Osborne's products are distributed in more than 40 countries, and in 2005, the company increased its 2004 business by 6.4 percent. Naturally, the creation of Osborne products in Spain and the vast distribution of them outside the country are important to the Spanish economy. But the products and the international business they have created as exports are only part of what Osborne has given its homeland. Strangely, and quite unintentionally, Osborne also gave them what has grown to become the symbol for an entire nation - the profile of a proud and virile bull.

The now readily recognizable image didn't debut to such fame, of course. In 1956, Osborne hired commercial artist Manolo Prieto to create a logo for use on the bottles of its Veterano brandy. The company wanted something representative of Osborne and its native country, as well as something that would easily translate as a billboard. That is, something simple, powerful, and memorable. Enter the bull. Prieto penned a silhouette that necessitated no fine detail. Its black coloring and easily decipherable features made it ideal for the bottle and for the roadside. Osborne was thrilled.

So thrilled, in fact, that the shape of the Osborne bull remains true to the original Prieto drawing even to this day. El Toro has, however, gotten bigger and stronger over the years. Not long after the bull existed as a line drawing, it was transformed into roadside signage. In 1957, the very first bull-shaped billboard - or "bullboard" - was erected. It was only 13 feet high and was cut from a single sheet of wood. At the year's end, there were a total of 16 bulls in place. But after only a few years, it became clear that they couldn't weather, well, the weather. The elements made quick work of battering the timber bulls. That's when Félix Tejada entered the picture. Osborne hired the metalúrgico (Spanish for "metalsmith") to engineer a bull that would be as strong physically as it was emblematically.