Tom Browne designed the famous Striding Man logo first used by Johnnie Walker whisky.
Browne, an English illustrator, created the walking gentleman in 1908 after sketching the figure on the back of a restaurant menu. The design was commissioned for Johnnie Walker by the brand’s advertising agency and became a visual shorthand for the whisky’s identity.
The Striding Man is shown in formal clothing, carrying a cane and moving forward. That forward motion supported Johnnie Walker’s long-running “Keep Walking” advertising theme. The figure has been redrawn and modernized at different times, but the basic silhouette has remained recognizable for more than a century.
The logo is sometimes confused with the brand’s coloured label names, such as Red Label and Black Label. Those labels identify different Johnnie Walker blends, whereas the Striding Man is the brand’s central emblem. The original designer was Tom Browne, not a later advertising celebrity associated with the slogan.