Corporate Identity

Why Change the Name?

After nearly 40 years, the time came to depart from Input/Output’s legacy and to embark in a new direction. A pioneer in land geophysical instruments, I/O has evolved beyond its equipment heritage and today, along with GX Technology and Concept Systems, offers a broad portfolio of land and marine acquisition hardware, seismic software, and advanced imaging services. The company’s transformation called for a refresh of our corporate identity to better reflect our all-encompassing imaging solutions.  As of September 21, 2007, the company will be known as ION.

The Transformation

For most of the company’s history, our focus was on selling seismic instrumentation to geophysical contractors. Our business revolved around land recording systems; it wasn’t until the acquisitions of Western Geophysical’s products group and of DigiCOURSE that I/O began to offer instrumentation for marine applications. With the acquisitions of Concept Systems and GX Technology in 2004, the company took a major step beyond equipment. These companies brought software, data processing, data libraries, and project management capabilities to I/O, along with relationships with the oil & gas companies themselves. As a result, today’s company looks very different from the I/O of the past. Our company is now a broad-based, technology-focused seismic solutions provider.  No longer do we sell technology and services solely to seismic acquisition contractors. We now provide advanced imaging services, data libraries, and end-to-end project management to both E&P operators and sovereign resource holders.  With all of these changes, the company’s former name simply was insufficient to describe what the new I/O had become. 

The Name

ION was chosen because it represents so much of what the present day company encompasses. An ion is an atom that has gained or lost an electron which, in so doing, gives it an electrical charge. Once charged, ions combine with other particles in a variety of unique combinations. They have an inherent energy and restlessness about them; ions are always in motion. And they are essential to life.  This energy characterizes our company. ION’s restlessness to transform the industry is core to our philosophy. Our company is charged with excitement and is passionate about its vision.  Much like ions are formed, our company was formed through smaller companies coming together to form a greater whole. And our solutions strategy involves combining proprietary building blocks of hardware, software, and services in unique ways for a particular problem. The analogies between what ions are and how the company was formed, and what we aspire to become, are very strong.  Moreover, ION shares part of our legacy—the root of I/O (Input/Output)—while the ‘N’ can convey I/O New, I/O Next or, as some have offered, I/O Now.

The Logo

The ION logo represents what the company has become: cutting-edge, futuristic, modern, and streamlined. The green in the logo was selected to convey the pioneering philosophy of the company, its roots in land, and its commitment to environmentally sustainable operations.  The flowing lines of the font suggest a fusion of East and West and, with the arch many see in the ‘n’, an infusion of Middle Eastern which collectively represent the broad global footprint of our operations and the more than 60 nationalities that comprise our employee base.