The Shadows - Style and Image - Band Logo

Band Logo

As pioneers in British rock-music The Shadows and their management were naïve in terms of exploiting commercial opportunities such as self-promotion via artwork. They allowed Vox amplification to produce small metallic badges in a script typeface, with the group name to be positioned on the front bottom right corner of all three Vox cabinets sometime during the early 1960s for gig usage. This badge became the "default" band logo but was never commercially exploited by the group.

Unlike later groups such as The Beatles, The Shadows never used the logo on the front of the bass-drum, preferring to allow their two drummers, Tony Meehan and Brian Bennett, to use their names instead. Belatedly, the logo was used once on the front artwork of the 1975 original studio album, Specs Appeal. As of 2009, the logo still remains untrademarked and uncopyrighted.

In lieu of proper band logo instead four silhouettes of the original line up, in ascending order of height, were used as a pseudo-band logo on concert program covers and various artwork projects such as sheet music, EP and album covers. From left to right after the drum-kit there was Tony Meehan, Jet Harris, Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch. The original artwork group silhouette was modified each time a band member was changed. The last version of the Shadows group-silhouette featured Brian Bennett and John Rostill in the late 1960s. During the 1970s EMI dropped the use of the group silhouettes preferring to use silhouettes or light-induced shadows of three guitar necks or color photos of the Shadows for promotion. During the latter half of the 1980s Polydor records used a red Fender Stratocaster (with white scratch plate) guitar as a symbol for the Shadows.