Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is one of the three largest consulting firms in the world, along with McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company. Established in the early 1960s, today this is one of the most attractive U.S. employers with offices around the world.
Boston Consulting Group is the second historical leader of the consulting market in the world after McKinsey. The company was founded in 1963 by Bruce Henderson as a subsidiary of Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, part of The Boston Company. Henderson started as a Bible salesman in Tennessee, while studying engineering at Vanderbilt, and then went on to get an MBA at Harvard Business School, but missed three months of school to go to work for Westinghouse Corporation, one of the leading electrical companies in the United States at the time.
There, his career quickly took off – he became the company’s youngest vice president. Having reached the ceiling, he left to join ADL, the very company that actually originated consulting as a profession. From there, he received an invitation from The Boston Company, which tasked him with creating a consulting wing within the company. And Henderson made it. In 1968, Henderson managed to gain independence from The Boston Company and retain control of BCG.
Today, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global leader in strategy and general management, advising companies in a variety of industries around the world. The company’s partners include organizations in all industries and regions of the world. Together, they work to identify the best opportunities to create value, find optimal solutions to critical challenges, and transform businesses.
BCG provides consulting services to companies in all major industries: financial services, high technology, telecommunications, heavy industry, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and retail, energy, natural resources, and others. Most of BCG’s clients are Fortune 500 companies in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Australia.
The old BCG logo was dominated by the abbreviation “BCG” in a formal serif type. Below, you could see the full name of the organization, also in a formal serif type. In this case, the letters were much smaller. The full name was moved slightly to the right – it started right below the “C.”
While the former emblem looked traditional and serious enough due to the serifs, it lacked distinctiveness.
The design forces behind the brand opted for green, which has been often associated with growth, abundance, and good judgment.
The updated logo was introduced in 2018. It has retained the shade of green used in the previous version and contains the same two basic elements: the abbreviated name of the company in larger letters paired with the full name in smaller letters.
Yet, the style has changed dramatically – it looks more modern and dynamic now. The serifs have disappeared, which has made the design more minimalist. The full name has moved up, so now it can be seen at the same level as the lettering “BCG.”
The most obvious change, though, is probably the type used for the abbreviation. The glyphs have grown much heavier. In the previous BCG logo, they only touched each other slightly, while in the current one, they virtually merge into a single glyph.
As the press release states, the updated design creates “a simpler, bolder, and more connected identity that better reflects the firm’s approach.”
The bold custom abbreviation from the primary logo of the Boston Consulting Group is set in a bold and sharp geometric typeface with the three uppercase letters merged, creating a stable emblem. As for the full name of the company, written on the right from the emblem, it is executed in a simple sans-serif font, which looks very similar to Kaleko 205, TT Normsreg Pro or SK Payidar,
The color palette of the BCG visual identity uses just one shade of green — deep and intense, which looks very confident and distinctive on a plain white background. Green here is a symbol of reliability, growth, and wealth.
BCG (Boston Consulting Group) is one of the three best-known employers in management consulting, known as the Big Three. The company was established in 1963. Today, it has over 90 offices in 50 countries. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.