ComDes History Final | Chapter 20: Corporate Identity and Visual Systems

John Massey

Designed the prototype federal graphic standards system for the Department of Labor. His goals for the new design program were "uniformity of identification; a standard of quality; a more systematic and economic template for publication design; a closer relationship between graphic design (as a means) and program development (as an end) so that the proposed graphics system will become an effective tool in assisting the department to achieve program objectives" (Fig. 20- 39).

Raymond Loewy

Designer known for his streamlined and modern aesthetic as applied across a range of industrial products, packaging, architecture, interiors, and corporate identities (Figs. 20-10 and 20-11).

Eliot Noyes (1910-77)

IBM's consulting design director during the late 1950s, he wrote that the IBM design program sought "to express the extremely advanced and up-to-date nature of its products. To this end we are not looking for a theme but for a consistency of design quality which will in effect become a kind of theme, but a very flexible one."

Sussman/Prejza & Co.

The graphic design firm headed by Deborah Sussman, which collaborated with the architectural firm Jerde Partnership to create materials for the Los Angeles Olympic Games (Figs. 20-58 and 20-59).

American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)

The nation's oldest professional graphic design organization. In 1974, the United States Department of Transportation commissioned it to create a master set of thirty-four passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities (Fig. 20-43).

Frank Stanton (b. 1908)

The president of CBS who understood art and design and their potential in corporate affairs.

Ralph Eckerstrom (c. 1920-96)

This design director and his staff created a new corporate logo for the Container Corporation of America (CCA) (Fig. 20-37).

Paul Rand

Though ___________ was a recluse in his creative process, doing the vast majority of the design load despite having a large staff at varying points in his career, he was very interested in producing books of theory to illuminate his philosophies. Maholy-Nagy may have incited _________'s zeal for knowledge when he asked his colleague if he read art criHcism at their first meeting. ________ said no, prompting Moholy-Nagy to reply "Pity." This meeHng had a tremendous impact on __________ impact, from that moment on, ________ devoured books by the leading philosophers on art, including Roger Fry Alfred North Whitehead, and John Dewey.

Roger Cook (b. 1930)

Worked with Don Shanosky on designing and drawing the final set of thirty-four passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities for the Department of Transportation (Fig. 20-43).

Don Shanosky (b. 1937)

Worked with Roger Cook on designing and drawing the final set of thirty-four passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities for the Department of Transportation (Fig. 20-43).

Muriel Cooper

_________ _________ designed publications and books for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press and in 1963, designed the Press's logo. Her pursuit of dynamic media led to the founding, in 1978, of the Visible Language Workshop (VLW) at MIT, of which she was also the director. She was a founding member of the MIT Media Lab, an advanced graduate research program on new media. Her goal was to move graphic design from form to content. - one of the prophets of new media

Saul Bass

_________'s mastery of elemental form can be seen in the trademarks produced by his firm, many of which became cultural icons, like the marks for Minolta and AT&T. _______ believed a trademark must be readily understood yet possess elements of metaphor and ambiguity to attract the viewer again and again.

logotype

a company brand mark consisting of only letterforms.

corporate identity manual

a firm's book of guidelines and standards for implementing its corporate identity program.

annual report

a publication issued to stockholders of a public company as required by federal law.

idiom

a style of artistic expression or language characteristic of a particular individual, school, period, or medium.

corporate identity

a system of visual elements used in a comprehensive program to project a consistent image of a company.

Ben Shahn

- A climate of creative freedom at CBS encouraged fine artists, such as Ben Shahn, to accept commissions to create illustrations for CBS advertisements. - The result, compared to other advertising of the period, was a high level of artistry, as seen in "The Big Push." - Shahn's drawing added an ambience of quality and distinction to the message aimed at corporations and advertisers recommending that they purchase television advertising time during the summer sales push.

Cover and sample spreads from Dancing Colours: Beijing Olympic Games: The Colours

- A visual identity manual specifying color usage for the 2008 Olympic Games advertising and promotional materials. (image in powerpoint)

"2008 Beijing Olympics"

- AICA (Armstrong International) Design - The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games emblem is also the official emblem for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG). - The emblem consists of three parts: the Beijing Games symbol, the logotype, and the Olympic symbol

"IBM package designs"

- Designed by Paul Rand - late 1950s - A strong corporate identity was achieved through a repeating pattern of blue, green, and magenta capital lettering on black package fronts, white handwritten product names, and blue package tops and sides

"Lucky Strike logo"

- Designed by Raymond Loewy - 1939 - Becomes symbol of America

"signage symbol system for U.S. Department of Transportation"

- Designed by Roger Cook and Don Shanosky - 1974 - These signs combined overall harmony with a visual consistency of line, shape, weight, and form. This effort was an important first step toward a goal of unified and effective graphic communications transcending cultural and language barriers. - United States Department of Transportation commissioned AIGA, the nation's oldest professional graphic design organization, to develop a system of passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities with the goal of bridging language barriers and simplifying basic messages. - A committee headed by Thomas H. Geismar studied existing symbol systems for transportation facilities and international events based on thirty-four subject areas and prepared guidelines for the development of the system, which was designed and drawn by Roger Cook and Don Shanosky of Cook and Shanosky Associates.

