Opening a petrol station on 'God's Mountain Road' sounds like a dumb move but Hungary's leading energy provider MOL has allowed a local Budapest firm to branch away from conventional forecourt design and adopt a radically green initiative.

I like how Polish design team Kaniewski HauteDesign break the mould in roadside design with this quasi-futuristic look for Orlen Polsce Meeting Point Stop Cafe. PKN Orlen currently operates hundreds of coffee bars and bistros at petrol stations in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic but this is a first of its kind concept designed to attract business professionals in the Gdańsk catchment area.

The bright red neon sign, a reference to a car's headlights works particularly well in associating the chain with Orlen's logo and complementing the fuel retailer's brand identity.

A co-venture project between Regus and Shell will see a network of new business lounges opening at Shell petrol forecourts on motorways across Europe. If you are a mobile worker like me, this scheme could be of real benefit.

Business lounge within existing forecourt building

The first business lounge has already opened at a Shell station just south-west of Paris on the A10 autoroute, at the Limours-Janvry service station. To access the Regus business lounge, individuals must buy a day pass at the Shell checkout or swipe a Regus Businessworld card.

The roadside chain Little Chef has been in decline over recent years, its former owners went into administration in 2007. To counteract the interminable decline of the brand, TV chef Heston Bluementhal was drafted in to spearhead a media campaign including a Channel 4 documentary – Big Chef takes on Little Chef – resulting in efforts to raise the quality of the menu, customer service and a redesign of the interior and company branding.

I had an interview with our designers David Davis and Peter Brown to find out their impressions regarding Little Chef’s updated design.

Over the years Minale Tattersfield has designed a range of branded interior environments from unique retail spaces, like La Maison des Maîtres Chocolatiers Belges through to museum spaces and innovative petrol forecourts designs. When designing for a specific environment, our 3D design teams need to continually update their knowledge of the latest trends in surface design technologies including flooring and interior surfaces,

Have you tried the new Facebook Timeline or dipped your toes into the new YouTube user interface?

I've been looking at these redesigns – particularly YouTube as I was uploading our new promotional video last week. The YouTube redesign follows its acquisition by Google and takes it one step further towards becoming the world's largest socially connected TV network. To introduce the new site, YouTube ran a promotional campaign “Get More Into YouTube”

Italian practice Damilano Studio has produced a visually arresting design for a new petrol station forecourt in Cuneo, Italy. Gazoline petrol station is a sleek and ultramodern piece of architectural design that communicates a sense of luxury through form and minimalistic style.  But under closer scrutiny how does this design stack up?

Forecourt design for petrol station in Cuneo, Italy

McDonald's backs out of Iceland amidst a global economic crisis that has left the company vulnerable to soaring costs.

The closure, this month, of the fast-food chain's three restaurants, means Iceland will become one of the few European countries with no Big Macs to sell.

The company opened in Reykjavik in 1993 as a franchise operation run by a firm called Lyst. Owner Jon Gardar Ogmundsson said it made no sense to continue the business. Despite growing demand, profits have plummeted.

New Zealand’s channel 3 aptly describes Greenstone’s $695 million acquisition of Shell’s 226 strong retail network as ‘Audacious’. To dump the probably the world’s most prestigious energy brand and create your own makes slightly more sense when you realise Greenstone will avoid having to pay Shell $10 million a year licensing fees…..(once of course the rebranding fees in excess of $35 million are paid plus say $3 -$5 million in annual advertising support.

All that can be said about the new Total petrol station in Hamburg Germany is ‘Grey, grey and more grey’. Gone is the instantly recognisable red brand statement.

A review of Deconstructing Logo Design by Matthew Healey,
published by Rotovision

For nearly 40 years Rotovision has been recognised as the publisher of choice for books on the visual arts, graphic design, photography, illustration, digital design and craft reference. Their mission is to highlight innovation and excellence in all these areas of design and to explore the process, creative techniques and inspiration that make the work stand out.

Matthew Healey has just written the latest book on design to be published by Rotovision. The book entitled Deconstructing Logo Design follows a number of other books from the same publisher on the intriguing subject of logos. Matthew Healey is a brand consultant, graphic designer and lecturer who has worked in advertising agencies in New York and Prague, is a member of the Design Management Institute in Boston and has lectured on branding, advertising and marketing throughout Europe and the USA.

To develop a competitive food offer at a petrol station makes sense not only because the profit margin is much higher than on fuel sales. According to Steve Tremlett of UK supermarket brand Somerfield a third of customers at petrol stations come for fuel, a third come for food and a third come for food and fuel. So for the food and fuel customers, having a proper food offer also drives fuel sales.

The second Artoil station has opened to much aclaim in the Urals city of Ufa. The first station in the wealthy Moscow suburb of Rublevka caused quite a stir but not as much as Ufa where retail is still a few years behind. Ufa customers were very pleasantly surprised that an oil company had finally decided to present its offer up to the standard and beyond of any other major shopping centre retailer. See russian tv story.

Outside Barajas airport in Madrid can be seen solar panels on top of the Repsol jet wash bays. Look closer and it’s clear that these are not solar PV electricity generators which have appeared on petrol station canopies over recent years but water heaters for supplying warm water at the jet wash nozzle.

In my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s the oil companies were among the most visible brand advertisers – especially on the new medium of television. Challenge a baby boomer today to sing for you “The Esso sign means happy motoring” or “You’re going well you’re going Shell” and most will be able to oblige. But the quadrupling of oil prices in the early 1970s put a stop to all that and whilst there have been occasional flurries of brand advertising in this sector since there has rarely been a period of determined product differentiation advertising. So how should we see Shell’s current UK campaign to promote a new fuel, Shell FuelSave which offers drivers improved fuel efficiency of “Up to one litre per tank” – you can see the TV Commercial here?

New to the streets of Moscow is the Artoil Petrol Station which was opened in the smart Rublevka district on the 8th of July this year. According to David Davis of designers Minale Tattersfield, the new design ‘Was intended to provide the Russian motorist with the highest level of service within a bright and cheerful environment that clearly put the motorist first’.

Location, location, location - the oldest cliché in the book about Retail. Get the right outlet with the right products in the right place and the customers and the profits just roll in! And in the petroleum sector it has to be even truer surely. Right road, right traffic flow, well positioned petrol station - Bingo! Well yes of course location is vital - that's why the real estate costs so much when a site on a busy highway or on a motorway is released or sold. But as every retailer knows the trick is always to maximise the returns - to secure volume and income which exceeds expectations and provides business higher than the "case" assumption (the assumption that underpinned the original investment). This article is about that extra, that bonus level of return that can turn a good site or network into a great one.