At the beginning the sign above the entrance carried the engraved enamelled glass inscription “Société Générale favouring the development of trade and industry in France” followed by the amount of the capital.
The earliest appearances of the letters “SG”, particularly in the form of wall mosaics or intertwined letters in bronze, go back to the years 1878-1889. As a result, between 1864 and 1943, the Société Générale “trademark” did not change, appearing to be frozen in a very traditional intangible type of representation. No true logo existed in this period; there was simply a visual representation that appeared on all the establishment’s “official” paperwork.
In 1943 a new visual representation in a resolutely contemporary framework was introduced and was retained until 1950.

However, during the period 1954-1975, marked by major developments in the Société Générale network – more than 1200 new sales outlets opened – the inscription “Société Générale appeared in a variety of typographical forms with no attempt at harmonisation.
In a banking environment that had been considerably metamorphosed by the institutional reforms (the Debré reforms) of 1966-1967, which required nearly all French people to open a bank or post office cheque account, the image of the bank changed radically. From then on, the bank aspired to becoming closer to its customers and more visible.