Oil company logos: from shells to lighters. Winged Horse, Sun, Shield Torch, Shell and Energy. Symbols of the largest oil companies Logos of oil companies in the world

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Today I would like to talk about logos. As it happens, some created a logo a long time ago and became recognizable in the market, while others change their logo every year and no one can remember them. How can you hit the target and predict whether a brand will become popular? To understand, let's turn to the experience of the largest corporations. The topic is logos of oil companies around the world. Let's talk about what they are like and what's catchy about them.

Logos of oil companies around the world

First guest, let's get acquainted - Dutch Oil and Gas Company Royal Dutch Shell. The company's logo is a red and yellow shell, invented back in 1833. At first glance, it may seem strange why the sign of an oil company is associated with a marine theme. But not everything is on the surface. The fact is that the logo has a symbolic meaning. I tell you that an English merchant in London opened a shop, selling mainly exotic goods, including boxes decorated with sea shells.

Later, his son had a brilliant idea - to transport kerosene to the Far East by water through the Suez Canal. No one has done this before. It was a breakthrough. This is how the marine theme appeared in the logo. And of course, in memory of my father. Over the long period of its existence, the emblem has only changed slightly. Initially it was a mussel shell, and then it was changed to a scallop shell.

Externally, the logo is simple and harmonious; again, the red and yellow color makes reference to fire.

The Next American Firm Exxon Mobil Corporation, the largest in the world. The oil company's verbal logo is Exxon Mobil, the words are written in bright red. The name, like the logo, was born after the merger of two companies into one: Exxon and Mobil.

This fiery inscription can be seen at gas stations all over the world; it is firmly imprinted in the consciousness and cannot be confused with others.

Mobile is a large American corporation that has been producing, refining and transporting oil for more than 130 years. Initially, the company used the name and emblem of the winged horse – Pegasus – in its logo. The mythological image symbolized freedom of movement and travel for motorists. There was a red winged horse on a white disk. Later, the horse emblem disappeared, leaving only the name.

French oil company logo Total Compared to others, it is very young, it was created in 2002. So, at the beginning of the 2000s, management turned to the creative agency A&Co so that the professionals would come up with a logo for the company.

Brainstorming began in the web studio, the performers began to deeply study the business and look for deep meanings. First, Total's values ​​were identified - professionalism, innovative technologies, high quality service. Then, based on them, metaphorical images began to appear - the planet Earth, which revolves around the Sun. An idea appeared with electrodes rotating around the nucleus. Thus a thought with energy was born. Graphically it was embodied in the form of rounded swirls. It’s as if a flow of energy passes from one to another, in a circle, without stopping. It is important that the logo uses four colors, although according to unspoken rules, it is better to use no more than three. But the Total logo is no worse for this.

Surprisingly, the oil and gas giant did not limit itself to graphic and verbal expression; they also decided to use sound. A composer was invited to write a corporate melody for the company. There's a lot to learn here.

Logos of Russian oil companies

You can immediately recognize Russian by the Lighter logo Gazprom. The designers assure that even if you change the corporate style and logo, Gazprom will still not be confused with another company. The trademark consists of two elements: a lighter and the word “Gazprom”, made in blue. Moreover, the company patented not only the logo, but also the color. So blue is rightfully their color.

Irkutsk Oil Company the youngest, was founded in 2000. The logo uses three colors: black, white and green. A trademark contains both a word, or rather an abbreviation, and graphics. There are no hidden meanings, everything is on the surface. Some designers are confused by the fact that the letters INK are cut off and it is difficult to understand what is written there. But the company itself is happy with everything, there were no rumors about rebranding.

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In 2000, the BP company carried out a rebranding, which also included the replacement of the corporate logo. The old logo (yellow letters BP on a green shield with a yellow border) was replaced by a new one - symbolizing the beginning of a new millennium, and designed to emphasize the profound changes that have occurred in the company.

The new BP logo is a stylized sun. Its deeper meaning lies in the fact that it is identified with the sun god Helios - personifying solar power and authority. The sun, the solar gods, the symbols that personified it, have been the object of veneration and worship of humanity since ancient times.

(BP logo)

Another reason for replacing the logo and brand is changes that have occurred within BP itself. BP is no longer British Petroleum. By changing its image, the company emphasizes that it has become “not so much a British company as an international one, not so much a fuel company as an energy company, moreover, not at all the same as before.” By parting with the old logo, BP drew a kind of line under the 70-year stage of its history.

The new paradigm of the company's development is expressed by the slogan “Beyond petroleum”, it can also be understood as “More than [the British] Petroleum company”.

This is how BP chief executive Lord J. Brown characterizes the new logo in an interview with Newsweek magazine: “Our new trademark is much more than just a logo. It is a symbol of our company, a reflection of our philosophy, how we position ourselves in the world. market.

The new logo reflects the unification within our company of such well-known brands as “BP”, “Amoco”, “Arco”, “Castrol”, and is a common, unified symbol of the company as a whole. "More broadly, the new logo reflects our strategy to catapult the company into the 21st century and transform BP from an oil company to an energy company in the broadest sense of the word."

To the above, it only remains to add that the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather received $211 million for its work on changing the logo, slogan and image for the British Petroleum company.

In 2002, Total organized a competition among creative agencies. The goal of the competition was to create a design for a new corporate logo for Total and a commercial brand for the manufacturer. A&Co agency was chosen to develop a new company logo in September 2002.

The performers took the process seriously. The logo creation process began with a comprehensive study of various aspects of the company. The company’s “genotype,” as the researchers called it, was identified, formalized, and developed. The company's genotype included such basic values ​​as

• Professionalism,
• Commitment to innovation
• Partnerships,
• Quality service,
• Courage,
• Humanity
• Commitment.

Based on the identified qualities, metaphors and visual images were formulated. They are combined into ideas with “philosophical” and graphic content: As a result, the developers came to the conclusion that: “The main idea of ​​energy is circular motion or a round shape.” Based on this, the customer was offered a set of images, such as:

• Earth,
• Sun,
• Circular turbulence of the wind,
• Electrons,
• Rotating around the core...

The concept of the logo creators was quite simple, but no less interesting. The company's business qualities generate energy. Energy makes plants and factories work, rotates the flywheels of car engines and aircraft turbines, generating new energy. The company moves the world forward, and the world pays the company with its energy. Taken together, this gives rise to energy flows that smoothly flow into one another. Hence the rounded logo, in which “flows of energy are formed gradually, colored in the colors of red, yellow and blue, to give an additional touch of diversity, exchange, dynamism and at the same time represent the unification of three companies under one name TOTAL.”

(Logo Total)

As stated on the company’s official website, “If there is a single word to describe the Total concern, then that word would be energy.” And energy was the dominant theme that inspired Laurent Vincenti, creative director of the A&Co agency, to search for a logo that would reflect all the strength, diversity and the complexity of Total's activities now and in the future."

The energy gave him the idea for a new logo.

And, having decided not to limit itself only to visual images, the company invited composer Bruno Coulet so that, inspired by the energy of the company, he wrote for it a corporate melody that could “express the feeling of outer space, the breath of energy, the movement of the company.”

Chevron logo

In 1984, Standard Oil of California acquired Gulf Oil. This merger was the largest in American history and gave birth to the company now known as Chevron Corporation. The history of the Chevron company itself is quite interesting, as it consists of a series of mergers and acquisitions, during which names and brands changed.

So, 1879. The Pacific Coast Oil Company (Coast Oil) is developing the Pico Canyon oil field in California. Coast Oil would later become one of the divisions of John Rockefeller's Standard Oil corporation and be named Standard Oil Co. (California).

(First emblem of the Pacific Coast Oil Company)

After the "Standard Oil" section, in the mid-20s the company began to live its own life and changed the brand "Standard Oil Co. (California)" to a new one - "Standard Oil Co. of California" (abbreviated as "SoCal").

It was at this time that the Chevron brand emerged. Under this name, the Chevron company (still SoCal) begins to produce products called Chevron smearing and Chevron oil.

In 1984, the famous merger of SoCal and Gulf Oil took place, and the newborn giant received the name Chevron Corporation, since for several decades the corporation had been producing a product under this brand. The company will use its old Chevron logo, well known to millions of fuel and oil buyers around the world.

Subsequently, the corporation absorbed several more companies, including such giants as NGC, Illinois Corp., Texaco, Unocal Corporation,

As a result of all these mergers and acquisitions, the company bore the name "ChevronTexaco" from 2001 to 2005, and on May 9, 2005, the company was transformed again into "Chevron Corporation".

