The Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete Identity

A Chicagoland based Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete Truck delivering to a building site on Clark Street and Grand Avenue in Chicago. According the the Company’s website, “Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete, a family-owned business is believed to be the first concrete company in the country to convert fourteen of its mixing trucks to run on natural gas.”

Logotype and truck icon was designed and drawn by David Versluis in 1983.

Nearly thirty years ago I worked with Martin Ozinga III to design an Ozinga logotype, graphic identity and stationery system. For the stationery and business cards the logo was a combination mark with a carefully rendered and reproducible icon of their highly recognizable red and white striped trucks juxtaposed with the logotype illustrated above. The truck itself was the graphic identity and there was never any reason to change it. As part of the graphic program I indicated where the logo should be placed on the truck doors.

The logotype was used for a while but eventually was replaced by a script-style logotype. Recently, however, I was surprised to see new Ozinga trucks around Chicago carrying the sans serif logo, very similar to the one I designed in 1983.

An interesting connection is that the annual Hilda Ozinga Art Scholarship offered by Dordt College is funded through the generosity of the Ozinga family. Hilda’s husband, Norman was a partner when the company was known as Ozinga Bros. Inc. Norm was an uncle to Martin Ozinga III, the company’s president.