Keeping the "Crown" Moving Forward

The original company was formed in Japan in 1965 and was called Transport Services International. It was hard for people to remember the full name and the order of the words. As a result, the company was more commonly referred to as "TSI." Eventually, no one knew what that actually stood for.

When the company's second office was opened in Hong Kong in 1970, Jim Thompson was determined to come up with a name that was more easily recognizable and in that regard thought it should have a symbol (logo) that could represent it. Jim and his two partners went through long lists of potential names, and in doing so, realized that the name should be representative of something elegant and classy. They finally settled on "Crown International." When they took this name to the Companies Registrar in Hong Kong they found, to their dismay, that it was already being used by a small European trading company and therefore wouldn't be allowed to use it.

Feeling greatly disappointed, Jim and his partners sat in the coffee shop of the Park Hotel in Hong Kong trying to think of a way to use Crown in some other form. One of Jim's partners fought hard to call the company 'Krown International'. Jim rejected that and countered with Crown Pacific. This was acceptable to the Registrar and they began life with that name. Years later, in the early 90's, they dropped the Pacific because the company had become global and they no longer wanted to be thought of as just an Asian or pacific company.

By the mid '90s, the company was known as Crown Worldwide.

The original colors of Crown Pacific were red and black. This was because all of the commercial trucks in Hong Kong in 1970 were pretty much all red and black. As a result, the original business cards were red and black. Crown has kept these colors but, over time, placed more emphasis on the red and dropped the black.

Today, the company uses the Crown name and logo with the tag of its various services such as Relocations, Logistics, Records Management, Wine Cellars, etc. The logo always features the crown symbol with twenty dots. Why twenty dots? That is still a mystery today and one that only Jim Thompson can reveal.

The brilliant red is now the recognizable color of Crown around the world.

For more about Crown's history, please click here.