A photo purportedly showing an artist standing next to a painting of the Paramount Pictures mountain logo was shared to X in late October 2024. The post's caption read: "The Paramount Pictures logo on the day it was originally painted, 1965."
The image has repeatedly circulated on social media. For example, numerous versions with the same claim attached could be found on Reddit between 2022 and 2024. Likewise, a Facebook post from December 2021 and an Instagram post from September 2024 also repeated the rumor.
(@historyinmemes on X)
One Reddit user said of the photograph: "Man I hope that dude is getting royalties. Can you imagine how much he would've made by now if he didn't just sell it outright?" However, other users questioned the claim, with one writing: "That's a painting. Not a logo. The actual logo is not on this photo." Likewise, an X user commented: "You sure about this? They didn't adopt that style till the 80s."
Indeed, the assertions accompanying the image are not correct, which is why we have rated the photo as miscaptioned.
The artist pictured is Italian-born Dario Campanile, who was hired to recreate the Paramount logo for the studio's 75th anniversary in 1986.
According to Campanile's website, which also features the photograph: "In 1986 after working in Los Angeles for over a decade, Dario was honored to be chosen from hundreds of artists to create the 75th Anniversary Logo for Paramount Studios. His beautiful design of the famous mountain symbol was seen on every Paramount publication."
(Dario Campanile)
In 1912, Hodkinson met producer Adolph Zukor of the Famous Players Film Company and, two years later, engineered the merger of the firms. Hodkinson didn't care for the Famous Players name, so he settled on a new one: Paramount. Needing a logo, Hodkinson sat down at his desk and drew a mountain on the blotter paper, adding a halo of stars for effect.
An example of an early-20th-century Paramount logo can be seen on the poster for the 1924 movie "A Sainted Devil," which is shown below.
(Getty Images)
The Paramount mountain logo has been repeatedly updated for more than a century. Adweek wrote: "Clouds have come and gone. The sun has risen and set. Paramount's owners have added their own names along the bottom: Gulf + Western between 1968 and 1985, then Viacom from 1994 to the present [2019]."
In a 2012 blog post, Campanile linked to a short clip of the logo on YouTube and said: "It's great when you are browsing youtube and you re-discover artwork that you painted long ago. I painted the Paramount Studios' 75th anniversary logo in 1986. It's nice that the person that created this short clip credited me in his description."
Campanile's imagery was used from 1987 until 2002, when the company updated the logo once again, moving to a computer-animated version.