The Association of Swedish Book Trade, known in Swedish as Svenska Bokhandlareföreningen (SBF), is a nonprofit trade organization for Sweden’s book, paper and office merchants.[1] The association was founded in 1893.[2]
Design and History
The association’s owl logo was created in 1969 by Danish graphic designer Erik Ellegaard Frederiksen.[3] The design gained wider attention in 2016 when observers noted its resemblance to the Hootsuite social media logo, with the original owl image appearing in the 1989 design book Trademarks & Symbols of the World: The Alphabet in Design.[3][4]
Frederiksen (1924-1997) was a Danish industrial graphic designer trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Architecture.[5] Beyond book design, his work encompassed trademarks, packaging, postage stamps and road signs, and he developed design programs for several commercial enterprises.[5]
The association’s official website offers a downloadable version of its logo for press use.[6]
Meaning and Symbolism
The owl has long served as a visual emblem for book trade organizations in Scandinavia. In neighboring Denmark, Frederiksen designed a new owl logo in 1967 for the Danish Booksellers Association (Den danske Boghandlerforening), which was also used on illuminated signs for member bookshop facades.[7] The owl’s traditional association with wisdom and learning makes it a fitting symbol for the book trade, though no official source documents the intended symbolism of the Swedish association’s specific mark.
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