Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. is a Japanese pharmaceutical company founded in 1847 and headquartered in Tosu City, Saga Prefecture, with its main operations centered on transdermal analgesic and anti-inflammatory products such as Salonpas.[1] The company’s corporate logo is a stylized wordmark of “Hisamitsu” in blue, featuring a distinctive “H” whose horizontal bar is designed as an infinity symbol (∞).[2]
Design and History
The “Hisamitsu” logo mark was first adopted in 1989 and has been changed twice since then, making the current version the fourth generation.[3] The company’s official corporate history records the introduction of a new corporate logo in 1989, a change in 1994, and another change in 2003.[4]
The fourth-generation logo, introduced in June 2003, uses a bolder typeface intended to convey a sense of stability. In this version, the horizontal bar of the “H” was redesigned as an infinity symbol (∞) to express the pursuit of “infinite possibilities.”[3] Starting with this fourth-generation mark, the Japanese characters “久光製薬” that had previously appeared below the logo were removed, leaving only the “Hisamitsu” wordmark.[3]
Meaning and Symbolism
The infinity symbol incorporated into the “H” of the Hisamitsu wordmark represents the company’s aspiration to pursue “infinite possibilities.”[3] The logo is registered as a trademark with blue claimed as a feature of the mark.[2]
Hisamitsu has also registered a motion trademark based on the logo, in which an infinity symbol appears first, then transforms into the stylized “HISAMITSU” wordmark as vertical blue bars move outward from the symbol.[2] This animated sequence is used in the company’s television commercials, which end with a melodic sound logo of “Hisamitsu.”[5]
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