The logo of the Turkish bank DenizBank reflects the marine theme started by the name (the word “Deniz” means “sea” in the Turkish language).
The company was founded in 1938 as a state-owned bank. It was originally called Denizcilik Bankası.
You can also come across a slightly different version of the same design. While the shape of the letters and the wheel look almost the same, both the red and the blue look somewhat lighter. Another notable difference is the shape of the dot above the “i.” While it is a circle on the older emblem, the current one has replaced it by a square.
The current DenizBank logo combines the name of the company in dark blue and a ship’s wheel in dark red. The nautical theme is started by the color of the lettering, while the wheel makes this theme explicit.
Also, the color of the wheel, red, is often used in combination with dark blue and white as one of the elements of the nautical style, so the palette is just another reference to the “marine” name of the bank.
The type featured in the DenizBank logo looks rather heavy, which can be interpreted as a symbol of stability and reliability – two essential qualities for any financial institution. This is probably the reason why the circular dot above the “i” has been replaced by a square one – the square is associated with stability.
DenizBank A.Ş. is a private bank headquartered in Şişli, Istanbul, Turkey. Today, the company belongs to Emirates NBD, while its previous owners were Russia’s largest bank Sberbank (2012-2019) and Dexia. The bank’s total assets are estimated at 206,512 TL million (as of the fall of 2019). DenizBank has over 750 branches and 13,5 million customers (2019).