LeRoy Brand Foods started in 1962 as LeRoy Shipping, Inc., shortly after the 1960 opening of the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge. The new bridge linked Ogdensburg, New York, to Johnstown, Ontario, and, following highway 416 north, Ottawa. Essentially connecting the small St. Lawrence River port city to the bustling hub of Canada’s capital city.
The company was started by Corbin “Corby” Leroy, a long-time employee of the New York Central Railroad. Leroy claimed he could trace his family back to 18th century French fur traders and, before that, northern France. To distinguish the company from his family name, Leroy capitalized the R in LeRoy. In French, ‘Leroy’ (or ‘LeRoy’ or ‘Le Roy’) translates to ‘The King.’ The Leroy/LeRoy family crest is a shield bearing three stars. The family motto translates to “The stars show kings the road.” A fitting motto for a transportation company.
The family motto translates to “The stars show kings the road.” A fitting motto for a transportation company.
To support his community, LeRoy hired local truck owners and operators rather than union teamsters. These owner-operators provided the flexibility the fledgling company needed. However, by the early 1970s, the looming gas crisis in America cast a shadow over the company. The lack of available fuel, rising gas prices and a new national 55 mph speed limit added new pressures on owner-operators. In December 1973, the crisis came to a head as drivers across the country stopped driving and blocked highways; shutting down America’s economy.
Only two LeRoy Shipping drivers participated in the protests, but it was enough. The fallout cost the company dearly. LeRoy Shipping lost one major contract altogether and faced contractual penalties for the second. The stress proved too much for Corby Leroy. A few days into the New Year, he died from a heart attack.
Following his death, Corby’s wife Loretta and two sons, Peter and Charles, took over the business.
The decade following Leroy’s death was difficult. In 1977, Charles left the company. Loretta passed away in 1981. The upstate New York location proved a hardship for the company. U.S. and Canadian commercial traffic relied on the highspeed lanes of Interstate 81 to the west, which more quickly connected to Interstate 90 and the United States’ interior, and Interstates 87 and 89 to the east, which connected Montreal to New York and Boston, respectively. Larger ports upstream on the St. Lawrence River secured more and more business.
In 1999, LeRoy Shipping changed its name to LeRoy Transportation International. It opened a small office near Montreal under the name LeRoy Logistics. The second office gave the company an advantage when sourcing and negotiating new contracts. In 2004, the company began to source and distribute its own products under the name LeRoy Brand Foods.
LeRoy Brand Foods produces and distributes discount food products for grocery stores in the American northeast and Canadian southeast. Because the company owns its own shipping, it is able to keep costs down and offer a competitively priced product. LeRoy Brand Foods is know for quality and value.
Today, the LeRoy companies are a third-generation family business. In 2010, Peter Leroy stepped down as acting CEO and turned the company over to his daughter Malinda.
Company Logo History
A scan of the original LeRoy Shipping, Inc. logo, which was used from 1962 to 1976.
This LeRoy Shipping logo replaced the first logo in 1976. It appeared on company business cards, letterhead and documents until 1999. For almost 25 years, the arrow logo was visible on the company’s trucks.
The LeRoy Transportation International logo design was introduced in 1999. Known as the bumblebee logo, it appeared when the company opened the Montreal office. The dashed black and yellow lines in the logo’s design are meant to evoke yellow highway markings. The logo design is still in use today.
Below is the logo design for LeRoy Logistics. The company coordinates, schedules and manages client shipments as well as its own shipments. The logo design appeared in 2013 and remains in use today.
Logo Design Brief
LeRoy Brand Foods leadership decided the new logo design should recognize or pay tribute to the company’s first logo. As it is a third-generation family business, family and community are important to the company and its ethos. There were no formal design requirements; no stipulations that the logo look a certain way. Leadership only requested the new logo design feel in some way connected to the spirit of the company’s first logo design.
As the company’s logos seldom appear together, it was not critical the new LeRoy Brand Foods logo design visually fit in with or reference the other logos. The previous logos, leadership noted, were not designed in conjunction or ever intended to be a part of a larger group. Each logo was designed to meet a specific business need in a market at the time it was designed. A cohesive visual house of brands was not a top priority.
Logo Design Process
Insomniac Studios chose to focus on the shield emblem when designing the new company logo. However, it became apparent early in the logo design process that the classic shield shape created two distinct visual problems: The first of which was that each new logo design felt like a facsimile of the original logo design. Any attempt to include the shield logo mark alongside the company name only produced iterations of the previous logo rather than a new logo.
The second problem was that the medieval shield design did not fit with the company. Each attempt at a different design solution only succeeded in creating more and more Renaissance Fair logos.
This design choice moved the logo from the 15th century to the 21st.
Insomniac Studios elected to take the curves out of the shield shape and settled on an angular five-sided pentagon. This design choice moved the logo from the 15th century to the 21st. The change also made the shield appear more heraldic, a welcome touch as the company’s founding family claimed ancestry in northern France.
Moving the logotype inside the pentagon created an enclosure for the logo. The pentagon provided a background for the logotype, which can be useful when reproducing the logo on truck cabs and trailers. Placing the logotype inside the shield also further separated the new logo design from the previous one, which employed a traditional logo mark and logotype lockup.
The crown above the logotype refers to the family’s name, which translates to “The King” from French.
When turned upside down, the five-sided pentagon enclosure looks like a house. This represents family and community. Insomniac Studios took this shape and repeated it to create a tire tread pattern for backgrounds and other graphic design applications. The tire treads represent the company’s history in the shipping industry.
As a final way to connect the new logo design to the first one and further the kingly connection, Insomniac Studios chose a regal, but subtle, purple color.
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Company Logo Design
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Corporate Identity
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References
History of the Surname LeRoy
LeRoy Family History
1973 Independent Trucker Oil Protests
Contact Insomniac Studios
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Insomniac Studios logo design, branding and marketing case studies are an in-depth analysis of a project or concept. Some marketing case studies are the result of a client relationship. Others explore solutions to hypothetical projects. Not all marketing case studies represent a contract or partnership with the entity presented. The logo design, branding, marketing, graphic design, advertising, strategies, concepts and analysis presented are the copyrighted and intellectual property of Insomniac Studios and its clients.