People are just discovering the hidden meaning behind the iconic Paramount Pictures logo

Brands usually put a lot of thought into their logos. Some logos consist of secret elements whereas some have entirely hidden meanings. Often, these elements are hidden in plain sight and can be hard to recognize. The legendary film studio, Paramount Pictures also has an interesting element in its logo, whose meaning has long been a subject of lore in the industry. Apart from that, the logo and the name of the production house also have an interesting history. The name "Paramount Pictures" was chosen after co-founder William Wadsworth Hodkinson saw it on the side of an apartment building, says Andrea Kalas, SVP of Archives for Paramount Pictures, according to the official Paramount website.

He came up with the mountain logo while sitting at his desk. Kalas shared that while the stars were included in the doodle, the reason behind their specific number remains a mystery. Some people have claimed that the 24 stars in the logo represented the first 24 actors who were with the studio. But later, the stars were reduced to 22. The studio, which was founded in 1912, has produced classic films like "Titanic," "Interstellar," "Forest Gump," "Top Gun" and many more. In 2021, when they launched the streaming service "Paramount +," the stars were reduced to 13 to signify one star for each letter in "Paramount Plus."

Additionally, the size of the stars was increased to enhance visibility on phone apps, push notifications and other digital applications. That's not all. They also changed the detailing on the mountain and the spacing between the Paramount script considering the digital applications of the logo. Sarah LaBrache, SVP of creative marketing for Viacom CBS Digital, said that keeping the mountain the same as the one that is played before every film was important to them. Thus, the designers traced the outline of the mountain and adjusted the shadows to achieve the most optimized look.

LaBrache added, "We created a shadow that holds true to that original Paramount heritage, and that also reads clearly at various sizes across all applications." Tammy Henault, SVP of consumer marketing for ViacomCBS Digital, shared why they went for this design. “The goal was to ensure we would still have that recognition and the benefits and equity of the legacy Paramount brand but update it so it can stand on its own to represent the new service. It was important that the new logo be reductive enough to work across digital platforms and applications to carry the Paramount identity forward into the streaming space," Henault explained.

Apart from Paramount, you would be mindblown to learn that there might be a hidden meaning behind the Vans logo. VANS is represented by a line from "V" going to other letters. However, a TikTok user, @singinggently, found a hidden meaning and shared a meme with the caption, "I was today years old when I realized the VANS logo is the square root of the answer." The meme showed a picture of the VANS logo along with a calculator next to it which had the square root of the answer (ANS). People online might find it amusing, but the brand doesn't seem to have included it intentionally.