The history and the evolution
of the logos

In 1927, the first coffee machine for bars by Rancilio is produced, with all the determination and technical skills of Roberto Rancilio. La Regina, «The Queen», is its name and Roberto, acknowledging the importance of reminding his real clients  – the café owner and the barista – of who is behind the equipments, decides to place his monogram at their sight, on its cup support.

Although, the monogram is not the only graphic element present on the equipments at this time. The words “La Rancilio” appear on this machine in an ultramarine blue lettering with golden outline, slightly more expanded than the original Copperplate Gothic typeface it was influenced by. In the small description placed bellow this lettering we can read, in golden grotesque letters “Elettrica Istantanea, Officina Meccanica”, and “Roberto Rancilio – Parabiago”, with similar characters but in a bigger size and more condensed.

In the Thirties, the brand stops being addressed as “La Rancilio”, appearing simply as Rancilio in the equipments. Nevertheless, the official company name, Officina Rancilio, will remain unchanged until the Fifties. But this is not the only change. In this decade, Art Deco is on vogue, and its aesthetical principles are embodied not only on the Ottogonale machine but also on the vertical lettering that is applied both to it, Graziosa and Invicta Verticale models.

However, another plate is sometimes used in the Ottogonale model. Shaped like a regular octagon, it has a pearl white background, featuring the Rancilio name in ultramarine blue with a golden outline, in a heavy display lettering, with pointed apexes and with its ends constricted by the angles of the plate. Golden is also used on the description written below, “Officina Elettromeccanica, R.Rancilio, Parabiago”, using characters similar to the ones displayed on the red plate, but more condensed.

The first appears on Ideale orizzontale in 1948, and also on Invicta orizzontale, in 1950. In this lettering, we can observe grotesque characters, light and condensed, with an exception being the letter O, an almost perfect circle. Incredibly similar letterings can be seen in posters from the Twenties and Thirties.

In the second lettering, that appears sometimes on Ideale orizzontale, we are also able to notice grotesque letters, heavy and quadrangular. These are very akin to the ones found in Constructivist posters and De Stijl alphabets, especially in these last, since the characteristic parallel and perpendicular lines of this movement are transferred to the letterings and typefaces.

This is the only plate in which Rancilio’s name appears written with a capital R followed by lower-case characters, which is completely natural, considering that a script mimics handwriting. Letterings like this one can be easily spotted in Forties and Fifties’ posters, mostly made in the USA. The Brush Script typeface, developed by Robert E.Smith in 1942, is likely one of the most recognisable faces of this era, sharing the same looks.

The third lettering is displayed on the Alpina and Ducale models, in red and white, respectively, and also in the Sixties, in the High Line series, in white, placed inside two overlapping rectangles, one red and the other black. This kind of lettering, commonly known as Connected Chrome Scrip is ubiquitous in almost all the chrome plates applied to cars and house appliances between the thirties and the sixties, being, in its essence, script characters united to one another through their baseline.

This happens so that the letters can distance themselves from the remarkably masculine, heavy and low contrast stereotype of a slab serif. This category of faces are sometimes seen on Fifties’ posters, though seldom, because they don’t really fit into streamline visual codes.

In these two models there is also present a lettering, painted in gold on the Plexiglas plate of the cup-warmer, consisting of a grotesque outlined R, with a square bowl, intersected by the Rancilio name, written with light, grotesque and geometric characters. Though secondary, this element will be the base of the logotype that will be developed in the following decade.

Between 1965, the year in which High Line Series is launched, and the end of the decade, three other models are also released, displaying fresh plates. Eurostile, a milestone of the Italian typography of the twentieth century, starts to be used, in the bold extended variation.

This face assumes a major position in Rancilio’s communication between 1965 and the Eighties, appearing not only in the coffee machines’ plates, but also in every single printed material produced, though slightly different.

The print version of the logotype uses black colour, line and negative space, including also an outlined R, outside the rectangle in which the Rancilio name and the “Macchine per Caffè” payoff are inscribed. That R appears to be an evolution of the logotype found in Mignon and Preziosa’s Plexiglas.

The arrival of the Eighties brings novelties, with the original double-R monogram used till the Forties, being revived in 1982, however, changes go further beyond. The whole graphic communication is renewed and this same monogram, now the official icon of Rancilio, is placed near the verbal identity – these elements are arranged side by side, the double-R circumscribed inside a square and the company’s name inside a rectangle at the right of the former, both with rounded corners – setting up a whole new visual identity.

The printed version of the logotype is however complex and unbalanced, when compared with the plates’ version, displaying the payoff in positive, underlined and below the black rectangle that encloses the company name, featuring also the square with the monogram enlarged almost to the double of its original height. 

Colour is introduced also in this decade – the green is adopted to represent Rancilio – yet its use is present only in printed versions of the logotype.

In 2000, Rancilio’s image gets retailored. There is a comeback to the company’s genesis, due to the union of the two primordial graphic elements present is the company history: the monogram, already in use since the eighties; and the brand name, written with the same typeface (Futura) that was once displayed on Officina’s façade. The payoff now is written in lower-case, being placed below the green rectangle.

Since 2005 the payoff is “Coffeeing the World”, a meaningful assertion of Rancilio’s objectives, to take the art and passion, not only of Italian espresso but also of all the coffee-based drinks, prepared with care and expertise, to every corner of the world. These words become even more special when written by Giorgio Rancilio’s hand, not only president of the company but also one of the faces of Rancilio’s third generation, being thus an expression of the family’s DNA and evolution.