Conforama Logo PNG
The logo’s unfinished elements resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces that, when assembled, form a beautiful picture. The Conforama logo reflects the company’s furniture delivery system. The sign promises: parts connect quickly.
Conforama’s history began in the early 1960s, when Pierre and Guy Sordouillet, Jean Moll, Jacques Ragageot, and northern French furniture sellers, along with Bordeaux manufacturer Charles Minvielle, tested a discount-store furniture model near Lyon.
On December 12, 1967, the first Conforama store opened in Saint-Priest, Rhône, in a 2,500-square-meter industrial building. The format brought furniture and household goods into a single warehouse-style space, offering lower costs than traditional furniture shops.
In 1976, Agache-Willot acquired Conforama. The ownership change supported faster growth, though the holding later faced legal troubles in 1981. In 1991, Pinault SA acquired the chain, later known as PPR and then Kering. Under Pinault and PPR, Conforama expanded into Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and other European markets. In 1998, it launched its first corporate website and began offering online sales.
In March 2011, PPR sold Conforama to Steinhoff International for 1.2 billion euros. By 2013, the brand had 266 stores across Europe, including 205 in France. IKEA remained the market leader, while BUT was another major French competitor.
In April 2017, Conforama signed a three-year naming rights sponsorship deal for the French Ligue 1 and acquired a 17% stake in Showroomprivé.fr. After Steinhoff’s accounting scandal in December 2017, it sold that stake to Carrefour in January 2018 at a heavy loss. On July 8, 2020, Steinhoff sold Conforama France to Mobilux, the parent company of BUT, forming France’s largest furniture retailer by revenue.
Meaning and History
The key to Conforama’s success is its identity: simple at first glance yet highly recognizable. It has changed several times, most recently when Steinhoff International, a South African-German-Dutch holding company, acquired the French chain. Before that, the Pinault SA group owned Conforama (since 1991), and earlier, the financial company Agache-Willot (since 1976). Until 1976, it was owned by its founders, four Frenchmen who opened the first outlet in the municipality of Saint-Priest in 1967.
In 2020, the home goods retailer was taken over by the French-Austrian holding company Mobilux. This saved it from liquidation due to financial difficulties. But the transition to a new owner did not affect the Conforama logo: the company continues to use the orange wordmark adopted in 2012 and is in no hurry to change it.
What is Conforama?
Conforama is one of Europe’s largest household goods retailers and positions itself as a trendsetter in interior design. It has a network of 200 stores with three product categories: furniture, furnishings, and appliances. The retailer’s headquarters is in France.
1987 – 2003
While Agache-Willot still owned the chain, it began using a logo featuring an oasis image. But this element was not considered the main one at the time. Firstly, it was very small. Secondly, the designers placed it at the very bottom, between the words “vie” and “est” in the phrase “Le pays où la vie est moins chère.” The motto, which translates from French as “The country, where life is less expensive,” was written in white italic type inside a convex blue rectangle.
The red word “CONFORAMA” occupied the main part of the graphic sign. It was above the retail chain’s slogan and contrasted with the yellow quadrangle, which had a concave bottom. To make the brand name even more noticeable, the logo’s creators chose a bold font with long serifs, roughly similar to SoftMaker’s Garamond Nova Pro Condensed Bold.
The artists’ Oasis looked like two white palm trees rising from an equally white patch of ground. It symbolized the coveted place everyone sought, a vegetation-rich corner in the middle of an oppressive desert. The company compared itself to a bountiful spring, bringing something new to life. This theme was played up not only in the image of the oasis but also in the two quadrangular shapes in the background of the inscription: the yellow block was associated with sand or the sun, and the blue with water.
2003 – 2012
In the early 2000s, the oasis, which had been at the bottom, became a central component of the logo and lost one of the two palm trees. The designers brought it to the forefront to play up the “spring of grace” concept. To clarify the comparison, they placed a red house behind the only remaining palm tree. Like the typical children’s drawings, the building consisted of a triangle and a square. It symbolized Conforama’s main occupation: selling furniture and home furnishings. At the same time, the house the artists depicted was the epitome of the ideal, as the lack of detail made it look like a mirage in the desert.
The oasis turned yellow and moved to the top, inside the same yellow rectangle. Correspondingly, the chain’s name was moved down into the blue quadrangle. And the letters themselves were yellow, visually balancing the two parts of the logo. For greater harmony, the designers balanced the top and bottom, nearly equalizing the rectangular bases in width. The motto was removed, leaving only the word “Conforama.” It was radically different from the previous version because all letters except the “C” were lowercase. A round geometric grotesque font replaced the elongated serif typeface.
2012 – today
In 2011, the French home goods retailer was acquired by Steinhoff International. After the ownership change, it decided to reposition itself and return to television with a new advertising campaign. The rebranding included a redesigned logo that eliminated all elements except the main inscription. W&Cie PR agency simplified the look by removing the paradise oasis and multicolored underlays. Only the chain’s name remains, with the typography preserved; it’s no longer yellow but orange.
Font and Colors
Conforama’s modern visual style calls for a simple wordmark. It was taken from the previous emblem, which featured an oasis behind a house. The company thought its name was famous enough to be recognized without the famous island with a palm tree.
The designers chose typography because the Conforama logo consists solely of lettering. The round, streamlined font looks unusual, first of all, because of the truncated glyphs. Also noteworthy is the elongated foot of the letter “f,” which extends below the baseline. This grotesque looks roughly similar to Bruum FY Bold by FONTYOU, Hereabouts Bold by Derrick Jackson, and Geon Extra Bold by “cretype.” The orange color makes the brand name look bright. And brightness is exactly the characteristic that best describes the work of an interior fashion trendsetter.