The history of Giovanni Rana’s pasta factory began in 1962 in San Giovanni Lupatoto (Verona); the founder personally delivered fresh tortellini to the first customers on the legendary “Guzzino”. In the period of strong expansion of the Italian economy, a new generation of women was preparing to work outside the home, significantly reducing the time to dedicate to cooking and, in particular, to the home production of fresh pasta; this new scenario generated a growing demand for handmade fresh pasta, helping to transform his entrepreneurial project from a regional to a national level.
In 1971, the first Rana logo consisted of a blue square with an overlapping spoon and fork holding a tortellino at their ends, thus making clear the two ways to enjoy tortellini, in broth or dry; above the two cutlery, the surname written in yellow in capital letters with the first and last letters slightly higher than the others. With the help of engineers and mechanics, Giovanni Rana designed and developed new machinery in order to respond to the growing demand related to the volumes and varieties of pasta.
In 1982 the logo underwent a slight restyling with greater attention to the graphic elements, all inscribed in a dark blue shape. In the 1980s the fresh pasta sector was attacked by the main multinationals in the sector but Pastifico Rana resisted all the blandishments of the big giants who wanted to acquire it. The company became a leader in Italy also thanks to the first investments in communication with Giovanni Rana himself as the protagonist, among the first to do so, of the television commercials.
In 1991 the logo underwent a restyling with the rebalancing of the graphic elements: the larger logotype, composed with a rounded character, and the smaller cutlery, all within a blue trapezoid shape outlined in yellow.
With the arrival of the new millennium, the company diversified its production offering towards different types, formats and fillings; in this perspective, the symbolic reference of tortellini in the brand was reductive and could generate misunderstandings. Therefore in the 1999 logo, designed by Gio Rossi, the most evident logotype with serif characters lived inside the trapezoidal shape and, above all, the cutlery appeared smaller. In 2007, the company entered the world of catering with the opening of the first restaurant “Da Giovanni” in the province of Brescia; a challenge that committed the family to bring to the table what until then had only been enjoyed in supermarkets.
In the national expansion phase, to clear up the misunderstanding of the fictitious name linked to the animal “rana” compared to the founder’s real surname, the name “Giovanni” also appeared in the 2009 logo, along with even smaller cutlery; all within a curved trapezoid shape with highlights for a three-dimensional effect. In 2012, the Rana family’s dream of landing their products in America not only came true, but became even bigger! They opened the first fresh pasta and sauce factory in Chicago and the first restaurant in New York in the exclusive Chelsea neighborhood practically at the same time.
In 2014, the cutlery was removed from the logo, designed by Robilant, leaving the field for the surname only with a linear character with a blue line and on the logo there is also the extended signature of the founder to underline how, since the beginning, Giovanni Rana has been a testimonial and guarantor of the quality of the products that bear his name; all these graphic elements were inscribed in the trapezoidal shape with shades of blue and light blue. After achieving leadership in the fresh pasta sector also in the United States of America, in 2019 the company opened a second production site in Chicago with new production lines dedicated to innovative products and designed specifically for overseas palates.
Again in 2021, the Robilant agency subjected the logo to a minimal restyling: the blue used for the background is now uniform and has a darker shade while the yellow has a warmer shade; in some particular cases the logo is presented “in the positive” without the trapezoidal shape.
