The gigantic Amoco sign at Clayton Road and Skinker Blvd has been repainted.
“We really butchered this sign rebrand in 2019. We apologize to the City of St. Louis. It’s been a source of embarrassment for years and I’m excited to announce that we finally corrected our mistake.” said John Murphy, Director of Brand Continuity for British Petroleum (BP), the parent company of Amoco.
The sign which was constructed in 1959 originally said Standard on it. In the late 1980’s Standard Oil began rebranding as Amoco (American Oil Company) and the sign was changed to read Amoco. In 1998 British Petroleum (BP) acquired Amoco and rebranded the gas station as a BP, but left the iconic Amoco sign. Then in 2019 as BP began to revive the Amoco brand using an updated version of the logo, the large sign was repainted with the new branding.
Users on the St. Louis subreddit have expressed a range of emotions from outrage to ambivalence following the 2019 rebranding.
“Back in 2019 we handed this project off to a high school intern and they sent the new logo to the sign company without scaling it to fit the existing frame. It was an oversight on our part. And to make matters worse it somehow wasn’t even centered on the sign frame.” Said Murphy.
Mayor Tishaura Jones said “St. Louis really only has three landmarks; The Gateway Arch, Apotheosis of St. Louis, and this gas station sign. So this has been a high priority for us. My team has been working on this issue for four years and we came up with a plan to reach out to BP, but we didn’t have their phone number. I’m grateful this issue has finally been addressed.”
County Executive Sam Page echoed the Mayor’s sentiments on the importance of the sign. “When we were selecting the new flag to represent St. Louis County it came down to an abstract version of the Amoco sign and the phallus. It was not an easy decision. While the corporate iconography is appealing and aligns with our values we ultimately felt that the phallus just made more sense. Regardless, I want to thank BP for taking the initiative to make this right.”
The effort to correct the poorly executed sign comes as a relief for local design professionals. “This has been a debilitating hazard for people who care about design.” Said Mike Marddox, President of the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. “It was anxiety inducing and resulted in numerous car accidents and mental breakdowns. We’ve long advised our members and their clients to avoid driving westbound on highway 64/40 or eastbound on Clayton Road.”
Demographer Ned Sanderval says data suggests that recent population losses in the region were likely caused by the poorly executed re-envisioning of the Amoco sign. “People are subconsciously frustrated when continually exposed to things like this. With enough data points, you can essentially read the subconscious thoughts of a population. Our models show that people have been extremely agitated by this sign and may not even realize it. Some take out their agitation through violence, and others choose to simply move away. It has caused an indescribable sense of unease and will have a positive cascading effect on virtually everything in St. Louis now that it has been repaired.”
This story is an April Fool’s satire. We are not aware of any plans to fix the Amoco sign.
