Suntory Holdings Limited, the Japanese beverage and distilling group, adopted its current corporate logo in 2005 as part of a company-wide corporate identity renewal. The mark is a typographic wordmark rendered in a custom pale blue color the company calls “Water Blue,” paired with the corporate message “Mizu To Ikiru” (“Bringing Water to Life”).
Design and History
The current Suntory logo was introduced in 2005 following a corporate identity renewal project that began in 2003. A cross-departmental logo committee was formed within Suntory, and the advertising agency Sun-Ad participated in the art direction and creative direction while also managing the project’s secretariat. The winning design was selected from 1,018 employee-submitted entries, then refined for versatility across products, global appeal, and cultural fit before its 2005 launch. The logo was designed to work in combination with the corporate message “Mizu To Ikiru” (“Bringing Water to Life”).[1]
The 2005 renewal was positioned internally as a “new foundation” year for the company. Sun-Ad created posters displayed throughout company offices and distributed a small booklet telling the story of the new logo’s creation alongside newly designed business cards, as part of an effort to build employee consensus around the new identity.[1]
Art director Kaoru Kasai, who worked at Sun-Ad, served as chief of the selection committee for the new corporate mark. Kasai’s recent work at the time included the new corporate identity for Suntory.[2]
The previous logo, used before 2005, featured an uppercase “N” in the wordmark, while the current logo uses a lowercase “n.”[3]
Meaning and Symbolism
According to Suntory, the logo embodies the company’s respect for and inspiration from water, symbolizing freshness, vitality, flexibility, and water’s essential role in society.[4]
The company has stated that the logo expresses “the energy and joy of life on Earth,” with water as its central image. Water is described as “life itself” for Suntory and the source of the company. The letterforms are designed to convey the image of water in constant motion, never stopping, growing and developing. The color is the company’s original “Water Blue,” which Suntory says demonstrates its determination to remain free, flexible, and resilient while continuously challenging itself toward the future.[5]
Regarding the letterforms, Suntory has declined to specify whether individual characters are uppercase or lowercase, stating that the logo was designed without being overly constrained by such distinctions and that multiple interpretations are part of its strength.[5]
The corporate message “Bringing Water to Life” was created in 2005 to express the group’s determination to live in harmony with nature while protecting water, to serve as a source of water nourishing society, and to challenge new themes with the flexibility and dynamics of water.[6]
Typography and Design
The Suntory wordmark uses a custom letterform design rather than a standard commercial typeface. The letter shapes were developed to evoke the flowing, ever-moving quality of water, with the company describing the forms as conveying constant motion, growth, and development.[5] The design was refined from the employee-submitted winning entry with input from overseas selection committee members, including typographer Matthew Carter and Akira Kobayashi of Linotype, with the Linotype Library serving as an overseas partner.[1]
The logo’s theme color is “Water Blue,” described by Sun-Ad as giving the mark a soft, dynamic, and fresh quality.[1] The Suntory Sunbirds volleyball team, which uses the corporate color in its own logo, refers to it as “Suntory corporate color Water Blue.”[7]
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