Evolution of the Pecten Shell Logo

The National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA is running a Raymond Loewy retrospective. When this French-born engineer’s parents died in the influenza epidemic on 1918-19, he travelled to the United States to live with his brother. His first job was to do drawings for women’s fashion advertising. He went on to become a fundamental founder of the industrial design profession and broke into graphic design with great success.

Now that I am aware of Loewy’s contributions to graphic design, it is difficult to avoid the reach of his logo design. Shell is but one example of how Loewy restructured a logo that has proven to stand the test of time. In the nearly forty years since the 1971 inception of the Loewy design, the only real change in the “Pecten” logo has been the brightness of the red and yellow.
The origins of the oil company are in the antiques business. London shopkeeper Marcus Samuel saw a trend of fashionable people using shells for interior decorating, so in the 1930’s, he began importing shells from the Far East. When he passed away, his sons (Marcus Jr. and Sam) took control of the company and used the shipping capabilities to export British machinery, textiles, and tools while importing rice, silk, china, and copper. Marcus Samuel Jr. became interested in the oil market and soon the company became prominent in the oil shipping and transport business, and established the name “Shell Transport and Trading Company.” With the emergence of service stations in California in 1915, the company needed to differentiate itself and decided to do so with color. Due to the state’s strong Spanish connections, red and yellow were perceived to be the most favorable.