From a sports symbol to a global identity, an icon born in the 1980s to take Mizuno worldwide.
From Baseball Diamonds to Technical Footwear
Mizuno is a century-old brand, but the image we know today tells a much broader story—one of international expansion and evolution. Founded in Osaka in 1906, Mizuno began when the Mizuno brothers distributed Western sports products—boots, balls, and baseball gloves—anchored in the sport that shaped their early identity: baseball.
By 1918, Mizuno had expanded into sportswear production and, shortly thereafter, into golf clubs, skis, and track shoes. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that they launched the M-Line, a collection of multi-sport footwear marked by a prominent “M” on the side panels as a brand identifier.
The concept, however, proved problematic. Finnish brand Karhu was already using a similar design, leading to legal conflicts. Additionally, the “M” was hard to distinguish in motion. That’s when Mizuno decided it was time for a visual reinvention.
RunBird: A Symbol in Expansion
In the early 1980s, Kenjiro Mizuno, son of the founder, proposed a new idea: a logo that would symbolize the expansion of sport—and of Mizuno—as a metaphor for the expansion of the universe. Designer Noboru Kono, a veteran within the company, and his team developed this concept into a shape inspired by planetary orbits, which also needed to serve a structural function in the shoe’s design.
The final logo was selected from more than 180 proposals. The new symbol was named RunBird, combining Run (to evoke health and sport) and Bird (as a symbol of freedom). It debuted in 1982 on models distributed in the U.S. and reached Japan a year later. Throughout the 1980s, the logo was refined: its lines were softened, and the original “M” was replaced by a triangle that offered a lighter visual profile. This final version appeared on the Mizuno Morelia in 1985.
More than just a logo, RunBird became a product line that represented Mizuno’s best for a global audience. Over time, it evolved into the brand’s definitive symbol—the iconic mark by which we recognize Mizuno around the world.