HP Inc., the personal computer and printer company that emerged from the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard, uses a circular logo featuring lowercase italic “hp” letters in white on a blue circle. The company’s official brand guidelines describe the logo as its “most iconic brand asset” and specify that it is always applied in blue, with its primary application against a white background [1].
Design and History
Hewlett-Packard’s first logo, introduced in 1941 and trademarked in 1942, established the core visual identity that persists today: lowercase italic “hp” within a circle. The logo would be modified many times over the following decades, but this basic structure continued to signify the brand throughout the company’s history [2].
In 1946, the logo was simplified to create something legible and easy to engrave, with its basic elements remaining unchanged for 21 years [3]. Around 1967, shortly after introducing its first computer, HP redesigned the logo again. The lowercase initials within a circle remained, but the legs of the “h” and “p” no longer broke through the circle, and additional elements were added, including shading above and below the circle and the full names “Hewlett” and “Packard” [4].
In 2008, HP introduced a new circular logo as an additional variant alongside its traditional mark. According to a company spokesperson at the time, this was “not a rebranding, but an additional option,” created in response to research showing that while the traditional logo was associated with stability and history, consumers also wanted something fresh and bright [5]. The new mark removed the rectangular holding shape and reversed the color scheme, placing white letters on a blue circle [6].
In 2012, HP made a subtle adjustment to the logo, changing the blue from a darker shade to a lighter one and making slight modifications to the letterforms. The updated mark was scheduled to begin use in June of that year [7].
When Hewlett-Packard split into two companies in 2015, HP Inc. retained the recognizable blue circular logo, while the enterprise business adopted a new identity as Hewlett Packard Enterprise [8].
Meaning and Symbolism
In 2008, HP commissioned the British creative agency Moving Brands to redesign its entire corporate identity. The agency produced a comprehensive brand study over two and a half years, including a minimalist logo concept consisting of four diagonal slashes abstracting the HP letterforms. HP declined to adopt the proposed identity at the time, with a spokesperson stating that HP had no plans to adopt the new logo, though the company noted it had retained some of the proposals from the study [9].
The Moving Brands concept drew on the 13-degree slant of the original 1941 HP logo as a foundational principle [10]. In 2016, HP revived this design for its premium Spectre and Envy laptop lines, increasing the angle to 20 degrees, which the company said “refers to the world of computing by recalling the forward slash used in programming” [10].
Typography and Design
HP’s current brand guidelines describe a system of electric blue stripes based on the slanted letterforms of the logo. The stripes match both the 20-degree angle and the grid of the letterforms, and serve as an identifying feature of the HP design system [1].
The official brand color is described as “Electric Blue,” which HP states “has always represented reliability and technological advancements.” The preferred printing method uses Pantone 2132, with a CMYK alternative of 89C 64M [1].
HP’s brand font is HP Forma DJR Office, which follows the foundations of the original Forma DJR font with uniform letterspacing. A separate digital variant, Forma DJR UI, is used exclusively for websites and software applications [1].
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