The current company logo has been in use since 2006. It looks like this:

(Chevron logo)

The shape of the logo reminds us of the famous V, "Victory" sign, denoting victory. However, if we take a closer look at it, we will see that before us is a multi-valued composition. Firstly, it depicts the chevrons themselves - figures consisting of segments connected at an angle, and which have long served as insignia for the military and not only.

Secondly, two chevrons form a classic shield, such as was depicted in medieval engravings. And this is no coincidence. Firstly, the shield has always symbolized safety and reliability. The shield, like the sun from the BP logo, is one of the oldest symbols in the collective unconscious of humanity.

The color scheme of the logo is also not accidental, and has roots in the symbolism of the distant ancestor of the Chevron company - Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The red, white and blue colors of the chevron are also the colors of the American flag. This color scheme symbolizes the patriotism of the company, its affinity for its native hearths, symbolizes the country where this company does (or did) most of its business.

ExxonMobil logo

ExxonMobil is an American oil and gas corporation. Like the previous hero of our article, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil is a descendant of the legendary Standard Oil of John D. Rockefeller.

Inherited from its ancestor, ExxonMobil inherited the ability to overcome numerous difficulties on the path to success - Standard Oil was split into parts at the request of the US government - its heir became the No. 1 company on the Fortune 500 list in 2012, with profits in the billions dollars.

An important factor that contributed to the prosperity of the company was the originality of its corporate logo. The bright and contrasting colors of the ExxonMobil symbol can be seen at gas stations around the world, they are firmly imprinted in the consciousness of anyone who has ever refueled there. Therefore, anyone who wants to repeat the success of this company needs to take a closer look at its branding - there is a lot of instructive stuff there.

Evolution of logos: The first logo is “Standard Oil”

Let's look at the logo of the "parent" company - Standard Oil. This company, founded by J.D. Rockefeller, soon became one of the most powerful companies in the United States. Logo colors: red, white and blue. The US flag was made in a similar color scheme, which was intended to serve as an indicator of the reliability and patriotism of the company.

(Standard Oil logo)

The torch, along with the shield (Chevron), and the sun (BP), also occupies an honorable place among the ancient archetypal symbols that are significant to man, “stitched” into his collective unconscious. In this context, it symbolizes the benefit the company brings to its country - the torch requires fuel to burn, and the creators of the logo sought to emphasize that America needs fuel to prosper and grow. The torch also lights the way for America - the path to a successful, bright future.

2nd logo - "Mobil": Winged horse

In 1911, the US government, as part of the fight against monopolies, took over the Standard Oil monopoly and demanded its division. After that, it splits into 38 different companies.

"Exxon and Mobil were two of these companies, and for these two companies, of course, separate logos are used. Mobil used a logo with the "company" colors of "Standard Oi"l, and an image of a winged horse - Pegasus. No need say that Pegasus is the oldest mythological symbol, also very significant for humanity, its name is next to Pegasus in flight.

Mobil's Pegasus has come to symbolize freedom of travel and technological progress for all motorists through regular appearances in popular magazines.

In 1954, the Mobil brand name was introduced for worldwide use - Pegasus is now located below the word "Mobil" in the logo. A decade later, in 1965, the emblem takes on a look familiar to most of the company's clients. Pegasus changes its direction, the lines become bolder and clearer. A fast winged horse on a white disk, this is exactly what Pegasus personified the Mobil company.

3rd logo - "Exxon": Fast Tiger

The Exxon logo, although much less stylized, also served its purpose well. We see that the color scheme remained the same - the Standard Oil brand - Jersey Standard (Standard Oil of New Jersey) changed the name to Exxon Corporation in 1972 and established the Exxon trademark in the United States. In other parts of the world, Exxon and its affiliates continued to use the long-standing "Esso + affiliate name" brand name, such as "Esso Belgium". The famous Esso tiger served as an integral part of the Esso brand.

This symbol originally appeared back in the early 1900s in Norway. Thus, for more than a hundred years, this particular sign has signified the power of Exxon. By the mid-1930s, the Tiger became the Esso logo in England, but disappeared during the Second World War - then the companies had no time for marketing, for obvious reasons.

