In 1833, Marcus Samuel, who had an antiques shop in London, decided to expand his business and start selling shells. It was fashionable at the time to use shells in interior design and Samuel’s business flourished so much that he started importing shells from the Far East, which was to become important for his import/export business. When the company passed to his sons, they used their worldwide business connections to export machinery, textiles and tools to the Far East and import rice, silk and china. Soon they entered the oil shipping and transport business, and in 1897 the Samuel brothers renamed their company the Shell Transport and Trading Company. In 1907, Shell Transport merged with Royal Dutch Petroleum, forming the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell’s first logo, a mussel shell, was replaced in 1904 with a scallop shell, which has remained in use ever since, although changing appearance several times. The red and yellow colours were chosen when Shell built service stations in California in 1915. They needed to compete against other companies and wanted to use bright colours in their logo, and because of California’s strong Spanish connections, they chose the Spanish red and yellow.
In 1833, Marcus Samuel, who had an antiques shop in London, decided to expand his business and start selling shells. It was fashionable at the time to use shells in interior ...
design and Samuel’s business flourished so much that he started importing shells from the Far East, which was to become important for his import/export business. When the company passed to his sons, they used their worldwide business connections to export machinery, textiles and tools to the Far East and import rice, silk and china. Soon they entered the oil shipping and transport business, and in 1897 the Samuel brothers renamed their company the Shell Transport and Trading Company. In 1907, Shell Transport merged with Royal Dutch Petroleum, forming the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell’s first logo, a mussel shell, was replaced in 1904 with a scallop shell, which has remained in use ever since, although changing appearance several times. The red and yellow colours were chosen when Shell built service stations in California in 1915. They needed to compete against other companies and wanted to use bright colours in their logo, and because of California’s strong Spanish connections, they chose the Spanish red and yellow.
