Spectacles is the line of camera-equipped smart glasses introduced by Snap Inc., the Santa Monica, California-based technology company best known for the Snapchat app. The product debuted in 2016 as Snap’s first hardware venture, allowing users to capture short video clips from a first-person perspective and upload them to Snapchat.[1]
Design and History
The Spectacles visual identity centers on a stylized mark that Snap has described as a depiction of the right lens of a pair of Spectacles. This mark has been used both on its own and in conjunction with the word “Spectacles” in marketing materials.[2]
Snap filed for trademark protection on the Spectacles wordmark in October 2016. The trademark application describes the mark as consisting of the word “SPECTACLES” in stylized writing, with a capitalized “S” followed by lowercase letters.[3] A separate standard character mark registration for “SPECTACLES” was registered in January 2020.[4]
The lens-shaped mark drew legal attention shortly after the product’s launch. In January 2017, Minnesota-based eyewear company Eyebobs sued Snap, alleging that the Spectacles logo infringed on its own stylized black-and-white eyeball design, which was often presented against a golden-yellow background.[5] Eyebobs claimed the Spectacles logo was “nearly identical” to the mark its customers had known for 15 years.[5]
Meaning and Symbolism
Snap’s own characterization of the mark as a stylized depiction of the right lens of a pair of Spectacles ties the logo directly to the product itself, representing the camera lens that is the device’s defining feature.[2] The lens motif also connects visually to the act of seeing and recording, which is the core function of the glasses.
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