# TotalEnergies new logo (2021)

> TotalEnergies launched a new logo in May 2021, designed by Carré Noir. May 28 2021: Total renamed TotalEnergies.

## Key facts

- Brand: TotalEnergies
- Launched: May 2021
- Studio: Carré Noir
- What changed: May 28 2021: Total renamed TotalEnergies.
- Why: Total became TotalEnergies because its chief executive wanted to build a green energy major.
- Industry: Energy
- Logos: https://rebrandlog.com/logos/totalenergies-2021/before.svg (before), https://rebrandlog.com/logos/totalenergies-2021/after.png (after)

## The rebrand, explained

On 28 May 2021 Total's shareholders approved, almost unanimously, changing the company's name to TotalEnergies; on the same day they backed its climate strategy. Chairman and chief executive Patrick Pouyanné framed it as a move towards new energies and an ambition to be a world-class player in the energy transition. He told Reuters he wanted a green energy major, while arguing that a more radical shift was not appropriate because fossil revenues had to fund the change.

Carré Noir, part of Publicis, designed the identity around an idea it called the Path of Energies. The mark is a single moving line that thickens and adjusts as it travels, drawing a T and an E, and doubles as a colour journey: it starts in Total's historic red and passes through other hues, from gas blue to solar yellow, the agency said, so the transition is made visible rather than hidden. Rounded lowercase type sits beside it. The system covered brand architecture, tone, signage and a sonic identity with Dissonances. Marcel ran the launch campaign in print and digital, followed by a TV campaign from Rosapark.

The reaction was hostile on two fronts. Climate groups called the strategy behind it greenwashed; Reclaim Finance and Greenpeace France condemned the shareholders who backed the plan, and electrek's headline said some called the rebrand a greenwash. Designers were no kinder. Graphéine said the gradient had peaked as a trend and that without colour the logo lost most of its meaning, while LogoNews argued the dominant red T dragged the mark backwards and downwards, reading like an oil slick spreading over the cleaner colours.

In October 2025 a French court ruled that TotalEnergies had misled consumers with carbon-neutrality claims in its 2021 campaign and ordered statements removed from its website.

Strategies showed how much machinery surrounded the line. The group also commissioned its own sound identity, a print and digital launch campaign with a manifesto ran from late May into June in France and for opinion leaders abroad, and a consumer TV push followed, all supported by a media agency. The change was global, so the electricity supplier Total Direct Energie took the new name too. Strategies expected spending to rise from the 98 million euros of 2019 and 60 million of 2020 to install it. That is a lot of money to make a gradient look inevitable.

The design problem is the strategic one. A logo that literally starts in oil red and fades into renewables tells an honest story about a company still mostly in oil, but it cannot also make that company look green. The gradient does the persuading, and gradients are where credibility goes to blur.

In short: A gradient asked to carry a transition the company had not yet made.

## Sources

- https://totalenergies.com/newsroom/total-transforming-and-becoming-totalenergies/?lang=eng
- https://www.cbnews.fr/conseil/nouveau-logo-totalenergies-carre-noir

## Cite this

Rebrand Log, "TotalEnergies new logo (2021)", https://rebrandlog.com/rebrand/totalenergies-2021/, last updated 2026-10-20.