Yokohama Rubber unveils centennial logomark

In less than 11 months, Yokohama Rubber will achieve the venerable age of 100. The Japanese tyre, wheel and rubber products manufacturer, which began life on 13 October 1917, has unveiled a new logomark for its centenary year. Yokohama Rubber says the logomark’s design “expresses the company’s pride in its 100-year history as well as its appreciation of its many customers, business partners, and other stakeholders around the world who have helped make this 100th anniversary possible.”

The past century has been a turbulent one for Yokohama Rubber. The Hiranuma plant, where the company produced its first corded tyre in 1920, was completely destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, and two decades later the firm’s plant in Yokohama suffered extensive damage during Allied air raids. Other upheavals, such as stock market crashes, recessions, the OPEC oil embargo and the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, left the company’s bricks and mortar intact yet also helped shape the company’s growth into a global enterprise.

Looking ahead to its 100th anniversary on 13 October, Yokohama Rubber says it plans to create a new vision to “herald the start of a second 100 years of growth as a company that manufactures products that help to enrich the lives of people around the world.”

The 100th anniversary logomark features the ‘five red lines’ that have become identified with the Yokohama brand in a sweeping motif that expresses the company’s “fervour to work energetically toward a future beyond its 100th year.” The interlinked zeros in the number 100 reflect Yokohama Rubber’s “intention to work together with business partners, shareholders, and other stakeholders to ensure the company continues to be a tyre and rubber products manufacturer that meets customer needs over the next 100 years.”