"CBS Television trademark"

- Designed by William Golden - 1951 - Mutual reciprocity between eye of the viewer and eye of the television station - Its ongoing success depended on the quality and intelligence of each successive design solution

"The Big Push, trade ad for CBS Television"

- Designed by William Golden and illustrated by Ben Shahn - 1957 - An ad encouraging other companies to buy time slots on CBS - shopping baskets - metal latticework conveys the motion of interconnectedness to convince them of mutual benefit

"IBM trademark"

- Designed byPaul Rand - 1956 - The original design is shown with outline versions and the eight- and thirteen-stripe versions currently used

"The Nation's Nightmare program ad for CBS Radio"

-Designed by Lou Dorfsman and Illustrated by Andy Warhol - 1951. - depicts drug use, the topic of the radio show

"BP, Shell, Exxon Logos"

-Designed by Raymond Loewy - BP (1989) - Shell (1971) - Exxon (1966) - looking for high index of visual retention

"trademarks for various corporations"

Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, trademarks for various corproations.

Wang Min (b. 1956)

Design director for the 2008 Beijing Twenty-Ninth Olympiad (Fig. 20-62).

"trademark for Eastern Press"

- Designed by Norman Ives - New Haven, Connecticut - 1958 - (image in powerpoint)

"Munich Olympiad graphics 1972"

- Designed by Otl Aicher and team - 1972 - consistent format - In no. 6, the grid becomes part of the illustration.

"IBM annual report"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1958 - Advanced technology and organizational efficiency were expressed through design - Designed annual report to fit the system

"Westinghouse trademark"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1960 - After a 1959 study of the "public faces" of Westinghouse Corporation, a decision was made to redesign its "Circle-W" trademark. - Rand was commissioned to symbolically incorporate the nature of the company's business in a new mark that would be simple, memorable, and distinct. - General graphic forms, rather than specific signs or symbols suggest Westinghouse products by evoking wires and plugs, electronic diagrams and circuitry, and molecular structures. - Rand also developed a custom typeface for Westinghouse, applied these new elements to packaging, signage, and advertising.

"American Broadcasting Company trademark"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1965 - Rand's 1965 redesign of the trademark for ABC reduced the information to its essence while achieving a memorable and unique image

"IBM red package design"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1975 - After two decades, the original packaging design program was replaced by an updated design using the eight-stripe logo on a red box. (image in powerpoint)

"Eye Bee M poster"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1981 - Rand designed this poster for the presentation of the Golden Circle Award, an in-house IBM occasion. - Although he eventually prevailed, it was temporarily banned, as it was felt that it would encourage IBM staff designers to take liberties with the IBM logo.

"The IBM Logo: Its Use in Company Identification"

- Designed by Paul Rand - 1996 - In this exuberant cover the IBM logo resembles exploding fireworks (image in powerpoint)

"pages from the Lufthansa identity manual"

Otl Aicher in collaboraHon with Tomás Gonda, Fritz Querengässer, and Nick Roericht - 1962 -Swiss design elements - Use of post-war academic style - A flying crane trademark used since the 1930s was retained but enclosed in a circle and subordinated to the name Lufthansa in a consistent letter-spacing arrangement

"advertisement for a program series"

- Designed by Lou Dorfsman - 1968 - The combination of images carried tremendous shock value, gaining viewers for important news programs. - more provocative and effective than what we see today

"Knoll Graphics"

- Designed by Massimo Vignelli and the Unimark New York office staff - 1966-1970s - Knoll is renowned for furniture design, so the graphic program signified a strong design orientation.

"MIT Press logo"

- Designed by Muriel Cooper - 1963 - A series of vertical lines suggests half a dozen books on a shelf, and spells out m i t p. - reflects MITs engagement with technology

Corporate Identity and Visual Systems

- After World War II, the technological advances made during the war were applied to the production of consumer goods. - Many believed the outlook for the postwar capitalist economic structure would be unending economic expansion and prosperity. "Good design is good business" was the rallying cry within the graphic design community, and the more perceptive corporate leaders understood the need to develop corporate design programs to help shape companies' reputations for quality and reliability. The visual identification systems during the 1950s went beyond trademarks, which had been in use since the medieval guilds, to produce consistent design systems that projected a cohesive image for corporations with an expanding national and multinational presence.

