The Chupa Chups Logo — A Masterpiece by Salvador Dalí

The famous surrealist with the pointed moustache worked across a striking range of artistic fields – not only painting, but also sculpture, photography, performance art and... graphic design! It turns out that none other than Salvador Dalí created the bright, youthful Chupa Chups logo that has remained almost unchanged for decades.

Enric Bernat

The Catalan lollipop appeared on the market in 1958, when the company's founder, Enric Bernat, came up with the idea of putting a candy on a stick, after a consumer survey showed that most lollipop buyers were under 16 years old and got their hands sticky when taking the sweet out of their mouths. The product was named "GOL", with the idea that the lollipop would fly into the mouth like a ball into a goal. Unfortunately, the product was not very successful, so Bernat hired an advertising agency, which renamed the product "Chupa Chups" (in Spanish, the word chupar means "to suck") – all that was left was the branding. Things went fairly well, and the lollipops sold well throughout the country, but a problem arose when the company decided to enter foreign markets. For that, the product needed to be relaunched, and it needed a hook that would attract both existing and new customers. So, in 1959, Bernat travelled to Figueres to commission a new logo from none other than Salvador Dalí himself.

They discussed the matter over a cup of coffee, and the artist got to work instantly, sketching straight onto sheets of newspaper. Within an hour, on a paper napkin, the Chupa Chups logo was born – almost unchanged to this day – set against a bright yellow, daisy-shaped background. One might say the changes compared to the earlier version were small, yet fundamental. Both words were turned red, and the background took the shape of a flower, so that the whole logo became like an emblem. What's more, Dalí insisted that the logo be placed not on the side of the lollipop, but on top – this way avoiding distortion and increasing visibility.

In the end, one question remains: what prompted the famous, celebrated artist to take on such a project? Money – Bernat agreed to pay a fee in the millions (and history proved it was money well spent). Dalí rarely turned down a payday; the surrealist poet André Breton even nicknamed him "Avida Dollars" (an anagram of the artist's name), which, roughly translated, means "eager for cash".

So, in the space of an hour, Salvador Dalí not only earned himself a tidy sum, but by making changes that seemed minor at first glance yet were in fact hugely important, he created the Chupa Chups logo we still see today. Even now it looks contemporary, modern and youthful, and we increasingly see it not only on lollipop wrappers, but on a whole range of other products as well.