How I Chose My Start-up's Logo

Although not everyone is happy about it, I think Chesapeake’s new logo looks pretty good. Actually, really good. As reported by The Oklahoman last week, the company is re-branding in January 2017, reflecting their evolution from ambitious young natural gas company (remember the blue flame?) into a mature unconventional leader.

As you may have guessed, the green line of Chesapeake’s “H” depicts a horizontal well. We chose virtually the same concept for the “I” in Infill Thinking’s logo earlier this year (we used a rig instead of the vertical well line). We’d like to see a few perfs in Chesapeake’s lateral, but we’ll let that technicality slide.

We chose to include a horizontal well bore in the Infill Thinking logo because we were inspired by its revolutionary impact on industry thinking and activity.

We see a metaphor worth aspiring to in the perforated lateral, for it turned conventional industry thinking upside down. And now that we have it, it’s impossible to imagine the industry without it.

Just as conventional drilling was in need of an update, conventional publishing is too. Our mission at Infill Thinking is “unconventional” reporting to unlock important information often buried or ignored by conventional industry sources. We are using new ways of conveyance to improve effectiveness too (for example no corporate sponsors or ads, just subscriber support).

As we looked around at other industry logos, we saw lots of old technology and archaic thinking in the designs. Re-branding activity has been fairly light over the past few years. We haven’t seen the horizontal well shape used in many O&G logo designs other than Infill Thinking’s (and now Chesapeake’s).

For your amusement, here is an early sketch of the concept that we handed over to our design firm this summer. This is case in point for why we majored in finance instead of going to art school!

Finally a quick word on our scope – our logo shouldn’t be read as limiting us to shale coverage. We were inspired by the horizontal well’s impact on the global market, not just its geo-market.

InfillThinking.com’s exclusive focus is oilfield service, drilling and equipment – globally, offshore and onshore. Some E&P and commodity coverage is mixed in, as they drive the outlook for contractors and suppliers. Our research and selective news coverage addresses corporate strategy, company behavior, market trends, and key themes within these sectors.

Although our logo might make you think “shale,” Infill Thinking is not just an onshore report nor are we entirely devoted to the US market. Infill Thinking follows the biggest and most interesting oilfield service story lines. Right now, those happen to be in the Lower 48 most frequently.

Readers are encouraged to send upstream topic suggestions to [email protected] any time. We work for you, and we want to deliver thoughts on topics you find interesting.