General Óptica Brand Guidelines: A Barcelona Optician Chain, Subirachs’s GO Handles & De Rigo

An optician chain with roots in Barcelona.

General Óptica is a chain of opticians that began in Barcelona. The branding publication Brandemia, writing in September 2012, described it as a company that had its origin in the city “more than 50 years” earlier and was known then for an avant-garde approach to glasses. By the mid-1960s it already had a network of shops: Spanish Wikipedia says the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs began working with General Óptica in 1966, producing sculpture, reliefs, graphics and murals for 21 of its shops in cities across Spain.

The chain changed hands in 2000, when the Italian eyewear company De Rigo acquired it, according to Italian Wikipedia, which describes General Óptica at that point as a chain operating in Spain and Portugal. De Rigo was founded in 1978 at Pozzale di Cadore, in northern Italy, by the brothers Walter and Ennio De Rigo; it owns frame brands including Police and Lozza, and two years before buying General Óptica it had bought the British optician chain Dollond & Aitchison, Italian Wikipedia says.

The De Rigo years brought long and steady management. When the company named Juan Antonio Franzi chief executive in February 2024, Europa Press reported that he replaced Jordi Fontcuberta, who had held the post for 24 years, and quoted Ennio De Rigo, the group’s founder and president, as saying the number of shops had grown from 115 to 321 under Fontcuberta. Franzi had previously led the chain’s commercial department. In April 2024 the company named Sergio Martínez director of marketing and digital transformation and María Rosa Cordero Tudó director of retail, Europa Press reported.

Subirachs, an eye and three ellipses.

Few optician chains can point to a sculptor in their shops. Spanish Wikipedia calls Subirachs’s work for General Óptica a long and fruitful relationship. He designed a “GO” monogram that appeared on the door handles of every shop, and in 1966 he shaped handrails as the letters G and O. His recurring imagery appeared too — including eyes, fitting for an optician — alongside themes chosen for each city: Ramon Llull in Palma de Mallorca, a homage to Goya in Zaragoza and Las Meninas in Madrid. The writer Josep M. Cadena published a book on the subject, Subirachs en General Óptica, in 2001. Subirachs is also known for the bronze doors of the Sagrada Família, which Spanish Wikipedia dates to 1987–2010.

The chain’s own logos have changed several times, and Brandemia traced the sequence in 2012. The first mark paired a symbol shaped like a human eye with the name, and was the only version to put an accent on “Óptica”; a separate symbol enclosed a G. Later came serif capitals set over oval forms, in a style Brandemia tied to its period. That mark lasted until 1997, when the company moved to a more modern and open shop concept, remodelled its shops and adopted a new abstract symbol of three ellipses, with the name in capitals set in Optima and bright colour gradients.

In September 2012 came the next change. The new mark returned to the eye, now built from several overlapping coloured circles, with the name in lower case and capital initials, set in a modified FF Beau Sans Pro; the O still carries no accent, the colours are softer and the composition is centred, Brandemia wrote. The publication found the result cleaner but asked whether it had enough distinction. Europa Press reports from 2024 also write the name without the accent, as “General Optica.”

Advertising carries the identity today. In September 2026 the chain launched a campaign for progressive lenses that borrows the codes of the western: the squint of a gunslinger before the draw becomes the squint of someone trying to read a menu, a phone screen or the small print on a label. The three films, titled “The distant football match,” “The doubtful expiry date” and “The blurry menu” in Spanish, extend a creative platform called “Ver Bien es Otra Historia” (“seeing well is another story”), and ran in Spain and Portugal on television, radio, outdoor and digital channels, Moda en Gafas reported.

Design and documentation.

Optical retail chains are first of all shops, and their own material usually starts there. When studying one, look at how the fascia carries the name from across a shopping centre, how the frame wall is lit, grouped and photographed, and how the company’s news pages show openings and refits. Store counts appear again and again in these pages, so read them as dated figures from the company rather than as fixed facts.

Campaign imagery is the second layer. Many chains work with a well-known face, from footballers to television presenters, and describe that person plainly as an ambassador; others build films around customers, families or a single repeated line. For a design study, note who is in the frame, whether the glasses or the person lead the picture, and how one slogan or visual device carries across television, radio, social media and the shop window.

The website is now a third shopfront. Optical chains commonly offer an online try-on, either a camera-based virtual fitting or a service that lets visitors choose frames online and reserve them in a nearby shop, along with appointment booking and frame advice pages. These tools carry the identity into small interface details: buttons, product grids, colour accents and the photography of frames on plain backgrounds.

Behind the shop sign sits a corporate structure that a design guide should state carefully. Some chains are cooperatives of independent opticians, some run franchise networks, and many belong to investment firms or to a larger eyewear group. Corporate pages on owners, takeovers and franchise terms explain why one name can look different from country to country, and why a familiar sign can change hands while the shops stay open. In the guides that follow, owners and dates come from dated sources, and palettes are our own interpretation rather than official brand colours.

Over 300 shops, two countries, one Italian owner.

General Óptica now sells prescription glasses, sunglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids, and offers eye examinations, contact-lens fitting and hearing tests in its shops, according to Distribución Actualidad. The network had 321 centres in September 2026, the same publication reported; Moda en Gafas counted 333 points of sale in March 2026, 97 of them franchised. Spain has most of them: Distribución Actualidad put the Spanish total at 289 in November 2026, with 42 shops in Catalonia after an opening near the Sagrada Família and 23 in the Basque Country after an opening in Bilbao’s Errekalde district. Portugal is the chain’s second market. There it trades as Mais Optica, and it reached 40 Portuguese shops with an opening at Sintra in November 2026. In March 2026 it hired Gemma Lleal, formerly of Lacoste and Timberland, to lead its franchise network, Distribución Actualidad reported.

Within De Rigo, which Distribución Actualidad describes as a maker, designer and distributor of eyewear, General Óptica belongs to a retail division that, according to Moda en Gafas, also includes Mais Optica in Portugal, Opmar Optik in Turkey and a stake in Boots Opticians in the United Kingdom. That ownership sets it apart from MultiÓpticas, which was founded in 1977 as a cooperative of independent opticians and kept that structure until 2024.

For a design guide, General Óptica shows how a retail chain can treat its shops as a place for art and lettering: a sculptor’s monogram on every door handle, then an eye, three ellipses and an eye again. Compare MultiÓpticas, a Spanish network built by opticians, and Fielmann, the German chain that El País reported in 2023 had bought into Spanish optical retail. For this guide we use coral, ink blue and a pale sky with a humanist sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep General Óptica’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.