First Iris Ceramica logo

When Iris was first established in the Italian Ceramic Industry, precisely in 1961, it couldn’t be foreseen that just a symbol would have been essential to the development of the company and subsequently recognized as an important part of its brand values. At first, the company needed a logo with a real significance and a meaningful name. From all the options and ideas that had emerged, the name “Iris” was definitely considered to be the perfect one because it recalls a flower called “Giaggiolo” (in Italian); in fact, “Iris” is a native type of flower from the shores of Tiepido’s creek in the Province of Modena where the moisturized soil can be already called “Clay”. Another great inspiration to be considered is that the word “Iris” (in Greek) alludes to the “The goddess of the Rainbow”, and she is considered to be the personification of the rainbow and the messenger of the gods.
This goddess is an amazing young deity with incredible speed who delivers the messages coming from the sky. She is depicted wearing a coat of many colors, with this coat she creates the rainbows when she rides from place to place. Moreover, a rainbow is a spectrum of light that reflects seven colors together (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) and these colors are essential to the development of ceramic products. Also, in Florence there’s the coat of arms called “Giglio di Firenze” in which the bloomed Iris in the coat represents people celebrating the spring season and all its colorful flowers. In addition, Iris is also the name given to the colored, muscular ring around the pupil of the eye, located between the cornea and lens. This complex optical system, called eye, allows people to see and choose things. Consequently, the combination of all these elements created a very strong brand concept. The next step was an acronym “Industria Rivestimenti Italiani Sassuolo” created from the word Iris, meaning “Italian Ceramic Industry in Sassuolo”. In fact, the company’s concept and acronym together have always been the best representation of our brand identity.