The founder, Luigi Lavazza, opened the business in 1895 by taking over a small grocery store near Turin, specializing in the product that fascinated him the most: coffee. If the other grocery stores limited themselves to selling single varieties, Lavazza will be the first to create blends, combining the origins available to him in the best possible way.

In 1927 the first logo “i caffé Lavazza” appeared with red and black letters but only in 1946 did the first real logo appear by the Aerostudio Borghi di Milano: the logo with the large A in the center is accompanied by a shield logo which presents a steaming cup and coffee beans in the institutional colors of the time, red and black.

From 1950 it will coexist with only the white logo inserted inside a red and black rectangle. The two-tone diagonal background recalls that of Cinzano but, in reality, it comes from the chromatic composition of the first logo. As a single-product company, it set out to become the symbol of Italian coffee in the world. Products were launched with a strong and independent logo compared to the corporate brand, such as Paulista coffee, packaged in a “high vacuum” can, allowing for long-term storage and therefore wider distribution. At the same time, the company implemented effective marketing policies, thanks to unforgettable advertising campaigns and a historic collaboration with Studio Testa in Turin; those were the years of Caballero and Carmencita, then the unforgettable slogans of the actor Nino Manfredi including “Caffè Lavazza, the more you put it down, the more it picks you up”.

Armando Testa, in 1970, will design the new logo: a hand grabbing a cup, positioned together on a surface formed by three-dimensional letters.

For three consecutive times, the restyling of the logo was entrusted to Di Robilant: in 1986 the hand was replaced by a cloud of light smoke, in 1991 with a red underline and modifying the lettering, in 1992 with the enlargement of the cloud of smoke, specific for the public business sector.

In 1994 the Testa studio will present the new logo, in the unusual blue color, useful for representing the company’s image in Italy and around the world with immediacy and expressive force.

For the 120th anniversary of its foundation, the Turin-based company has adopted an unequivocal pay-off, “Turin, Italy, 1895”, full of references to the “Bel Paese” and the over 100-year-old tradition of the art of coffee. The color of the logo has passed, in the institutional version, from light blue to dark blue.