What Is the Nissan Logo?
The Nissan logo is a circle crossed by a horizontal band that carries the name NISSAN, a design that goes back to the company's first emblem of 1933. The circle stands for the rising sun. The logo belongs to Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., the Japanese carmaker based in Yokohama, which was founded in December 1933 and took the Nissan name in 1934.
Nissan has drawn the circle and band as a red disc behind a blue bar, as a chrome badge from 2001 and as a flat outline from 2020. The chrome version is available as the Nissan logo SVG.
Nissan Logo Facts
| Introduced | 1933; redrawn in 2001 and 2020 |
| Symbol | A circle for the rising sun, crossed by a band with the NISSAN name |
| Logo type | Emblem: the name set inside the sun shape |
| Earlier mark | The Datsun emblem, from which the first Nissan logo was taken |
| Owner | Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. |
What the Nissan Logo Means
Written in Japanese characters, the name Nissan can be read as "sun product" or "birth of the sun", and the circle has represented the sun from the start. On the 1933 logo it was a red disc behind a blue bar, a pairing that echoes the Japanese flag.
The logo also carries a motto of founder Yoshisuke Aikawa, "Shisei tenjitsu o tsuranuku", which he explained as: if you have a strong belief, it penetrates even the sun. When Nissan redrew the logo in 2020, its designers kept that idea as the guiding message.
Nissan Logo History
Nissan's roots lie in DAT, a car that its maker began producing in 1914. Under Aikawa, the business that built Datsun cars became Nissan, and it sold vehicles under both names.
The first Nissan logo, from 1933, was inherited from the Datsun emblem: white letters on a blue rectangle in front of a red circle. It stayed in use until 1970. Badges on the cars changed by decade, from capital letters in the 1950s to italics in the 1960s and heavy metallic badges in the 1980s.
In 2001 Nissan brought in a single metallic, monochrome logo for every vehicle, a three-dimensional chrome version of the circle and band.
On 15 July 2020 Nissan unveiled a flat, two-dimensional logo. Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan's senior vice president of global design, began studying a change in summer 2017 and asked for something "thin, light and flexible". A team led by Tsutomu Matsuo designed it, first as an illuminated badge and then as a flat mark. The Ariya, an electric crossover, was the first car to carry it, and on Nissan's electric cars the badge is lit by 20 LEDs, one for each year since the previous redesign.
Nissan and Datsun
Datsun was the name on Nissan cars in most export markets until 1983. Nissan phased it out from 1984 and dropped it completely in 1985, revived Datsun in 2013 as a brand for emerging markets and ended Datsun sales in 2022.
For more brands like Nissan, browse our car logos.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the circle in the Nissan logo mean?
The rising sun, a theme that goes back to the red disc of the 1933 logo.
What does the name Nissan mean?
Written in Japanese characters, Nissan can be read as "sun product" or "birth of the sun".
When did Nissan change its logo?
Nissan unveiled its flat logo on 15 July 2020. The previous redesign, a chrome badge used on every Nissan, came in 2001.
Why does the Nissan logo light up?
On Nissan's electric cars the badge is lit by 20 LEDs, one for each of the 20 years between the 2001 and 2020 redesigns.