trademarks deserve our attention as a means of improving the public taste, and because of their extraordinary economic significance, their value is in the millions. —wilhelm deffke

Logo for Altona A.D. A crossover between a human face and a caterpillar

reductionism

Some of the classic Deffke’s logos, such as J.A. Henckels’ zwilling (“twins”), are still in use. Their aesthetic vitality is driven by how the designer was working: he always picked a basic geometric shape or a primitive symbol and refined its proportions to shed weight off of a mark and get rid of all unnecessities.

Logo for J.A. Henckels. Twin brothers
Logo for Argus. An eye

Logo for J.A. Henckels.

Logo for Argus.

Redesign of Peter Behrens' original 1908 AEG logo. Honeycombs with letters A, E, G inside
Redesign of the logo for Siemens & Halske AG. Letters S and H, combined
Redesign of the Dreiring, trademark for the Friedrich Krupp AG. Three connected rings
Frisch Fromm Froh Frel logo. Four connected letters F