A function before it was a symbol

In the 1950s, three parallel stripes were added to Adidas shoes to reinforce and stabilise the structure of the sports shoe, particularly around the foot, at a time when sports equipment remained fairly basic. What began as a technical choice, almost invisible from a branding standpoint, quickly became a visual signature, consistently present on the company's products.

This functional origin sets Adidas radically apart from other sports brands whose symbol was designed directly as a logo, with no connection to a technical necessity of the product. The three stripes had to prove their usefulness before becoming a mark of recognition, which partly explains their durability over time.

Adi Dassler, a founder obsessed with the product

The name Adidas comes directly from its founder, Adi Dassler (a contraction of "Adi" and "Dassler"), a shoemaker who cared above all about sports performance rather than brand image. This origin partly explains why the brand's symbol was born from a technical concern: Dassler was trying to objectively improve his shoes, not create a memorable logo.

It's precisely this absence of any initial marketing intention that makes the Adidas case so interesting to study: the symbol wasn't imposed from a design studio, it was born from the product itself, which gives it a kind of authenticity that's difficult to reproduce artificially.

From utility to brand identity

As the brand grew over the following decades, the three stripes became a mark of recognition in their own right, used on shoes as well as on clothing, bags, and the whole of the brand's communication — far beyond their original structural function, which had largely disappeared anyway with the evolution of materials and manufacturing technology.

This shift from a technical use to a purely identity-based one is revealing: the pattern kept existing and growing stronger visually even as its original functional justification had almost no practical meaning left. Brand recognition took over from utility.

Three identities that coexist today

What few people realise is that Adidas actually uses three distinct logos depending on the product range: the historic three stripes for the general, sports-performance identity; the trefoil for the Originals line, which cultivates a deliberately retro heritage; and the three stylised mountains for the more contemporary performance identity.

This coexistence isn't an inconsistency, but a deliberate segmentation strategy: each symbol targets a different positioning while keeping the pattern of three parallel elements as a graphic thread running through them, ensuring the brand stays identifiable even across its different variations.

A pattern defended in court for decades

The success of the three stripes has a downside: their simplicity makes them relatively easy to imitate, which has pushed Adidas to actively defend this pattern in court against competitors using variations of parallel stripes judged too similar. These disputes, fought in many countries over several decades, illustrate the legal and commercial value a simple graphic pattern can acquire once it's solidly associated with a brand.

What this case reveals for your own logo

  • A functional element repeated consistently can become a fully-fledged brand symbol, without ever having been designed as one from the start.
  • Systematic repetition across every product is what builds recognition, not just the shape itself.
  • A simple symbol (three parallel lines) stays flexible and easy to apply across very different media, from textiles to digital.
  • Several visual identities can coexist within a single brand, as long as a recognisable graphic thread is kept running through them.

An interesting contrast with other logos

Unlike Nike or Ferrari, whose symbols were designed from the outset as logos carrying a story or strong symbolism, Adidas's logo illustrates another possible path: starting from a real functional detail of the product, then gradually turning it into a recognisable visual signature, with no initial storytelling.

Frequently asked questions about the Adidas logo

Why does Adidas have three stripes?
They were added in the 1950s to reinforce the shoe's structure, before becoming the brand's visual signature.

Are the trefoil and the mountains the same as the three stripes?
No, these are three distinct logos that coexist depending on the product range.

Did Adidas trademark the three stripes?
Yes, and the brand has actively defended this pattern in court for decades.

My take as a designer

This case regularly reminds my clients that a logo doesn't need to tell a grand symbolic story to become powerful. Sometimes a simple detail, born from a real constraint of the trade or the product, is enough to create a lasting graphic signature, as long as it's repeated with absolute rigour across every medium.

The strength of a symbol doesn't always come from its symbolic depth. It can also come from its simplicity and the consistency with which it's used, year after year.

It's a logic I apply to every logo I design: looking for the simplest possible shape, not the most impressive one. See how I work.

To sum up

The story of the three stripes shows that a successful logo doesn't need to be conceived from the start as a brand symbol: a functional detail, repeated consistently, can become just as powerful as a symbol strategically designed from the outset. It's a particularly useful lesson for companies whose product already has distinctive visual characteristics worth using.