The Beatles ‘Drop T’ Logo
The famous ‘drop T’ logo on the bass drum of Ringo’s set has always been one of my favourite logos – so I’ve ‘paid homage’ to it in creating my logo.
The Story of the ‘Drop T’ Logo
(This is from The Beatles Bible - not everything has to come from Wikipedia, you know)
It seems Ringo had a distinctly dodgy set of brown Premier drums, which he and Brian Epstein wanted to replace with something more fab. They went to Drum City, a music shop run by one Ivor Arbiter who was himself a drummer of sorts. Ringo settled on a set of pearl black Ludwig drums – but he needed a new logo on the bass skin.
What to have? – his old drum just had a hand-written ‘Beatles’ that Ringo had done himself. Maybe they’d have to go to a designer first…
How to clinch a sale
Arbiter, not wanting to jeopardise a sale, sketched out a new logo on a bit of paper, and showed it to Epstein. It was OK said Epstein, but could he emphasise the ‘beat’ part of the Beatles name? ‘No problem, guv, how about this’ saw the ‘b’ and the ‘t’ get bigger, with the ‘b’ rising and the ‘t’ falling – hence the ‘drop T’ name. Job done.
And in a couple of minutes, Ivor Arbiter had created one of the genuinely iconic pieces of design. He was well paid - £5 changed hands – and got his sale. Arbiter wasn’t a designer, just a drummer who got lucky.
He even got a few quid for Ringo’s old drum kit which he quickly sold on - it would probably go for around £250k at Bonham’s these days, but stock turnover is so important…
Lawyers please read
The Beatles Drop T logo is registered by Apple Corps – so I’m not going to reproduce it here, just in case their lawyers are short of things to do (and lawyers are rarely so busy they can’t be bothered to start a new lawsuit).