Turo Logo PNG
The Turo logo suggests movement. As a car rental service, it lets you go anywhere. The main thing is to keep moving. The emblem has a hidden dynamic for lovers of speed, adventure, and far-flung wanderings.
Meaning and History
A pioneer in the sharing industry, Turo launched in 2010. Its founder, Shelby Clark, believed people would rent their cars to strangers. Despite the idea’s insanity, he wasn’t mistaken: car owners happily jumped at the chance to earn extra money. Travelers, in turn, were eager to rent vehicles not from fleets but directly from individuals.
The original company name (RelayRides) and its logo, a steering wheel within a ring of two arrows, like the recycling symbol, underscored the unusual concept. At first, rentals were short-term: drivers booked a car for just a few hours, then returned it to the owner or passed it on to the next renter. But after two years, the carsharing service switched to long-term rentals and literally “grew out” of its old name, which was associated with ridesharing and shared rides. When RelayRides launched, ridesharing didn’t exist yet; Lyft and Uber introduced it later.
After a rebranding in 2015, the company became known as Turo. This word is an English neologism. The Lexicon naming studio invented it, the same studio that created the Swiffer and BlackBerry brands. The new name evokes exciting adventures and speed because it aligns with “Gran Turismo” and “Turbo.” The designers reflected it in the new logo, placing it inside the road sign as an arrow.
What is Turo?
The American company Turo lets drivers rent out their vehicles and travelers rent cars. Founded in 2010, it pioneered the car-sharing industry. The service was formerly called RelayRides, but it renamed itself because it was associated with ridesharing.
2009 – 2015
At first, RelayRides’ logo was a steering wheel inside a ring of two semicircular arrows, but that option was temporary. A few years later, it had a new graphic nicknamed “The Human Centipede.” At least, that’s what some car-sharing service employees called it.
It consisted of two wavy lines intertwined in a chain. One line was gray, like a road. Inside it, white dotted lines mimicked the roadway markings. The second wavy element was light blue. Three circles sat on top: two blue at the edges and one gray in the middle. They looked like human heads, while the intertwined stripes resembled shoulders and arms.
Underneath the emblem, which depicts three people embracing, was the brand name, with two capital letters, “R.” The designers rendered it in gray in a custom sans-serif font. The closest counterpart to the chosen typeface is the REZ Regular by Fraser Davidson. The rounded glyphs with minimal protrusions resemble tiny racetracks.
2015 – today
As RelayRides expanded, the owners renamed the service and completely changed its concept. It took the company several months to contact investors and clients, hire a naming agency, Lexicon, and negotiate a collaboration with DesignStudio. During the joint work, they defined the brand development vector, gave it a new name, created a typographic system, and selected the corporate colors. All this was done on the eve of Turo’s entrance into the international market.
The rebranding project itself lasted for nine months. The designers rented a few dozen cars and even leased their own vehicles to fully immerse themselves in the atmosphere. They realized Turo was an ambitious, adventurous car rental service. Still, it needed a simple logo to symbolize the trip’s starting point and to encourage them to embark on a new adventure.
So, the car rental service got a modern wordmark and a minimalist “TURO” inscription set inside a white road sign with a black outline. The base is rectangular, but the right side is pointed like a triangular arrow. The new design was presented at the GoKart track in San Francisco.
Font and Colors
The company’s graphic sign doesn’t accidentally resemble a road sign. It says all roads are open and points toward the future, toward adventure. It calls people to sit still b, but to move forward, travel, and change cars. It also presents Turo as a confident, reliable brand with an innovative car-sharing approach.
The DesignStudio team developed a comprehensive font system for Turo to set the company apart from competitors. The wordmark, in particular, is a simple geometric grotesque font that shares similarities with Graphie SemiBold by Dharma Type, Ridley Grotesk Semi Bold by Radomir Tinkov, Nutmeg Regular by W Foundry, and Stem Medium by ParaType.
The color scheme is similarly minimalistic, with only black and white. The former is used for the brand name and the outline, while the latter is used for the base. This aligns with the “starting point” concept, in which nothing should be superfluous or distracting.