How an Intern’s efforts were re-recognized after a decade -NIKE SWOOSH

Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports, was founded by Bill Bowerman, a track-and-field coach at the University of Oregon, USA and his former student Phil Knight, in the year 1964. They opened their first retail outlet in 1966 and launched the Nike brand shoe in 1972. The company adopted its famous “Swoosh” logo in the year 1971, and was renamed Nike Inc. in 1978

However, there is an interesting story behind the conceptualization of its logo. The Nike ‘Swoosh’ was created by Carolyn Davidson, a Graphic Design student at Portland State University, where Knight used to teach Accounting. Davidson was in search for some extra funds for her oil painting classes, and Knight offered to pay her $2 per hour for the work that she completed, while working as an intern with him. Davidson was asked to create a “stripe”, the industry term for a shoe logo, which was fluid and conveyed motion and speed. Keenly aware of the difficulty of making something static appear fluid, she went to work. Out of all the stripes drawn by Davidson, Knight chose the logo, which is now known as SWOOSH, saying “I don’t love it, but I think it will grow on me”. Davidson wanted some time to refine the final design but Knight couldn’t accommodate that citing production deadlines. So, SWOOSH was accepted without any alterations and was patented on June 18, 1971. The company paid Davidson $35 for her services, citing that she worked 17.5 hours on creating the Swoosh. The logo is also said to symbolize the wing of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

At that point of time, nobody knew that Davidson had created a logo that will go on to become one of the most recognized logos. She graduated from PSU in 1971 with a bachelor’s in graphic design. Years later, in 1983, an event was organized in Davidson’s honour at Nike’s office where she was presented with a golden swoosh ring embedded with a diamond and 500 stocks of Nike by Knight, to express his gratitude.

Today, Nike Swoosh has become one of the most recognizable brand logos in the world. According to Forbes – The World’s Most Valuable Brands List for 2019, Nike featured at rank 14, having a brand value of $36.8 B

Source- Retrieved from Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the creator of Nike Phil Knight and Carolyn Davidson’s interview on Oregon Live