The forgotten 007 logo: Pan paperbacks and the missing link in James Bond’s visual identity

Before the iconic 007 gun logo became synonymous with James Bond, a forgotten gun device appeared on Pan paperbacks and in Eon publicity.

In December 1961, Dr No was the first Pan title to feature the gun-over-007 logo

For a short period of time before Joe Caroff designed the iconic 007 gun logo, another gun device became associated with James Bond. It first appeared on Pan paperbacks but a variant was adopted by Eon Productions in their early Bond marketing. Consisting of the silhouette of a pistol and two bullets laid across the digits 007 printed in halftone, the logo was used by Pan for a short period between late 1961 and mid 1963. The device sits in a yellow band at the bottom of the cover, alongside a short line of promotional blurb for the novel, usually in red. Used during the brief period when James Bond was transitioning from page to screen, the design represents a missing link in the evolution of Bond’s visual identity.

The first paperback to use this logo was the 5th edition of Dr No, published in December 1961 under the Great Pan imprint. Featuring cover art by Pat Owen, it carries the line “Kill or cure — for JAMES BOND” and a price of 2’6 — two shillings and sixpence in Britain’s pre-decimal currency, or a half-crown.

Pan’s gun-over-007 logo was used between 1961 and 1963

In 1962, Great Pan rolled out the new yellow-band design across multiple Fleming titles. A Dr No movie tie-in edition appeared later the same year, featuring the gun device against a white background. The design continued into 1963 under the rebranded Pan Books X-series, including the movie tie-in.

Examples of these Pan Bond paperbacks still surface on AbeBooks, where collectors buy and sell vintage editions.

Then, in May 1963, Pan began using Raymond Hawkey’s redesign and dropped the yellow band. With it, the gun-over-007 device disappeared from Pan’s paperback branding forever, although variations continued to be used in the promotion of Eon Productions’ second Bond movie, From Russia With Love.

Pan’s gun-over-007 logo

Unlike Eon’s 007 gun logo, the artist responsible for Pan’s own Bond logo remains unknown. Whether it was done by an in-house artist or an agency is lost to the mists of time. The design depicts a stylised automatic that doesn’t appear to resemble any real gun. Whether a toy firearm was used by the artist, or it was done from memory, we can only speculate.

A selection of Great Pan and X-Series edition James Bond paperbacks showing the gun-over-007 logo

Great Pan editions, 1961-1962

Pat Owen’s artwork had appeared on Pan’s James Bond paperbacks since 1961, featuring a variously coloured band with James Bond’s face and a promotional tagline. At the end of 1961, Pan re-used Owen’s artwork for the 5th edition of Dr No, but with one important difference. In place of the coloured band was a yellow band with the gun-over-007 logo, plus tagline.

These are the editions that the design was used on, with the dates they first appeared:

• Dr No (5th edition, Great Pan G335, December 1961)
• Moonraker (8th-11th editions, Great Pan G216, March 1962)
• Diamonds Are Forever (7th-10th editions, Great Pan G101, March 1962)
• From Russia, With Love (7th-10th editions, Great Pan G229, March 1962)
• Goldfinger (4th-6th editions, Great Pan G455, March 1962)
• Casino Royale (9th-11th editions, Great Pan G198, April 1962)
• Live and Let Die (7th-8th editions, Great Pan GP83, April 1962)
• For Your Eyes Only (1st-4th editions, Great Pan G551, May 1962)

Pat Owen provided the artwork for all titles except For Your Eyes Only, which was by J Oval (apparently a pseudonym – the artist’s real name is uncertain). A Dr No film tie-in included stills from the film on the cover and also included the gun-over-007 logo, but on white.

• Dr No (6th-8th editions, Great Pan G335, August 1962)

Pan Books X-Series, 1963

The following year Pan reissued the books, this time with Pan Books branding and a hefty price increase to 3’6. Perhaps the increase was due to the huge success of Dr No on the big screen, resulting in a surge of demand for James Bond paperbacks.

• Casino Royale (12th edition, Pan Books X232, January 1963)
• Live and Let Die (9th-11th editions, Pan Books X233, January 1963)
• Goldfinger (7th-9th editions, Pan Books X238, January 1963)
• Moonraker (12th-13th editions, Pan Books X234, February 1963)
• From Russia, With Love (11th-12th editions, Pan Books X236, February 1963)
• Diamonds Are Forever (11th-12th editions, Pan Books X235, April 1963)
• For Your Eyes Only (4th-6th editions, Pan Books X239, April 1963)

The Dr No film tie-in was also reissued as part of the X-Series.

