The story on illy started in 1933, when the enterprising Francesco Illy founded illycaffè
in his family's home of Trieste, Italy. The picture beside is a duplicate of an
old advertising sign. On it, you can see the first logo that was used by illy.Illy produced logo cups to serve there coffee. The cups were made by several porcelain factories in Europe like, Mitterteich, Richard Ginori, IPA, ACP, Heinrich, Alvani, Mosa and Walküre. 
Beside you can see some of the first logo cups. Some of the cups had the logo on the inside of the cup,
others on the outside.
From the mid sixties, the logo changed. The red square with white letters was introduced and
two black circles were added above the logo. They represent two overlapped cups seen from above.
Interesting to see is the fact that illy already had a special cup for there decaffinated coffee.
 From the mid eighties a new logo was introduced.
The letter "i" changed and the crown was moved to the "y". The overlapping circles also
appeared in gold painting.
Two more variations on the overlapping cups. In this version they are shown aside of the logo and
they came in silver painting too. 
Porcelain factory Mosa in Maastricht made the two cups beside. They do not have the espresso size, but
are a little bit large. I guess it's to serve regular coffee for the Dutch market.
Somewhere in the late eighties the overlapping cups were removed from the cups and just the
red square with white letter remained.
In 1990 Matteo Thun was asked to design a new espresso cup. This resulted in the well known shape of the
espresso cup that is used by illy today. In 1992, the new cup was used for the logo cups, but
also for the first illy collection set Arte e Mestieri.
A complete new image of the illy logo was designed in 1996 by the great contemporary artist,
James Rosenquist who was asked to decorate an illy collection set too (Italian Riviera).
The logo was developed from a painting called Triestine, which Rosenquist dedicated to the company. 
In 1996 another logo cup was shown. It was designed by Rosenquist together with the Riviera set and the new logo.
Two cups were packed in a gift set, together with a can of coffee and two spoons.
In 2004 a new cup with the illy logo and the inscription decaffeinated in many languages was
decorated. These cup are used for serving decaffeinated coffee in snack bars,
coffee shops or pubs.
In 2005 another new logo cup was introduced. The cup is the same as the regular logo cups, but has the
inscription: "la mia tazzina 10+". It was given away to clients of illy coffee shops and bars
who bought an subscription for more then 10 illy espressos.
With "Espressamente illy" a new coffee bar concept, was released in 2006. Each
Espressamente illy bar is as unique as the city that surrounds it, but they all
use the same espresso logo cups wich you can see beside.
On behalf of the 75th anniversary of illycaffè in 2008 a special cup was released, limited to 1933 pieces. Beside this special cup, a logo cup with the old and new illy logo was releassed too. 
Just like illy, Amici uses logo cups too. The cups have the same "Matteo Thun" shape and the logo
is red with white letters too. However, it's not a square, but a diamond. In 2005
Amici changed it's logo too as you can see beside.Whenever you have more information about logo cups, please let me know. Pictures of cups that are not shown are also very welcome! |
