20th Century Studios

1935-1960's


In 1935, 20th Century Pictures merged with Fox Film Corporation, creating 20th Century-Fox. This famous logo has been modfied many times over many years.

1935–1966
The Art Deco 20th Century-Fox logo, designed by landscape artist Emil Kosa, Jr., originated as the 20th Century Pictures logo, with the name "Fox" substituted for "Pictures, Inc." in 1935. The logo was originally created as a painting on several layers of glass and animated frame-by-frame.

1953–1987
In 1953, Rocky Longo, an artist at Pacific Title, was hired to recreate the original design for the new CinemaScope process. In order to give the design the required "width", Longo tilted the "0" in "20th". This logo would be used in tandem with the next logo until 1987.

1981–1994
In 1981, after Longo repainted the eight-layered glass panels (and also straightened the "0"), his revised logo became the official trademark. Like the previous two logos, this logo was a painting on several layers of glass and was animated frame-by-frame. This is the current monument design and has been redone in CGI two times, as seen below. Also, the company slightly changed its name in 1985 from 20th Century-Fox to 20th Century Fox, removing only the hyphen in the name.

1994–2010
In 1994, after a few failed attempts to redo the logo once again (which even included trying to film the familiar monument as an actual three-dimensional model), Fox in-house television producer Kevin Burns was hired to produce a new logo for the company — this time using the new process of computer-generated imagery (CGI). With the help of graphics producer Steve Soffer and his company Studio Productions (which had recently given face-lifts to the Paramount and Universal logos), Burns said that the new logo would contain more detail and animation, and also that the longer (21 seconds in length) Fox fanfare with the "CinemaScope extension" would be used as the underscore. This required a virtual Los Angeles Cityscape to be designed around the monument. In the background can be seen the Hollywood sign, which would give the monument an actual location (approximating Fox's actual address in Century City). One final touch was the addition of store-front signs on buildings behind the monument—each one bearing the name of Fox executives who were at the studio at the time. One of the signs reads, "Murdoch's Department Store"; another says "Chernin's" and a third reads: "Burns Tri-City Alarm" (a homage to Burns' late father who owned a burglar and fire alarm company in upstate New York). The 1994 logo was also the first time that 20th Century Fox was recognized as a subsidary of News Corporation by adding the byline "A News Corporation Company" onto the logo. In 1997, David Newman re-recorded the 20th Century Fox fanfare to re-open the Newman Scoring Stage, and it first appeared on Anastasia and continues to be used today since 1998. As of 2009, this logo appears only on the company's website.

2009-2013
In 2009, 20th Century Fox updated its logo, which was created and animated by its subdisary Blue Sky Studios. The new logo officially debuted in Avatar. In 2010, 20th Century Fox celebrated its 75th anniversary, and modified their logo for that year. The News Corp. byline was shown as being carved into the base of the monument, and as the camera panned upward, the spotlight beams reached into the sky and formed the number 75 with "Celebrating" and "Years" added above and below the number respectively.

2013–present
In 2013, the byline for News Corporation was removed due to the split of the new companies News Corp. and 21st Century Fox, and the new bylineness logo debuted on the DreamWorks Animation SKG film Turbo, released on July 17 of that same year. This also marks the very first time in almost 20 years that the logo is byliness and the very first time the company was transferred to a brand new company. Later, in mid 2014, the registered trademark symbol was removed from the corner of the logo (and also from the logos for 20th Television and 20th Century Fox Television).

Extras
To see more of 20th Century Fox's on-screen logos and other logos, see 20th Century Fox/Other Logos.