Evolution of a MAD Logo

March 1st, 2011 | Posted in MAD Magazine

Here is an interesting time line of the evolution of MAD Magazine’s logo:

The illustrations within the logo appeared intermittently after the solid color one debuted in MAD #87, and pre-1955 several issues of MAD had a logo that matched the cover concept, like a parody of LIFE magazine in MAD #11, a newspaper headline in MAD #16 and a few other examples.

This is from the MAD Mumblings forum I mentioned yesterday, courtesy of contributor Mark AKA “THEMADBUG!” from Australia. The thread it’s from is a petition to get MAD to revert to the classic logo that was used for over 30 years from 1964 to 1997. Personally I think the current logo fine (although I am glad the slant of the italics has lessened gradually since 1997), but would have no problem with a return to the classic one, either.

Comments

  1. Adam says:
    March 4, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    How interesting you should mention that. There was a very brief time… VERY brief… where they used a version of their original logo. I should sort through my back issues and see if I can remember when they did it. I was delighted at the idea, but it didn’t last long. It seemed that for a while, a different artist would do it every issue, and there was possibly a tie in between the characters in the lettering and the content of the issue. What a great subject!

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