Domino’s is a company that defied the rules of brand naming and logo design.

The owner Tom Monoghan didn’t name the business after himself, he didn’t use a “what it says on the tin” strategy and neither did he get conceptual about the business name.

The name is not an ideology or symbolic of anything to do with pizza, lifestyle or it’s customers.

So what does it mean?

Tom’s first pizza joint was an already trading pizza place called DomiNicks and after Tom took over he expanding his pizza business from 1 to 3 stores within 5 years.

The previous owner disallowed the use of the original name DomiNicks for his new store so on a whim after a suggestion from one of his delivery guys, Tom re-named the company to Domino’s Pizza.

The naming of the brand may have been a careless and rushed solution but Tom’s decision to name it Domino’s was a strategic one. He needed a name quick and he needed one that sounded like the old name and whilst the name Domino’s wasn’t relavant to the consumer, it held relevance for his business strategy and created a brand history of sorts.

The Dominos Logo design did what design communication is supposed to do. It added depth to the brand and name by infusing a concept into the fold.

The three dots on the Domino’s logo design represent the three outlets that started Domino’s pizza and legend has it that Tom wanted to add a new dot to the logo design for every new store opened.

Domino’s opened 200 stores within the next 12 years, so adding 200 dots to the logo was probably unfeasible, and design wise probably not the best way forward.

The original Domino’s Logo design form the 1960’s is a simple and well-rounded logo design with a modular structure, and the colours were chosen to be bright, vivid and welcoming to customers signalling Domino’s presence to any passerby. In my opinion I think Tom may have been inspired by the United States flag with the colour scheme and idea of dots per store.

The logo has gone through several tweaks over the years without losing the essence of the original identity but the original 1960’s design may well be my favourite out of them all.

The colours in the first 1960’s logo design were just right. The rounded corners made it modern and inviting. The overall square box reflected a pizza box. It was original and iconic.

The newer logo design darkens and saturates the colour slightly for a classier look and although the tweaked colour scheme is nice, it has less character than teh priginal logo design.

Domino’s is said to be the Worlds biggest Pizza franchise today, and although the branding is a little far fetched, it’s surely an example of effective branding where psychology and creativity produces originality.

Check out how Kangol made their famous Kangeroo logo design