BlaBlaCar Logo

BlaBlaCar LogoBlaBlaCar Logo PNG

The service is always in touch and helps to meet two travelers: the driver and his passenger. The BlaBlaCar logo shows a different pricing policy on the site so that everyone can find a travel companion according to their wallet.

BlaBlaCar: Brand overview

Founded:16 September 2006
Founder:Frédéric Mazzella, Francis Nappez, Nicolas Brusson, Nicolas Deroche
Headquarters:
Paris, France
Website:blablacar.com

BlaBlaCar is a private online platform for finding travel companions. It connects potential passengers with drivers who take a specific route and compensate them for the cost of the trip – sharing it proportionally among all participants. For this purpose, the service has a website and mobile applications. It does not have its fleet of vehicles, as it is a broker with a booking fee of 18-21%. The service operates in 22 countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America. Its headquarters is located in the capital of France – in the city of Paris. The site’s founder is Frédéric Mazzella, along with Francis Nappez and Nicolas Brusson. The time of its appearance is 2006.

Vincent Caron, a Frenchman, first bought the domain name Covoiturage.fr and then opened a company with the same name. This happened in 2004. In 2006, he sold the Internet site to Frédéric Mazzella, who created the company Comuto on its basis. It owned a vehicle depot.

Two years later, the transportation service launched another Internet service related to social aspects. It was possible to find recommendations, biographies, reviews, and profiles from it. Covoiturage.fr was both a travel site, a recommendation web resource, and a community platform. And by the end of 2008, it became the number one source for car sharing in France.

The service became more pervasive year by year and gradually expanded to cover more European countries. In 2012 BlaBlaCar started a booking service: potential passengers pay for their trips online, and the web platform transfers a part of the fare to drivers. This business model is a way to motivate transport owners to cooperate. Now the group has 100 million members.

Meaning and History

BlaBlaCar Logo History

The service gets its name from a rating scale that characterizes a ride with a particular driver by the level of chattiness. One “Bla” is for the not talkative, “BlaBla” is for people of average talkativeness, and for those who like to talk, “BlaBlaBla” characterizes the most talkative – those who are not able to be quiet at all. And “Car,” appropriately, refers to the car. Since its inception, the site has had two logos. Their history dates back to the original name of the ride-sharing service.

What is BlaBlaCar?

BlaBlaCar is a popular online platform and app for long-distance ridesharing. It connects 60 million drivers in 22 countries and helps select people going in the same direction to offset the cost of travel. The payment is split for each person on the trip. Group members also indicate their level of chatter so that fellow travelers feel as comfortable as possible on the road. The service was launched in 2006. Its founder is Frédéric Mazzella. The location of the head office in Paris (France).

2004 – 2006

Covoiturage.fr Logo 2004

In 2004, the precursor to the French online platform BlaBlaCar, called Covoiturage.fr, was launched. Its banner was a green horizontal rectangle with rounded corners, which served as the basis for the purple domain name written in italic font. Below the name was an image of a car, its driver, and two potential passengers standing next to it. The emblem had a gradient effect, giving it a three-dimensional appearance.

2006 – 2008

Covoiturage.fr Logo 2006

In 2006, French entrepreneur and founder of BlaBlaCar, Frédéric Mazzella, purchased the Covoiturage.fr domain name. The logo for this period featured the website’s name in blue letters with a gradient effect. The first “C” was uppercase and leaned to the right, while the other glyphs were directed towards the left, with the “o” after the “C” shifted downwards.

2008 – 2011

Covoiturage.fr Logo 2008

In 2008, a new website version was launched, initially with a tourism focus and then with car-sharing services. The letters in the “Covoiturage.fr” name were colored in different shades:

  • “Co” – burgundy;
  • “voitur” – lilac;
  • “age” – lime green;
  • “.fr” – yellow.

These same shades were used for a stylized flower on the logo’s left side. It looked like a smiling face with three large petals. Below it was a composition of a black arch and two lilac ovals – legs standing on a hill.

2011 – 2013

Covoiturage.fr Logo 2011

Designers changed the color scheme, using blue instead of lilac. The other shades became brighter and lighter, adding more optimism to the emblem. All of this was done to inspire customer trust.

2013 – 2014

BlaBlaCar Logo 2013

In 2013, the BlaBlaCar brand was created to unify all the websites related to Covoiturage.fr. Its name appeared on the logo instead of the previous text, and the color sequence was changed: the first three letters were green, the next three were blue, and the last three were dark red. They were also different in size and placement. The flower symbol was reduced in size.

2013 – 2018

BlaBlaCar Logo 2014

The corporate logo, introduced at the beginning of the BlaBlaCar service’s career, contained only its name. It was divided into three parts: the first fragment was green, the second was blue, and the third was red with a touch of fuchsia. The constituent elements were separate; that is, they were not connected. The first two words were arranged diagonally at the same angle, and the third stood horizontally. The logo contained nothing else – it was as concise as possible, without unique details and unnecessary accents. The text was in bold: wide letters without serifs. The main emphasis was finding people who wanted to have fun on a trip and chatting with fellow travelers.

2018 – today

BlaBlaCar Logo

After the 2018 redesign, the BlaBlaCar logo has completely changed its style. It has become sterner, more confident, and more modern. The lettering is now in a straightforward font and without a large gap between its components. All three parts are merged, but each word starts with a capital letter. The characters are bold, neat, and colored in navy blue with a touch of green.

On the left side is the trademark of the online service – two lowercase “b,” which are slightly overlapping. Their connection is so slight that the letters look like two commas in the form of opening quotation marks. One of them is dark blue, repeating the color of the inscription, and the other is blue. And the overlapping place is colored light green. Such a delicate connection reflects the key goal of the transport broker – to find wordy fellow travelers with whom it would be interesting to travel. The classic expression “blah-blah” alludes to this. The unusual acronym also illustrates the relationship that arises during the trip between the driver and passenger. It also refers to the car seats.

Font and Colors

BlaBlaCar Emblem

In the early years, the logo for the BlaBlaCar online platform was fun and unserious. But later, when the service proved itself as a practical and in-demand service, the owners switched to a stern design. They removed the fun effect by connecting all three parts of the name, correcting the slant, and aligning the word horizontally. They also tweaked the color palette to match the new logo style. The Koto agency handled the development of the mature version of the visual identity.

The first version of the logo uses a Tahoma Bold font. In the second version, we preferred neutral stylistics with clear geometric lines. This is a font created by Grilli Type, custom-made. It is an adaptation of GT Eesti.

BlaBlaCar Symbol

The corporate palette is varied: the debut emblem is dominated by bright colors (green, red, blue), in the modern emblem – restrained tones (dark blue with green). They emphasize the company’s friendliness and professionalism.

BlaBlaCar color codes

French LimeHex color:#9ef769
RGB:158 247 105
CMYK:36 0 57 3
Pantone:PMS 802 C
Deep Sky BlueHex color:#2dbeff
RGB:45 190 255
CMYK:82 25 0 0
Pantone:PMS 306 C
Midnight GreenHex color:#054752
RGB:5 71 82
CMYK:94 13 0 68
Pantone:PMS 3165 C