About
symbools is an ever growing archive of marks from out of print design books, traced to vector, credited to their designers and free to study.
The books
Each book gets one page holding every mark it prints, in the book's own order and chapters. More are on the way; tell me which one should be next.
Using the marks
Free for noncommercial use: reference, study, teaching, mood boards and writing about design. Keep the credit with the mark, every SVG and PNG already carries it.
No commercial use, no reselling, and never as your own logo. There is no bulk download, each mark is its own file.
Trademarks
Every mark belongs to its owner. symbools is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any company, designer or rights holder shown here, and many of these marks are still registered and in use.
Removal requests
If you hold the rights to a mark or to one of the books and want something taken down, DM @KelvinAdithya on X with the book and the mark number and it comes down.
Questions
- What is symbools?
- symbools is an ever growing archive of trademarks and symbols from out of print design books, traced to SVG, credited to their designers and free to study. Each book has one page holding every mark it prints.
- Which books are on symbools?
- Trademarks & Symbols, Volume 2: Symbolical Designs, by Yasaburo Kuwayama (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973), with 1,504 marks from 725 designers and 1,142 companies in 30 countries. More are on the way.
- Can I use the marks commercially?
- No. The marks are free for noncommercial use only: reference, study, teaching, mood boards and writing about design. Keep the credit with the mark. Every mark belongs to its owner, and many are still registered and in use.
- How do I get a mark as SVG or PNG?
- Open any mark on its book page and copy or download it, or fetch the file directly. Each mark has an SVG at /<book>/<number>.svg and a transparent PNG at @1024 and @2048, named by the number printed in the book, for example https://symbools.com/kuwayama-trademarks-symbols-vol-2/264.svg. Every file carries its credit.
- Is there a data file for developers and AI agents?
- Yes. Each book has a marks.json with every mark's chapter, page, designer, company, industry, description and file links, and https://symbools.com/llms.txt describes the site for agents.
- Who designed the marks?
- Each mark is credited to its designer and company exactly as the book prints them, taken from the book’s own indexes. Search a designer or company name on the book page to see all of their marks.
- Is symbools affiliated with the companies shown?
- No. symbools is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any company, designer or rights holder shown here.