In 1953, Esso returned the tiger to European markets. And in 1959, a new concept for this logo appeared in Chicago - a cheerful, friendly, slightly cartoonish tiger along with the famous slogan: “Put a Tiger in your tank.”

As a result, the new funny tiger triumphantly paraded in Esso advertising around the world, decorating thousands of gas stations and gasoline tanks, as well as various souvenirs.

Modern logo: Together at last

In 1998, Exxon and Mobil merged, creating the oil giant ExxonMobil. Already in 2007, the new company took 2nd place in the list of the largest public American companies "Fortune 1000" and in the list of the world's largest corporations "Fortune Global 500" (lists were compiled by revenue in 2006).

(ExxonMobil logo)

The new company's logo was greatly simplified. The double XX stylized as a Maltese cross in the word "Exxon" was retained, to which was added the name of the Mobil company, written in the same font and color. Perhaps this is a sign of which of the two companies has retained its dominant position even with combined activities. Well, it is unnecessary to mention that the stylized Maltese cross is also a fairly ancient symbol for humanity; in this context, it serves as an indicator of the company’s reliability.

For over a hundred years, the word "shell" or "shell", the shell logo (now a scallop shell, until 1948 it was a mussel shell) and the distinctive colors of red and yellow have been used to identify a brand and promote reputation. companies. These symbols signify the quality of products and services and represent the professionalism and values ​​of the company throughout the world. Let's see how and when such symbolism appeared

(Shell logo)

Royal Dutch Shell was created in 1907 by the merger of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. This was done in order to resist the expansion of the same, repeatedly mentioned Standard Oil trust.

The name "Shell" and the company logo date back to 1833. It was then that the English merchant Samuel opened a small store in London and began selling exotic items, including boxes decorated with sea shells. Sink in English is "shell". "Shell" was the name of Samuel's store.

From jewelry trading to oil trading

In 1891, Samuel's son Marcus ended up in Batumi, where he came up with the idea of ​​organizing the transportation of kerosene from the Caspian Sea through the Suez Canal to the Far East. This was not easy to do, primarily due to the strict requirements for tankers transporting oil.

The design of the tanker, invented by Marcus Samuel, eliminated the threat of spontaneous combustion of petroleum products and met the stringent requirements of maritime transport through the Suez Canal, which no oil company had previously been able to achieve. Things started to improve for Marcus, and the company began to develop rapidly. Marcus made a shell as a symbol of his company, in memory of his father, and also to emphasize the continuity of the family business.

This emphasized another fact - wealth, in the form of shells, came to Marcus’s father from the Far East. Now, on the way back to the Far East, ships loaded with new wealth - oil. The same shell will shade their path. There was a deep symbolic meaning in all this.

Initially, the color scheme of the logo was black and white. The current colors, Shell's bright, eye-catching red and yellow, were introduced when the company's California division first built service stations. In sunny California, which shone with bright colors, it was necessary to stand out from the competition. Therefore, colors that were familiar to Californians were used: red and yellow were chosen due to the state's close Spanish ties.

And to this day, the scallop - a yellow-red sea shell remains one of the most famous brands in the 21st century, strongly associated with the Shell company.

To summarize, we understand that large oil companies, consciously or unconsciously, used in their branding the power and attractiveness that iconic ancient symbols - such as the Sun, Shield, Torch - produce on all people without exception.

The power and beauty of wild or fantastic animals - Tiger, Winged Horse - are also used in logos.

And not the least attention is paid to color design - bright, colorful and saturated colors of the main palette are used - no fade, no halftones. Red, yellow, blue, black - hundreds of monographs have been written by psychologists about the influence they have on the human subconscious.

Thus, through the symbolism of images and colors, these companies appeal to the deep archetypes of human consciousness in order to evoke subconscious trust or admiration in people. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here - all these symbols are quite simple and have been known for a long time. Therefore, using them to design corporate logos lies on the surface.

It is absolutely no coincidence that the five top oil and gas companies, which have enormous funds at their disposal, and the best designers and artists, have not complicated anything, and use mainly old developments, tested back in the days of their predecessors (the exception is Total, yes, perhaps , BP, with their rebranding). Sometimes the new is the well-forgotten old.

And old does not in any way mean bad.