Story of the Swoosh

I remember hearing about the story about how the Nike Swoosh came to be and how much it cost Phil Knight to get the logo done. This is what I found online:

The Nike 'Swoosh' logo cost just $35 (equivalent to $184 today #).

It was designed by graphic design student Carolyn Davidson in 1971 and for her services she charged $35 at a rate of $2/hour.

Phil Knight, the company's co-founder, repaid her in 1982 with a gold Swoosh ring and an unknown amount of Nike stock.

I've been working on a lot of logos lately. It seems that a lot of people don't put as much worth on a logo as they should.

It got me thinking about this story of the swoosh. To be honest I don't think I would have charged too much more then what Carolyn charged for the swoosh (not the $35 but the equivalent of $185)

I have a lot of little stories with my personal connection with the Nike brand. Here's one that relates to my life in graphic design.

About 6 years ago, I managed to get an interview for a graphic related job, good new. Bad news is I don't know how to use illustrator...at all. So what did I do, I crammed, I got last minute tutoring, I tried to get as much knowledge on illustrator as I can in 24 hours (maybe it was a few hours less then 24 hours). One of the things I did was to practice tracing a logo, that logo being the Nike Swoosh. Needless to say what I traced was not very stellar. It was my first foray in graphic design.

I went into the interview the next day and took the illustrator test they got set up, needless to say I failed and it took me over an hour and a half to fail it. I managed to get into the art department a few months afterwards, this time it was to take care of their paperwork. I dabbled in prepress work and got trained slowly but surely. About a year later I managed to retake that illustrator test and complete the whole thing in 9 minutes.

I have yet to redraw the swoosh...I guess until now.


Love

Vince