 1971 siren was, in Starbucks’ own description, a bare-breasted figure. At the size a logo appears on a bag of beans that was not especially noticeable. The problem arrived with scale: when the company started putting the logo on delivery trucks, it had to be drawn much larger, and Heckler repositioned her hair to cover more of her.
Each subsequent version continued in the same direction. The 1987 redraw simplified her. The 1992 crop pulled in tight on the face, which had the convenient effect of pushing the tails and most of the body outside the frame.
What 2011 actually did
The last change was the biggest and it was not really about the drawing.
For the 40th anniversary in 2011 Starbucks removed the words from the logo completely. No company name, no ring of text, just the siren in green.
The company’s stated reasoning was that the siren was by then familiar enough to stand on her own. The commercial reasoning underneath was that Starbucks was expanding past coffee into packaged goods, and a logo with the word coffee in it limits what you can put it on.
Dropping a wordmark is something only a handful of companies can do. It requires the symbol alone to be recognized worldwide, which is a small club.
Is she a mermaid or a siren?
A siren, in Starbucks’ own usage, consistently. The distinction is not pedantry.
A mermaid is simply a half fish woman. A siren specifically lures people in, which is the entire point of choosing her. Calling her a mermaid keeps the sea and loses the meaning.
The two tails also point to the siren and melusine tradition rather than the single tailed mermaid of modern illustration, though after the 1992 crop most people never see the tails at all.
If you want to know what is actually in the cup rather than on it, prices and calories are on the Starbucks menu.
Related Questions
What does the Starbucks logo mean?
It is a siren, a twin tailed figure from mythology who lures sailors with a song they cannot resist. She was chosen to evoke the sea, Seattle’s port and the way coffee arrived by ship, and she doubles as a metaphor for a product people find hard to resist. The company name comes from Starbuck, the first mate in Moby-Dick.
Is the Starbucks logo a mermaid or a siren?
A siren, and Starbucks uses that word consistently. The distinction carries the meaning: a mermaid is just a half fish woman, while a siren specifically lures people toward her, which is the whole reason she was picked. Her two tails also place her in the siren and melusine tradition rather than the single tailed mermaid of modern illustration.
Who designed the Starbucks logo?
Terry Heckler drew the original in 1971, showing a bare chested siren ringed by the words Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices in brown. He also produced the 1987 redraw after Howard Schultz merged Il Giornale with Starbucks, which turned the logo green and simplified the figure.
Why did the Starbucks logo change from brown to green?
The color changed in 1987, when Howard Schultz’s Il Giornale merged with Starbucks and the two identities were combined. Green came across from Il Giornale along with a simplified siren and a shorter name encircling her, replacing the brown original from 1971.
Why was the Starbucks siren covered up?
Scale. The 1971 siren was bare chested, which passed unnoticed on a small bag of beans but became a problem when the logo had to be enlarged for delivery trucks. Terry Heckler repositioned her hair to cover more of her, and each later version continued in that direction, with the 1992 crop pulling in tight on her face and pushing most of the body out of frame.
Why did Starbucks remove its name from the logo?
For the 40th anniversary in 2011. The company said the siren was familiar enough by then to stand on her own. The commercial reason was that Starbucks was expanding beyond coffee into packaged products, and a logo carrying the word coffee limits where it can be used. Very few companies can drop a wordmark and stay recognizable.
Why does the Starbucks siren look slightly asymmetrical?
Because the 2011 redesign made her that way on purpose. Every earlier version was drawn perfectly symmetrical, which no real face is, so the final version introduced a very slight unevenness in her expression to make her read as a person rather than a pattern.
More on Starbucks
About this guide. USA Food Menu is an independent reference site and is not affiliated with Starbucks Corporation. Logo history, dates and quoted reasoning were taken from Starbucks’ own published account of its logo evolution alongside design press coverage. Current prices and calories are on the Starbucks menu.
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