Giovanni Pintori

- At the Olivetti Corporation, an Italian typewriter and business machines company. - Pintori put his personal stamp on Olivetti's graphic images. - Identity was achieved through the general appearance of promotional graphics. - Pintori had an ability to create simplified graphic shapes to visualize mechanisms and processes. His abstract configurations suggested the function or purpose of the product being advertised, and Olivetti garnered international recognition for its commitment to design excellence.

Chermayeff & Geismar

- Chermayeff & Geismar Associates moved to the forefront of the corporate identity movement in 1960 and went on to produce more than one hundred comprehensive corporate design programs - Designed projects for Chase Manhattan Bank of New York, Mobil Oil, the American Revolution Bicentennial, the National Broadcasting Company, and Rockefeller Center. - Its solution for the trademark for Chase Manhattan proved that a completely abstract form could successfully function as a corporation's visual identifier and, in fact, become a memorable character in the inventory of symbolic forms. In response to a study of the bank's design and communication needs, particularly for urban signage, Chermayeff & Geismar designed a distinctive, extended sans-serif typeface for use with the mark. - The Chase Manhattan Bank system became a prototype for other financial institutions.

"Chase Manhattan Bank corporate identity program"

- Designed by Chermayeff & Geismar Associates - 1960 - Consistent use of the mark, color, and typeface built recognition value through visual redundancy. - proved that an abstract logo could work as a logo

"Mobil Oil trademark"

- Designed by Chermayeff & Geismar Associates - 1964 - Sans-serif typeface, the name became the trademark, with the round, red o separating it from the visual presetnation of other words.

"Design Quarterly cover 1985"

- Designed by Deborah Sussman - This periodical cover captures the graphic resonance created for the Los Angeles Olympiad. - Stenciled type - Stars — US flag - Confetti - Different color palette; no just primaries; shows multiplicity of cultures - Political, social, economic tone of olympics - Americana, but wanted to highlight the diversity of LA - Feels more designed than recent olympics

"stamp for the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation"

- Designed by Georg Olden - 1963 - needed a symbol that could communicate the ethos on a stamp

"Olivetti poster"

- Designed by Giovanni Pintori - 1949 - Olivetti's products are suggested by a mélange of numbers.

"poster for the Olivetti EleIrosumma 22"

- Designed by Giovanni Pintori - 1956 - An informal structure of cubes and numerals suggests the mathematical building process that takes place when this calculating machine is used.

"poster for the Olivetti 82 Diaspron"

- Designed by Giovanni Pintori - 1958. - A schematic diagram depicting a typewriter key's mechanical action combines with a photograph to communicate two levels of information. -Image of the typewriter and diagram of how it works - Pintori is dealing with the legacy of futurism simultaneosly minus the ideology off fascism, etc.

"poster for the Olived LeIera 22 typewriter"

- Designed by Giovanni Pintori, - 1952 - The design playfully implies the movement of the typing fingers.

"New York, New Haven, and Harjord Railroad trademark"

- Designed by Herbert Matter - 1954 - Simple, bold colors

"logo poster for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City"

- Designed by Lance Wyman - 1968 - The five rings of the Olympiad symbol were overlapped and merged with the numeral 68 and then combined with the word Mexico. The repeated stripe pattern observed in traditional Mexican art was used to form the letters.

"logotype and alphabet for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City"

- Designed by Lance Wyman - 1968 -Rings integrated with '68 - Type was based on traditional posters - Expanded and modified for different locations and venues - Encompassed on a system of cohesive pictographic symbols (showed what events were held at different venues) - Following the design of the logotype, Wyman extended it into a display typeface that could be applied to a range of graphics, from tickets to billboards and from uniform patches to giant color-coded balloons hovering over arenas. (image in powerpoint)

"cover for Bauhaus"

- Designed by Muriel Cooper, written by Hans Wingler - 1969 - First comprehensive book about the Bauhaus - Simplicity of a monochromatic palette

More info on IBM Trademark

- Developed from an infrequently used typeface called City Medium, designed by George Trump in 1930. This geometric slab-serif typeface was designed along lines similar to Futura. Redesigned into the IBM corporate logo, it was transformed into a powerful and unique alphabet image, for the slab serifs and square negative spaces in the B lent the trademark unity and distinction. - In the 1970s, Rand updated the logo by introducing stripes to unify the three letterforms and evoke scan lines on video terminals. - Package designs by Rand show the application of the logo in the 1950s and after its redesign in the 1970s. Rand's 1981 "Eye Bee M" poster and playful cover for the 1996 booklet The IBM Logo: Its Use in Company Identification demonstrates the he was prepared to divert from the original logo when a new (but related) design concept was called for.

