Logos are powerful – they convey the entire essence and history of a brand within a single image. It is truly incredible to imagine how a designer can shape the entire legacy of a brand with their creations! While some company logos undergo immense transformations with the changing times, some stay true to their roots, maintaining imagery that resonates for generations. At Chartistry, we love learning about the history of design and marketing, so we were thrilled to discover this chart by ImageRelay. It explores the oldest logos that still exist today, dating all the way back to 1366.

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It is fascinating to see how many of the logos underwent style changes but still maintained distinctive core elements – I love a brand that stays true to its story! So the oldest logo that still exists today belongs to Stella Artois, a Belgium beer company. It began as just the horn, but now sports an elegant banner. What is the horn on Stella Artois? The horn represents the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven, Belgium, where Stella Artois traces its origins. In 1366, Stella Artois was a special brew given by the brewery as a holiday gift to the people of Leuven. The name “Stella”, which means “star” in Latin, pays homage to that special occasion. The name “Artois” honors the De Hoorn Bew Master Sebastian Artois. Learning about the history of logos can be so fun, especially when they have protected the very elements that have defined the brand from the beginning.

Schools in the US are facing a lot of problems and one of the biggest is how they treat their teachers. If you have ever been on the r/Teachers subreddit then you know exactly what I am talking about. The subreddit is becoming more and more filled with complaints about teaching. The complaints range from disinterested kids and unruly parents to administrators that seem to care about state-sponsored standardized test scores more than anything else.  You would think that with all the teaching shortages and the upheaval created by the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers would be seeing an increase in salaries, but this graph shows that new teachers today are actually earning 11% less than their peers from 30 years ago.

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With inflation in mind a starting teachers salary today should be around $46,762 but today they are only making around $41,780 on average. Looking at the graph you can see that since 1990 the salary with inflation and the actual starting salary have been pretty close to one another until you get to 2022 where you see such a large difference. If things don’t change soon, students will continue to suffer. Students are already considered to be behind due to disruptions from the pandemic. Good teachers are needed now more than ever, so let’s pay them what they deserve.

The iconic Big Mac is a two-beef patty, three bun delicacy topped with iceberg lettuce, American cheese, pickles, chopped onions and the super secret Mac Sauce. In 1968, it was so popular with its limited release in Pennsylvania that it was rolled out to every McDonald’s restaurant across the United States. That popularity never waned and there is now an entire economic phenomenon known as ‘burgernomics’ modeled from the Big Mac. Economists will use the price of the big mac as a way to gauge inflation rates and economics across globe. Today the Big Mac is up 40% from 2010. We can see in this video visualization by /u/jcceagle that follows the price of a Big Mac over the last 20 years, just how different cost can be across the globe and over time.
In the year 2000 Norway had the most expensive Big Mac for $4.09, while in the Philippines it cost $1.17. Eight years later, Norway still tops the charts with the most expensive Big Mac but instead of just over four dollars, it increased to $7.88. At that time in the US a Big Mac cost $3.57 while the cheapest was found in Malaysia for $1.70 and the Philippines increased to $1.96. In July 2017 the most expensive Big Mac was down across the board from 2008 to $6.74 in Switzerland. That same year a Big Mac in the US would have cost you $5.30 and $1.70 in the Ukraine. The video also shows an index of currency valued relative to the US dollar where you can see the values changes across the different currency around the world.