CNN logo

CNN launched with this logo in 1980 and has used it with very little variation ever since. The origin story, as told by Toni Dwyer in an article by Cody Sigel Combs:

“In the eleventh hour, it occurred to someone that they needed a logo,” said Toni Dwyer of Communication Trends, Inc, and the ad firm that worked with CNN before it got off the ground in 1980. “We had about 24 or 48 hours to turn around and present a logo.”

The logo was designed by the late Anthony Guy Bost, who had also been a professor at the University of Auburn. Dwyer distinctly remembered presenting the designs to the powers that be. “There were several forms of the logo they weren’t exactly wild about, there was one we thought would play the best, we tried to keep it simple,” said Dwyer. “It was designed with money in mind, so we tried to keep it one color.”

Terry McGuirk, currently the chairman of the Atlanta Braves, was first to see the logo. “They gave us 4 or 5 different looks, and one sort of stood out, a cable running through the letters C-N-N,” said McGuirk, who in 1980 was vice president of Turner Broadcasting and very involved in the startup of CNN.

CNN founder Ted Turner liked the logo, and the choice was made. It finally came time to talk money. “For the price of the logo, we wanted something like $5,000,” said Dwyer of Communication Trends. “They (CNN) all threw a fit, and the final bill for the logo was $2,800 or $2,400.”

Given the very close similarity to Teruoki Yagi’s Yagi Double, released around 1968, it seems likely that the font was used for the CNN mark — or was at least the inspiration.