• Dr No (9th-15th editions, Pan Books X237, January 1963)

Many of these early 1960s Pan editions are still circulating among collectors today. If you’d like to see examples of the paperbacks that first featured this forgotten logo, you can browse original Pan James Bond editions on AbeBooks.

Eon’s use of the gun-over-007

While the gun silhouette and two bullets laid over James Bond’s number device was first used by Pan in December 1961, Eon Productions used a very similar device in January 1962 when announcing to the world that Dr No was filming. A full page ad that appeared in Variety on 10th January 1962 announced that Dr No was “shooting now on location in Jamaica”.  At the bottom of the page, in a block announcing the star, producers, production company and studio, appeared a version of the gun-over-007 logo.

At the bottom of the 10th January 1962 ad taken out in Variety, a variation of the gun-over-007 logo appears

Across early publicity material, the design was repeatedly reworked rather than standardised, suggesting that Eon had not yet settled on a definitive visual identity for 007. A further iteration appeared on the British quad poster for Dr No, with a slightly different adaptation found on promotional material in which the gun is placed lower against the background digits.

The UK quad poster for Dr No featured another variation of the gun-over-007 logo

Comparing the logo used on the Exhibitor’s Campaign Book (below) with the quad poster, it appears that the digits 007 in red are slightly too high, so that “as” also overlaps the digits slightly. This suggests to me that it was a printing error rather than a deliberate design choice.

What is deliberate though is a different version of the logo used on British crown posters. As well as the design of the gun being different, it is situated lower against the digits and there are no bullets.

The crown poster for Dr No features yet another variant

Since the gun-over-007 device appeared on Pan paperbacks a month before Dr No started filming, a question arises. It’s easy to assume, given the chronology, that Eon simply borrowed Pan’s marketing device in its early film promotions. But given that the books and films could have been expected to boost each other, was the gun-over-007 logo actually designed for use by both Pan and Eon?

They certainly worked together. Pan and Eon jointly ran a competition for bookshops to coincide with the film’s release. The best window displays of James Bond paperbacks, as judged by Ian Fleming and Sean Connery, won cash prizes. The result was a massive surge in sales, with an additional 150,000 paperback copies of Dr No sold in just three months. Prior to that 350,000 paperback copies had been sold.

By the time Dr No was released in the United States in May 1963, Eon was using the 007 gun logo designed by Joe Caroff on the poster. However, a press release for From Russia With Love issued just days before its release features yet another logo variant. The gun design is very similar to that used in the Variety ad, but placed higher against the digits.

From Russia With Love press release stamped 1st May 1963

By the time the logo appeared on the British poster campaign, the gun shape had again evolved from the crown poster. It is similar is design and lower against the background but now with two bullets. This design was also used in other marketing material, including a poster announcing “JAMES BOND IS BACK!”, with the gun-over-007 logo underneath.

From Russia With Love British quad poster with the design further refined

After From Russia With Love, Eon Productions stopped using the gun-over-007 logo completely. The next few UK posters didn’t feature a 007 logo at all, while the United States continued to use the Caroff design on Goldfinger, but dropped it for Thunderball and You Only Live Twice. Caroff’s 007 gun logo was used on both UK and US posters for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and although it has been slightly redesigned over the years, is still in use today.

Other uses

In 1964 Neville Spearman/Holland Press published Double O Seven James Bond: A Report by OF Snelling. The artwork of the 1965 Panther paperback edition features a large red “007” printed in the background, over which a realistically rendered Beretta 70 is overlaid. Although rendered three-dimensionally rather than as a silhouette, the design is clearly inspired by the gun-over-007 device. It also inspired the logo of this website.

Although short-lived, the gun-over-007 device marks an important transitional moment in the visual history of James Bond. Emerging just as Fleming’s literary creation was becoming a cinematic phenomenon, it reflects a period when Bond’s iconography was still being defined. Within a few years Joe Caroff’s 007 gun logo would provide the series with its enduring visual signature, but Pan’s earlier emblem reveals how that identity evolved. It’s the missing link between the paperback spy and the global screen icon.

Further reading

• The Pan Logo (Mid-Century Bond)
• James Bond Pan Paperbacks (007 Magazine)
• All Pan/Great Pan paperbacks