The Super Famicom Logo

[Jive3D]

Something just occured to me - I was looking at my super famicom controller...

I always wondered what that little logo was supposed to be, I always thought that it looked neat, but it never occured to me before now...

http://www.classicgaming.com/tmk/images/sfc.gif http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/8804/superfamicompaintpalette19pm.jpg

It's a painter's palette...right? You know, the wood thing that some painters hold to mix various colors of paint and create happy little trees? Was this something that everyone else knew and I somehow missed? This would make sense because of Shigeru Miyamoto being a painter...

[badinsults]

I don't think so.

[Damaramu]

Have you seen that "drive by" bukkake? It's hillarious. :pimp:

[Damaramu]

...

[Jean-Luc Picard]

I've always thought it was two eyes with thick eyebrows.

[robotriot]

For me it's just the stylized buttons on the gamepad.

[jajaja]

For me it's just the stylized buttons on the gamepad.

Thats what I always have thought. It symbolize the buttons on the controller.

[Niku-Sama]

i thought it was a red dot and a blue dot being sick at the same time and pukeing

[poloplayr]

obviously it's the buttons on the controller

[Jumpman Jr.]

I've always seen tham as the buttuns as well. And by thinking of that, I don't see any pallette.

[christianscott27]

buttons / cute flower

[Jive3D]

I'm surprised that so many people voted for Bukkake.

I firmly believe that it is a painter's palette. The buttons on the Super Famicom controller [blue, red, yellow & green] are mimicking the logo. Each button represents a primary color that a painter would use. The buttons ARE these colors because the player is in turn painting their own world when they play. I say that the buttons are those colors BECAUSE of the Logo (rather than the logo being what it is because of the buttons).

If the logo is, as some of you say, just a drawing of the buttons, then why are the X & A buttons in the logo slightly eclipsed by the Y & B buttons?

This picture will more acturately portray how I am seeing it in my head. The buttons/colors represent the paint blobs on an actual hand-held wooden palette.


http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/8804/superfamicompaintpalette19pm.jpg http://www.classicgaming.com/tmk/images/sfc.gif

I think that the fact that Shigeru Miyamoto was a painter before everything else definately says something about this logo - Shigeru's being a painter is the main inspiration for Mario jumping into paintings in Mario 64, after all.

[davepesc]

Nah, I don't see it.

I vote for the buttons.

...or Bukkae, can't go wrong with that.

[Chronodriftersx]

I'm surprised that so many people voted for Bukkake.

If the logo is, as some of you say, just a drawing of the buttons, then why are the X & A buttons in the logo slightly eclipsed by the Y & B buttons?

http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/8804/superfamicompaintpalette19pm.jpg http://www.classicgaming.com/tmk/images/sfc.gif

I think I used to think the same thing as you or that I had thought that it was something else but I lean towards buttons. Anway its slightly "eclipsed" because two of the bottons are convex, creating a shadow across the others while the other two are concave.

[rpepper9]

I second or third or fourth the idea that they are the buttons. My question is why did they change the buttons on the controler to purple and light purple for the US release of the SNES. Are we just so different that we had to have the entire system redesigned for us? I want my happy colored buttons!

I think the SNES was the last system that looked majorly different in the US than it did in the other parts of the gameplaying world. Except for maybe the PC Engine/TG16.

Any thoughts?

[Aussie2B]

i thought it was a red dot and a blue dot being sick at the same time and pukeing

Haha, now I can never look at the logo the same again. :P

I thought all of the Super Famicom buttons were convex? I thought the concave buttons were added in the US redesign.

Anyway, it could be a palette, but it's hard to say. I've always just seen them as the buttons. However, I can tell you that there's a different meaning behind the color choices than the theory that they're the primary colors a painter would use. I don't know the full story behind it, but Japan has a history of using red, blue, yellow, and green (and usually in that order). Just check out your games. Many 4-player games that use some sort of color-coding to identify each player will use those four colors in that order. Maybe someone else better understands the reason for this phenomenon and can explain in further detail. o_O

[Jive3D]

I'm surprised that so many people voted for Bukkake.

If the logo is, as some of you say, just a drawing of the buttons, then why are the X & A buttons in the logo slightly eclipsed by the Y & B buttons?

http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/8804/superfamicompaintpalette19pm.jpg http://www.classicgaming.com/tmk/images/sfc.gif

I think I used to think the same thing as you or that I had thought that it was something else but I lean towards buttons. Anway its slightly "eclipsed" because two of the bottons are convex, creating a shadow across the others while the other two are concave.


That would be a good point IF that were the case with the Super Famicom controller, but it's not.

I will prove this by the following: If it were simply a representation of the buttons, then why (in the logo) does the Y (green) & B (yellow) buttons eclipse the X (blue) & A (red) buttons? Some people attribute this to the fact that two of the buttons on the SNES (not SFC) controller are concave (curve inward) and the other two are convex (curve outward) and those convex buttons would be eclipsing the concave buttons in the graphic representation that is the Super Famicom logo. First off, the buttons on the SNES controller that are concave are the Y & X buttons - IF the logo was supposed to show two of the buttons eclipsing the other two buttons, then it's showing the wrong buttons doing so - b/c it would have to be the X & A buttons that are concave in order for it to be an accurate represenation - and in actuality on the SNES controller, it's the X & Y buttons that are concave and the B & A buttons that are convex - but the logo would say that the Y & B buttons are convex, which is not the case. Second, on the Super Famicom controller, all of the buttons are Convex! So this argument [that the logo depicts the buttons eclipsing each other] shouldnt even apply. Therefore the 4 shapes in the logo can not be directly and literally representing the buttons. Thus the buttons are colored the way that they are as a reflection of the logo, they are influenced by the logo, rather than influencing the logo themselves.

The US controller only uses the SFC logo on the back of the controller, as part of mold of the back of the controller. The SNES controller does not have the SFC logo on the front like the SFC controller does (that's what my official controllers look like, I've got a set of controllers that came with my SNES and I also have a set of original pack in controllers from the Super Famicom)

It's a painter's palette, yes it's the buttons too, but its both of those ideas fused together that are the reason for the color of the SFC buttons.

I'm not ignoring the fact that the logo MIGHT be something other than a painter's palette, but I dont think that they would go with something as meaningless as a logo that represents the buttons, the shape of the logo and the colors just indicate that more thought was put into it than that. I would love to get to the bottom of this.

[Chronodriftersx]

Yes I thought that might be the case. However like I said I once envisioned it as a painters pallete too.

[InsaneDavid]

Well I always looked at it as four buttons, arranged to look more 3-D and say "this is the next gen Famicom" but now that I've read this......


i thought it was a red dot and a blue dot being sick at the same time and pukeing

....everytime I look at that logo from now on I'm going to see that too. LOL

[Jorpho]

The first time I saw it in Super Mario World, I thought it was some quirky depiction of the four Switch Palaces.

[Push Upstairs]

I voted bukkake because...

"In Nagasaki, they like bukkake" :D


Interesting fact: The inside of the SNES controller lists the Super Fami button colors near the button openings.

And the mutli-color design is far superior to that crappy purple trim. The U.S. SNES, "Special Edition Prince Model". LOL

Why Nintendo redesigned the SNES into that 70's spaceship looking turd is beyond me.