Futaba Corporation (双葉電子工業株式会社, Futaba Denshi Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese electronics manufacturer established in 1948, originally producing receiver vacuum tubes and later expanding into vacuum fluorescent displays, radio control equipment, and mold base components.[1] The company’s current corporate logo is a stylized typographic wordmark of “Futaba” in Latin letters, a design registered as a trademark with the wording “Futaba” in stylized format.[2]
Design and History
The Futaba wordmark has been in use for many years, with an SVG version of the corporate logo appearing on the Japanese Wikipedia since at least 2015.[3] The company’s official website displays the wordmark prominently across its English and Japanese pages.[4]
Futaba has also registered related trademarks over the years. A 1981 Taiwanese trademark registration covers “FUTABA及圖” (FUTABA and design) in black and white, indicating an earlier mark combining the word with a graphic element.[5] A more recent 2016 registration covers the plain “Futaba” wordmark in black.[6]
The company name itself derives from the Japanese word “futaba,” meaning “two leaves,” a translation confirmed in multiple trademark filings.[7] The name also reflects the founders’ aspiration, as the Japanese term was a wordplay on their resolve to start the business together in Chiba Prefecture.[8]
Meaning and Symbolism
The word “Futaba” translates from Japanese as “two leaves,” a meaning explicitly documented in the company’s trademark registrations.[7] The name’s botanical reference to a sprouting pair of leaves aligns with the company’s founding story, which ties the name to the founders’ joint venture in Chiba.[8]
While the current corporate wordmark does not include a leaf icon, the company’s sub-brands have used orange as a distinguishing color. The “2.4GHz FASST” trademark for radio control technology explicitly claims orange and black as features of the mark, describing orange arc designs accompanying the lettering.[9] Futaba-branded merchandise, including jackets and towels sold through the company’s US operations, features the Futaba logo embroidered or printed in orange.[10]
Typography and Design
The current Futaba corporate logo is a typographic wordmark set in a clean sans-serif style, with evenly weighted letterforms. The trademark registration describes the mark simply as “the wording ‘Futaba’ in stylized format,” without additional graphic elements.[2] The SVG file of the logo on Wikipedia measures 634 × 124 pixels, indicating a wide horizontal lockup suitable for corporate applications.[3]
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