The Industrial Revolution and the introduction of packaging and brand advertising stimulated business's use of identification marks in the nineteenth century. The same old pride in the product of one's hands or one's machines was there, but, more important, the mark was needed to assist customers in picking out a widely advertised product from a shelf crowded with competitors products. The mark as well as the product was advertised; and, if it was well designed, the mark itself on the package did did a point-of-purchase advertising job.
In London in the 1800s a dealer started selling shell-covered boxes to the tourists. As his business prospered, he took on new products: jewels and trinkets of various kinds. Eventually he went international, adding barreled kerosene to his offerings. The oil. Because of the early specialty, the dealer adopted a drawing of a shell as an identification mark for his company -- and it stuck. It is today one of the world's best known logos, despite the fact that buyers would not normally associate a sea shell with gasoline.