British Steel Corporation (BSC) was formed in July 1967 when the UK’s 14 main steel producing companies were brought into public ownership under the Iron and Steel Act of that year.[1] The corporation’s most famous visual identity, an abstract “S” mark designed by David Gentleman, was introduced in 1969 and remained in use until 1999, when British Steel merged with the Dutch firm Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group.[2]
Design and History
Gentleman was commissioned to design a symbol for the newly nationalised steel industry after another design practice’s work was rejected by the client. He was approached through his neighbour, Will Camp, British Steel’s director of information services, and completed the work very quickly.[3]
The mark began as a variant on the letters B and S and was intended to reference rolling presses in the steel-making process.[2] Gentleman drew two concentric circles, then halved, separated and joined them via four lines to create the “S” form.[4] The simple geometry of the symbol, which shares the same proportions as the A series of international paper sizes (1 to the square root of two), meant it could be easily reproduced at any scale, in positive or negative form.[3][4]
The logo survived British Steel’s privatisation in 1988 but was retired in 1999 when the company merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group, which adopted a new name and identity.[5]
In 2016, after Greybull Capital purchased Tata Steel’s Long Products Europe business and named it British Steel, the company unveiled an entirely new branding rather than reviving Gentleman’s mark.[6] The new identity was created by the print company Ruddocks.[7]
Meaning and Symbolism
Gentleman said the idea for the original symbol “came first from my own wish to suggest that steel was strong and flexible.” Only later did he discover that steel was bent in order to test its strength, which he then used as a rationale.[3] The resulting form depicted two bent steel plates that formed the letter “S”.[8]
The 2016 replacement logo combines the letters B and S and is made up of three parts representing the company’s core values of pride, passion and performance. Its molten orange colour symbolises the start of the steelmaking process, while the cool navy represents the finished steel product.[9]
Typography and Design
Gentleman’s original logo was constructed geometrically, using a ruler and a set of compasses, and was documented in a sixteen-page style manual.[3] While the logo was designed to appear in black or white on backgrounds of various colours, the symbol itself could only ever be rendered in one other hue: Pacific Blue (bs0-012).[4]
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