Starbucks

Starbucks’ siren is a green-and-white circular emblem depicting a twin-tailed mermaid figure wearing a star crown, rendered in a flat, symmetrical style. The 2011 redesign by Lippincott removed the outer ring that previously contained the “Starbucks Coffee” wordmark, freeing the siren to stand alone as a wordless icon. Starbucks Green (#00704A) fills the circular field, while the siren figure and surrounding details appear in white, creating a high-contrast mark that reads clearly at sizes ranging from app icons to building facades.

Logo history

The original 1971 logo, designed by artist Terry Heckler, depicted a bare-breasted, twin-tailed siren inside a brown circle with the text “Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spices.” Howard Schultz’s 1987 acquisition of the company prompted the first major redesign: the siren was made more modest, the colour shifted to green, and the text simplified to “Starbucks Coffee.” A 1992 refinement cropped the image tighter, centering the siren’s face and further stylizing the twin tails. Lippincott’s 2011 update removed the wordmark ring entirely, enlarged the siren, and refined her features into a cleaner, more graphic illustration suited to the brand’s expansion beyond coffee into food, merchandise, and packaged goods.

Design philosophy

Removing the brand name from the logo was a calculated bet that the siren alone had achieved sufficient recognition to identify Starbucks without typographic support. The green palette anchors the brand in notions of freshness, growth, and environmental consciousness. The siren’s bilateral symmetry and enclosed circular form create visual stability, while subtle asymmetries in her crown and hair introduce warmth and personality. Sodo Sans, the brand’s custom typeface used in supporting communications, mirrors this balance of geometric structure and humanist detail.

Brand identity

The siren serves as the singular visual anchor across a brand ecosystem that includes retail stores, packaged consumer goods, a mobile ordering platform, and the Starbucks Reserve premium tier. On cups and packaging, the siren appears without any accompanying text, relying entirely on colour and form for identification. Starbucks Reserve locations employ a more detailed siren illustration and gold-and-black palette to distinguish the premium experience. The brand’s creative guidelines, published at creative.starbucks.com, provide one of the most transparent and detailed public brand systems in the food and beverage industry.

Cultural impact

Starbucks’ siren transcended coffee branding to become a shorthand for urban lifestyle and the “third place” between home and work. The white cup with the green siren is one of the most photographed branded objects in social media history, functioning as both a beverage container and an accessory. The 2011 decision to remove the company name from the logo placed Starbucks in a select group of brands — alongside Apple and Nike — whose symbols need no textual explanation.