Thursday October 20, 2011 15:14

British Steel logo

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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!