British Steel logo
A quick excerpt from John L. Walters‘ interview with David Gentleman about the British Steel logo — in use from 1969 until 1999 when the company merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group (Corus was bought by Indian steel company Tata in 2006).
JLW: How did the British Steel commission come about?
DG: Through a neighbour, Will Camp [British Steel’s director of information services]. They had commissioned ideas already but they didn’t like them, so he came in one day and said will you give it a go.
JLW: Was that done quickly?
DG: Very quickly, yes.
JLW: I’ve read that it stemmed from a visualisation of the steel process — is that true?
DG: It came first from my own wish to suggest that steel was strong and flexible. Only later did I discover that steel was bent in order to test its strength — so I used this as a rationale, but I didn’t know that at the time!
—
Read the full interview on eye magazine.
Images courtesy of eye blog.
6 appreciated comments, click here to add one
john spiegel
Very strong logo…
Works very well, nice application!
Oct 20th, 2011
Craig Leo
Such a strong logo.
Love the back story.
Oct 24th, 2011
Fred
Reminds me of the Sims Metal Management logo. . . similar theme. Both pretty strong I think (http://www.simsmm.com/)
Oct 25th, 2011
Paul
David Gentleman came to my University in the early 90′s to lecture about his designs, specifically the British Steel logo and its background. The explanation he gave about his thought process when creating a logo helps me even today whenever I am asked to design logos. Thanks for some valuable tips David.
Nov 7th, 2011
Gary
One of my all-time faves. Simple and well-executed. Nearly perfect.
As a designer, when you see a logo and say to yourself, “Damn, I wish I designed that!”, that’s about as high a compliment as there is.
Jan 10th, 2012
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