Saturday, July 3, 2021

Conversations with Gottschalk, Part 2: an oil giant logo

Fritz looks at the French oil giant Total, saying that their latest signature iteration is a weak evolution. Recently there’s been a change of nomenclature, adding the word ‘Energies’ to the wordmark. This addition tends to clutter the legibility, and draws attention away from the legacy name. The confusing polychromatic treatment de-emphasizes the legacy color blue. It’s unclear what the monogram represents, if anything, though I’m certain the designer has some clever text to describe it.

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The best solution seems to have been the 1955-1963 treatment which reinforces the legacy colors and represents a gas flame. Today’s signature is more complex, and grouping a monogram with a full wordmark communicates redundancy. The friendly, curvaceous letterforms remove a level of formality, as if the brand takes a cavalier attitude about energy, ignoring the seriousness of issues of complicity in carbon emissions. 



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