Opinion BY Armin

Tonka gets Tougher, Sort of

Childhood. Trucks. Tonka. No questions asked. Well, at least not for us reading today who probably grew up with, or grew up wanting, one of those heavy, badass steel Mighty Tonkas that felt indestructible in our tiny hands — a far cry from today’s wussier Mighty Dump. Or anything else that Tonka makes these days, for that matter. Cute, chubby and safe, I’ll admit, but certainly not the vintage brand association that one makes with Tonka, the company that began making trucks in cold-as-hell Mound, Minnesota in 1947 manufactured by Mound Metalcraft Company. Part of Hasbro since 1991, Tonka’s line of toys are friendlier and have more plastic than steel, and somewhat recently they introduced a new logo that is slowly appearing in new packaging.

Original logo by Erling Eklof 1947 (left). Roots of the new wordmark first introduced in 1962 (not certain if it was also Eklof). A complete timeline of Tonka logos can be found here.

[Resident of Mound, Erling W.] Eklof was a freelance industrial designer who had designed a number of logos for several companies in the Twin Cities area, and he was given the task of designing a Tonka logo in three days.

[…] The wave pattern that runs through the horizontal axes signifies the waters of Lake Minnetonka, and the three birds are pictured for two reasons. The first reason is that, according to Eklof, three is an odd number, which is more distinctive, and the second is that the birds represent the founders. Tonka’s first label was an oval because, according to Elkof, the oval is a more recognizable shape than a square. For his work Eklof was paid a grand sum of $30.
— Tonka by Dennis David

Older (left) logo, revised by Paul Giambarba in the early 1970s — don’t miss his account on working on Tonka’s corporate identity program. Newer logo. Both appear on and off in current packaging.

The old logo, with its Clarendonian charm and sturdiness, didn’t have to be overtly truckish, because the trucks themselves were imbued with it. What I find interesting about the new logo is that it is overtly truckish — not too different from the Caterpillar or International Trucks brands — making up for what the products lack in that regard. The new logo is not bad if you don’t pay too much attention to the “n” and it’s a much better solution than the oblique version that made some random appearances, but it definitely feels as if it’s making too hard of an effort to look rough, and that’s a very tall order for a brand that sells the adorable Chuck, pictured below.

The more rugged textures of Tonka.

Thanks to Sean Singleton for the tip.

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Childhood. Trucks. Tonka. No questions asked. Well, at least not for us reading today who probably grew up with, or grew up wanting, one of those heavy, badass steel Mighty Tonkas that felt indestructible in our tiny hands — a far cry from today's wussier Mighty Dump. Or anything else that Tonka makes these days, for that matter. Cute, chubby and safe, I'll admit, but certainly not the vintage brand association that one makes with Tonka, the company that began making trucks in cold-as-hell Mound, Minnesota in 1947 manufactured by Mound Metalcraft Company. Part of Hasbro since 1991, Tonka's line of toys are friendlier and have more plastic than steel, and somewhat recently they introduced a new logo that is slowly appearing in new packaging.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners