Hi people. Here I am again after more than a month of isolation (I’ve had to change my pc and requested to my ISP an upgrade of my ADSL – wich I never received).
First of all I want to thank all of my readers, that kept on visiting this website in search of new articles.

The one I’m going to publish today was written before my old pc broke.
I admit it is not a fresh news now, however, when I wrote it I did it a lot of research, and you can see and read here things you can’t easily find somewhere else. I think I did a rather good job. Any comment is always appreciated.

Some days ago (it was 25th march when I was writing) I received from Citroën itself the email you can see in the screenshot above (Who told them I need to change my car?).

Here it is its message:

“CITROËN REINVENTS ITSELF.

CRÉATIVE TECHNOLOGIE.
Creativity and technology. Innovation. Ecologic performance. These are our proofs.

CITROËN is a strong culture.
CITROËN is a relationship.
CITROËN is ambition.
CITROËN is a vision.

A brand is a promise. A great brand is a kept promise.

Discover New Brand Image”

An impressive message, I admit it.
Last line of it lead to flash website www.creativetechnologie.com.

To celebrate the 90th anniversary, the motor manufacturer has not only redesigned its logotype but completely aims to reinvent itself. After enduring a difficult period the brand flourished stronger than ever starting from 2000 and currently is the third-largest French automobile brand.
CITROËN now introduces the new course with this website to its customer (well, even to potential one it seems).

Prepare yourself: website is quite heavy even if you choose the low broadband version, however, it really worth to see its videos about rallies, innovation and ecology (I’m not sure if they are available in all languages).

Showroom, which are a key factor in managing relationship with customers, have been completely redesigned, a new series of cars, the DS series, is about to be launched starting from the upcoming Geneva Motor Show and it is said that 6 new models will be introduced in next 3 years.

Talking about what’s strictly related to us, new identity surely is a good upgrade of the previous one.
Logo typography has some sci-fi and futuristic trait, but really leaves nothing to chance and it’s like its newly acquired soft curves makes a perfect match with the soft pronunciation of the name of the brand.
I am a bit puzzled, nevertheless, about the 3D rendered design of the 2 chevron.
Beautiful, no doubt about it, probably designed to appear prominently on new media, but I’m old school, and I’ve always known that a good logo has to look good first of all black and white, so I would like to see how it prints in a fax too.
Just curious.
I am pretty sure Landor made a perfect Corporate Identity Manual with all possible version of the logo, even a 2D one for such uses.

For those who wants to know a little history, these are the milestone of the brand and two chevrons:

• in 1919 André Citroën founded the brand and released the Type A. The iconic chevrons made their first apparition on the radiator shell, to reference Citroën’s early work on double helical gears, however, official logo was a blue and yellow type;
• a badge with the graphic of the Type A radiator shell was made and Citroën gave the French government 150 000 branded road signs bearing it;
• The Traction Avant range of 1934 abandoned the double-chevron badge. Its production bankrupted Citroën;
• André Citroën died in 1934;
• Flaminio Bertoni designed in 1955 the famous two chevron logo recently redesigned by Landor;
• In 1985, official colors was changed: from André Citroën’s preferred blue and yellow to red and white.

A 1920 image with the first logo. Andrè Citroen was the first to use the Tour Eiffel as a giant billboard.

The 1934 Citroen Traction Avant that almost bankrupted the company