Bentley’s badge is elegance and power.

Bentley’s emblem is the “Winged B” — the letter B (for Bentley) set within a pair of elegant, outstretched wings. Designed by the automotive artist F. Gordon Crosby, the wings convey speed, freedom, flight and grace, while the whole mark radiates the power, luxury and performance Bentley is famous for. It’s a visual idea shared with a few other prestige marques (Aston Martin, Chrysler), but Bentley’s rendering — bold, symmetrical, Art-Deco in feel — is unmistakably its own, projecting effortless grandeur and muscular refinement. For a brand that has always married immense power with hand-crafted luxury, a mighty letter B soaring on wings is the perfect badge. Our homage nods to abstract Art-Deco wings, not the Winged B.

A famous Bentley detail, told carefully.

One of the most-repeated stories about the Winged B concerns its feathers. According to widely-told Bentley lore, the two wings have a different number of feathers — classically said to be fourteen on one side and thirteen on the other — a deliberate asymmetry supposedly introduced to make the emblem harder to counterfeit: an authorised badge would have the correct odd arrangement, while a fake might have symmetric wings. It’s a great story and appears across many sources — but it’s worth flagging carefully: the tale traces to brand lore rather than a primary, documented statement of anti-counterfeiting intent, and the exact feather counts have varied across eras (the Rolls-Royce-era badge, for instance, used a symmetric ten-feather version). So it’s best told as “reportedly, and according to Bentley legend” rather than as settled fact. Either way, the idea of a hidden asymmetry as an anti-fake device is a lovely piece of the brand’s mythology.

Bentley marries brute force to bespoke luxury.

Bentley was founded in 1919 by W. O. (Walter Owen) Bentley in England, and quickly built its reputation on a distinctive combination: immense, effortless power and supreme hand-crafted luxury. Early Bentleys were famous for racing success (multiple Le Mans victories in the 1920s), establishing a heritage of muscular, high-performance grand touring — the “Bentley Boys” era of wealthy gentleman racers. Today Bentley is renowned for cars that pair enormous performance with exquisite, bespoke, hand-built interiors — acres of hand-stitched leather, hand-finished wood veneers, obsessive craftsmanship. That duality — a car that is both a brutally fast machine and a rolling piece of master craftsmanship — is the heart of the Bentley identity. The Winged B, powerful yet elegant, captures it perfectly: strength and grace, force and refinement, in a single badge.

Bentley shows a badge that carries a whole ethos.

Bentley offers lessons in building a prestige identity that fuses seemingly opposite qualities. First, the power of a symbol that captures a duality: the Winged B conveys both power (the bold letter, the muscular form) and grace and freedom (the elegant wings), perfectly embodying a brand that is simultaneously about immense performance and exquisite luxury. A mark that holds a brand’s core tension in one image is especially strong. Second, the value of genuine heritage: Bentley’s 1919 founding and its legendary early racing success give the badge real depth and credibility.

Third, the charm of brand mythology — and the importance of telling it honestly. The asymmetric-feathers story (the odd feather counts to foil counterfeiters) is a wonderful piece of lore that adds intrigue and a sense of craftsmanship-obsessed detail; a citation-grade telling presents it as the widely-repeated legend it is, rather than as documented fact. Even flagged as lore, such stories enrich a brand, giving people something to discover and share. Fourth, the strength of a consistent ethos: everything about Bentley — the powerful-yet-elegant badge, the racing heritage, the hand-crafted luxury, the deep British-racing-green heritage colour — reinforces one idea: power and craftsmanship, force and refinement, together. The takeaway is that a great emblem can capture a brand’s essential duality in a single image, backed by real heritage and enriched by honest mythology. Bentley’s letter B, soaring on wings, does exactly that — strength and grace, forever in balance.

An elegant, powerful, refined wordmark.

Bentley pairs the Winged B with an elegant, refined wordmark. The specimen below stands in with a refined serif.

Deep heritage green. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Bentley’s heritage colour is a deep British racing green #004225, with a near-black #050602 and silver. Lead with the green below.

Keep the wings idea on hand — save the homage and the racing green to a board.