Circle K gets global redesign

Quebec-based company Alimentation Couche-Tard operates a substantive network of convenience stores and gas stations around the world, across North America as well as some European countries. Today, September 22, it announced that many of these brands would be united under a refreshed Circle K brand.

Circle K has until now been the company's most significant brand in the United States. The brands it will replace are Statoil (Norway and Sweden), Kangaroo Express (part of the United States) and Mac's (Canada). In Quebec the stores are branded Couche-Tard, and will remain so "due to the specifics of that market".

The announcement came with a ridiculously detailed video, showing how great care has been taken to include aspects of the old logos in the new. The red colour is inherited from Mac's and the orange stripe from Statoil. But most importantly, the new logo is a cleaned up and modernised version of the old Circle K logo.

Current Circle K logo.

The full logo presentation video:

"The Circle K brand is not just a sign or a logo. It reflects the DNA of our company, the personality of our business and the experience we offer our customers. The success of the brand will depend on our consistent delivery of fast and friendly service, easy customer visits and products for people on the go. Our people will build our brand and they will be our brand.
Having said all that, the new Circle K brand does include a logo. It has been created to be clean, fresh and relevant, and to incorporate the many great assets of our existing brands. It includes:

• Circles both in the symbol and the text-based elements, illustrating wholeness, unity and teams; this most ancient symbol is strong and dynamic, rolling ahead
• Ensuring our circle is open and not exclusive, one leg of the K in the logo intersects the circle, welcoming our customers and communities
• The diagonal legs of the K “kissing” the stem, or upright element, in a gesture that reflects the welcoming embrace of our Québec heritage
• CAPITAL letters (as in “STATOIL”) denoting solidity, stability and competence
• Flat, clean forms ensuring the logo will remain fresh and current
• The strong red color in the logotype harking back to the Couche-Tard, Mac’s and Kangaroo Express logos; red has long been recognized as a color associated with convenience retail
• The orange color from the Statoil brand, accenting, underlining and bringing distinctiveness to lift our color scheme above the ordinary
• Warm colors which merge to become reminiscent of the sunrise - inspiring, every day."
  

Circle K brand page (archive)

Some before/after pics of gas stations: