3.6.3. Trade mark and design
3.6.3.1. Logo design
The blue and gold in Visa's logo were originally chosen to represent the blue sky and golden-colored hills of California, where the legacy Bank of America was founded.
The Visa symbol is used by merchants to denote the acceptance of Visa payment cards.
In 2006 Visa removed its trademark "flag" logo from all its cards, websites and retailer's windows. This was the first time that Visa has changed its logo.
The new logo has a simple white background with the name VISA in blue with an orange flick on the 'V'.
For the new Visa Debit and Visa Electron logo, see the relevant pages.
3.6.3.2. Dove hologram
In 1984, most Visa cards around the world began to feature a hologram of a dove on its face, generally under the last four digits of the Visa number. This was implemented as a security feature - true holograms would appear 3-dimensional and the image would change as the card was turned. At the same time, the Visa logo, which had previously covered the whole card face, was reduced in size to a strip on the card's right incorporating the hologram. This allowed issuing banks to customize the appearance of the card. Similar changes were implemented with MasterCard cards.
On most Visa cards, holding the face of the card under an ultraviolet light will reveal the dove picture, as an additional security test. (On newer Visa cards, the UV dove is replaced by a small V over the Visa logo.)
Beginning in 2005, the Visa standard was changed to allow for the hologram to be placed on the back of the card, or to be replaced with a holographic magnetic stripe ("HoloMag"). The HoloMag card was shown to occasionally cause interference with card readers, so Visa eventually withdrew designs of HoloMag cards and reverted to traditional magnetic strips.
Source: wikipedia.org
