GE History.

     

     The General Electric logo is currently fourth most valuable logo in Fortune 500.

It has iterations that date back as far as 1892, and yet it hasn’t changed that much since  then.  I could not find the designer of the original logo.  In fact the only designer that I was able to find was the designer of the most recent logo which was made in 2004.  Actually the design was created by a branding firm known as Wolff Olins.  It was Wolff Olins that chose to change the logo from black to blue.  The exact blue is pantone 7455.

The founders of Wolff and Olins were Michael Wolff and Wally Olins in Camden Town, London in 1965.  Neither of them have actually been with the company since 2001 when the company became part of Omnicom Group, a holding company that includes many other similar advertising agencies.  It currently employs 150 designers and advertising specialists.  From its inception the company has focused on the strategy of creating a corporate identity, and now is more limited to corporate branding.  They primarily produced these corporate identities for large European companies such as Volkswagen up until the 1990s when they broadened their horizons to other companies worldwide.

The General Electric company as we know it today was formed in 1892 with the merger of Edison General Electric which was founded by Thomas Edison through his business acquisitions, and the Thomas-Houston Company which was run by Charles A. Coffin.  Their main base of operations is locate in Schenectady New York along with one of the two original plants.  Today General Electric is present and working in over 100 countries.  Their business is in the inventing and production of electrical appliances and the energy that powers them.  They have an extensive power generation program that includes wind power among others as they do their part in the environmental initiative. They pride themselves as being a creative center for bringing ideas to life.  Their slogan, “Imagination at Work”, reflects their desire for their company to be a place where ingenuity can flourish.  Their logo I believe reflects this ideal in that it is both cyclical and mechanical suggesting progress, and yet organic and flowing suggesting flexibility, creativity, and change.