The Japanese automaker has announced that its fresh H mark design will take on a much bigger role than initially expected.
By Gray Van Dyke
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In case you’ve missed it, companies across the car industry have been quietly updating their brand logos with simpler looks and sleeker fonts. 
From Audi and BMW to Nissan and Toyota to Kia, Volkswagen and even Rolls-Royce, there’s been a clear shift towards single-color text-based designs. Even before Jaguar’s controversial rebrand, many automakers were making attempts to cultivate a more modern, digital-friendly look. 
Honda is among the latest to join the party. Even though the company previously introduced the design of its updated H mark logo, there’s been a new development in how it’s set to be applied going forward.
Honda originally debuted its refreshed H mark last year at CES in conjunction with the unveiling of the uber-futuristic 0 Series.
At the time, many thought that the new logo was destined only for the brand’s EV lineup. However, as it now turns out, Honda will be applying the look across its automotive portfolio.
According to an announcement this week, “Honda will expand the use of the new H mark to represent Honda automobile business as a whole, including not only automobile products but other customer touchpoints such as dealership locations, communication initiatives and automobile motorsports activities.”
In other words, even though “the new H mark is scheduled to be applied to next-generation EVs, and next-generation hybrid-electric (HEV) models starting with the models to be introduced to the market in 2027,” it’s set to take on more significance than a token electric initiative. 
Honda even goes so far as to call the logo representative of the “second founding.” To that end, the H mark looks to the brand’s original design, ditching its border for the first time since 1969.
It’s a bold step, and it’s indicative of the brand’s openness to change and commitment to a new chapter. In Honda’s most recent H mark, designers drew inspiration from an ancient Japanese musical instrument — the shamisen — shaping the border to resemble the instrument’s body as a reference to Soichiro Honda’s regard for harmony, innovation and solidity.
While the new H mark will come to represent everything auto for Honda, it’s obviously not the company’s only logo.
Since its introduction in the 1960s, the corporate emblem has remained defined by text. After a few changes in typeface, its sole evolution came in 2001 with a shift to red.
In addition to conveying “powerfulness, stability and reliability,” Honda says that the design is meant to represent “innovation, a sense of speed and sophistication.” Regardless of whether you interpret any extra meaning from letters, their consistency is a testament to the brand’s focus on enduring quality.
Perhaps more recognizable as a logo, however, is Honda’s Wing mark. Taking inspiration from the wings of an eagle and from the wings of Nike of Samothrace, it’s meant to convey the brand’s flight across the globe, among other values such as reliability, speed, tradition and honor.
Though the current single-sided Wing mark design first appeared in 1955, Honda’s logo history is actually older still. The wing motif initially appeared as a pairing on the Benly motorcycle in 1953, while the brand’s very first emblem came in 1948 as a direct depiction of the goddess Nike — a “soaring female figure through the sky”. 
In any case, with Honda’s automotive emblem throwing it back to 1963, it’s unlikely that the rest of the company’s other likenesses will need to change. If anything, the simplicity is a return to form and a reinforcement of history.
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