LogoLounge

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In late 2000, El Paso Energy Corporation—one of the largest

natural gas companies in the world—had acquired a competitor,

was solidifying new business, and was looking for a way to

articulate its unique vision and build its reputation on Wall

Street. In short, it needed a global brand that would support its

merged busi nesses and help it become a leader in the global

energy market.

The first thing the Sterling Group did after accepting the challenge

was to interview executives, customers, analysts, and share-

holders to understand the roots, passions, and visions of El Paso.

From this process emerged a new brand positioning statement:

The new path to energy value.

“After all, El Paso means the pass,” notes Marcus Hewitt, man-

aging partner and creative director for the Sterling Group. “This

positioning statement captures the new approach that they take

to create value in the energy value.”

The second step was to recommend shortening the company’s

name to simply El Paso Corporation, which places more empha-

sis on El Paso as a name instead of the energy modifier. Pushing

the words together felt much more integrated and compact. The

latter is especially helpful when the name must be combined with

that of one of the many business units El Paso operates.

“Some unit names were short, some were long,” says Hewitt.

“With the old ident

ity, the unit name got most of the attention;

now El Paso gets more emphasis. This readdresses the problem

of the hierarchy of the single brand.”

To design the actual logo, Sterling designers focused on the

notion of pathways. Every trial they did contained some sort of

path, either depicted through negative spaces in the letterforms

or shown in an actual graphical representation. In the version that

was eventually selected, an upwardly pointing arrow leading off

the letter l introduces the concept of a path.

Blue was selected as the new corporate color for its more con-

temporary look than the red and black the company had used,

and for its subtle suggestion of the clean flame of natural gas.

The custom sans serif face chosen for the design is also clean

and approachable.

The lesson Hewitt took away from the pro

ject was that even a very

large corporation can take giant steps, given the proper guidance.

“They changed the identity from all uppercase to all lowercase

letters, from red to blue, and even changed their name. That’s

because their management has a very flat organization, and

they went with their gut,” he says. “Usually, large corporations

constantly adjust in small ways. But if we can make our advice

simple, big changes are possible.”

El Paso Corporation

Identity Redesign

The Sterling Group, New York, NY

Old identity