REI Logo PNG
The REI logo represents what the company does: outdoor and sporting goods. It inspires new achievements and victories and motivates them to go to the forest or conquer a mountain peak. This emblem shows the spirit of a pioneer who can not sit still.
REI: Brand overview
| Founded: | 1938 |
| Headquarters: |
Kent, Washington, U.S. |
| Website: | rei.com |
REI is a large American retailer that sells tourist equipment and sporting goods. It sells everything you need for active recreation: from bicycles, helmets, and backpacks to headlamps, trekking poles, and snowshoes. For travelers, there are hammocks and camping furniture; for lovers of snow-covered slopes – skis and snowboard overalls; for fans of water spaces – canoes, and wetsuits. And for those who prefer to spend time at the stadium, the company offers fitness trackers and running clothes. All this is available in a network covering more than 160 stores in the United States.
The corporation REI, which is officially called Recreational Equipment, Inc., has existed since 1938. It is not just a manufacturer and seller of goods for tourism – it is a whole community with millions of active participants. They are considered co-owners of the company because it works in the format of a consumer cooperative. The organization offers additional services to customers who have paid the membership fee. These include access to climbing training walls, master classes, and adventure trips.
This concept is directly related to the origins of REI. It all started with the fact that fellow climbers founded the Recreational Equipment Cooperative to help colleagues purchase inexpensive equipment and conduct rock climbing courses. They only had a separate shelf at the Puget Sound Cooperative Store for several months. A little later, the company moved to its premises, and in 1956 it was officially registered under its current name.
The early assortment consisted mainly of equipment for tourists and climbers. Then the priority was goods for people engaged in sports, family camping, and everyday street clothes. Despite this, the REI logo retains the image of mountain peaks, symbolizing the corporation’s historical connection with rock climbing.
Meaning and History
The name REI stands for Recreational Equipment. This phrase reveals the essence of the company, which is engaged in producing and selling sporting goods. Its logo is also associated with the theme of active pastime. For many years it contains an image of a mountain landscape against the background of a Christmas tree. The fact that the drawing is far from realism makes it easier to use the emblem on tags and promotional materials.
What is REI?
REI is an abbreviation of Recreational Equipment, Inc. This is an American corporation specializing in goods for active recreation. It operates in the format of a consumer cooperative; that is, it belongs to its customers, who, after paying the membership fee, can buy products at reduced prices.
1938 – 2015
From 1983 to 2015, the Recreational Equipment company tried not to advertise it as a cooperative. Information about this was excluded from advertising materials and from the logo, which contained three capital letters: “R,” “E,” and “I.” To the left of the abbreviation was the silhouette of a Christmas tree, consisting of four triangles of different sizes superimposed on each other. A zigzag strip was drawn from above, imitating the outlines of mountain peaks on the horizon. To achieve contrast, the designers made all the elements black and used white color for the background.
2015 – today
After a redesign in October 2015, the REI logo featured the words “co-op.” That is, the company, for the first time in a long time, decided to remind that it is a consumer cooperative. The new word is placed directly under the abbreviation, which, by the way, has changed: the developers have increased the internal clearance of the letter “R” and rounded some corners. And they also corrected the zigzag and made ascending lines narrow from the bottom. The Christmas tree has also become asymmetrical: the lower part is cut off on the left side.
Font and Colors
The abstract image of the forest and mountains hints at REI’s main field of activity: the sale of goods for active recreation. Since climbers created this company and it was intended for the same climbers, mountain peaks are an important part of its identity. Even the expansion of the assortment to attract new customers in the form of surfers, kayakers, runners, and other athletes did not affect the symbolism.
To formalize the name of the cooperative, the designers developed an individual set of bold glyphs without serifs. What is characteristic is that they have straight, sharp, and rounded corners. The inscription “co-op” with a small rhombus in place of the hyphen looks completely different. Grotesque is also used for her, but it has a different form: the internal openings of all letters are rectangular. Analogs for the lowercase letters “c” and “o” can be found in Radio Space Bold Bold by Iconian Fonts. Another close option is DBXLNightfever UltraWide by Donald Beekman. But the logo’s color scheme was never diverse: the inscription and the drawings were always black and were on a white background.
REI color codes
| Black | Hex color: | #000000 |
|---|---|---|
| RGB: | 0 0 0 | |
| CMYK: | 0 0 0 100 | |
| Pantone: | PMS Process Black C |