"Bloomingdales Bag"

- For a while in the late seventies and early eighties, whether you went shopping at Saks, Barneys, or Bloomingdale's, you came home with the same thing: a bag designed by Massimo Vignelli. - Of the logos he designed for those three stores, the one for Bloomingdale's has endured. And no surprise: It's the simplest. Starting with the classic typeface Futura, Massimo trimmed the extraneous details, merged the double Os, and turned a cumbersome 13-letter word — a nightmare for most logo designers, trust me — into an elegant, stylish composition of lines and circles. - Rumor has it that the solution was completed minutes after the client had walked out the door; Massimo waited several weeks to reveal it in order to justify his fee. Whatever it was, Bloomingdale's got its money's worth.

1972 Munich Twentieth Olympiad

- For the 1972 Munich Twentieth Olympiad, the German designer Otl Aicher directed the design team. - Munich — Steven Spielberg - An identification manual established standards for use of the event's symbol, a radiant sunburst/spiral configuration centered beneath the Olympic rings and bracketed by two vertical lines. - Univers was selected as the typeface, and a system of publication grids was established. The color palate consisted of two blues, two greens, yellow, orange, and three neutral tones (black, white, grey).

"1971 NYC Subway map"

- Gave the subway system order - Heavily criticized - Organized on a grid - less is more - "no dot no stop" - Radical shift from traditional map to simplified diagram, which gave New York's antiquated transit system an air of modernity. - Combined with the new Helvetica type standards for signs and markings that Vignelli and Bob Noorda developed, the subway saw the light. - Vignelli envisioned an interrelated system of maps: - an overall system map - a geographical map indicating the relationship of the subway to the geography - a detailed neighborhood map to re-orient the traveler upon arrival at a new destination - a pocket map - and what Vignelli called a "verbal map" intended for the main stations that featured written directions from point A to point B in language that, he once told me, "Mama would use": Take train #6 to 59th Street, transfer to train RR, and get off at Times Square.

Georg Olden

- In 1945, he was hired to establish the CBS graphics department and design on-air visuals for its new television division. - Olden, the first African American to achieve prominence as a graphic designer, played a major role in defining the early development of television broadcast graphics for this fledgling medium. -To overcome the technical limitations of early television, Olden designed on-air graphics using simple symbolic imagery with an emphasis on concepts that quickly captured the essence of each program.

Design at CBS

- In New York, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) moved to the forefront in corporate identity due to the leadership of its president, Frank Stanton, who had trained as an architect and understood the potential of art and design in corporate affairs, and its art director, William Golden. - The CBS trademark, a pictograph of an eye designed by Golden, is one of the most successful trademarks of the twentieth century; however, consistency in how the trademark was used was not considered necessary to the effectiveness of the corporate identity.

"1968 Olympics Icons"

- Lance Wyman - 1968 - The system encompassed pictographic symbols for athletic and cultural events, formats for the Department of Publications, site identifications, directional signs for implementation by the Department of Urban Design throughout the city, informational posters, maps, and even postage stamps.

Lou Dorfsman

- Lou Dorfsman became art director for CBS Radio in 1946 and after several promotions was named vice president of CBS Corporation in 1968. - Dorfsman's design approach combined a pragmatic sense of effective communication with imaginative problem-solving presented in a straightforward and provocative manner. High-quality solutions to individual communications problems enabled him to project an exemplary image for the corporation.

"Unigrid system for the National Park Service"

- Massimo Vignelli (consulting designer), Vincent Gleason (art director), and Dennis McLaughlin (graphic designer) - 1977 - One of the most successful is the Unigrid system, developed in 1977 for the United States National Park Service by Vignelli Associates in collaboration with the Park Service Division of Publications. The Unigrid unified hundreds of informational folders used at about 350 national park locations; later, a format was developed for the Park Service's series of 150 handbooks.

The Federal Design Improvement Program

- May 1974 - Graphics Improvement Program - A sense of freedom in the guidelines - In response to a growing awareness that design could be an effective tool for achieving objectives, the United States government initiated the Federal Design Improvement Program - All aspects of federal design were upgraded under this program, including graphic design under the Graphics Improvement Program, which set out to improve the quality of visual communications and the ability of government agencies to communicate effectively to citizens. The federal prototype for a cohesive graphic standards system, which included a graphics standards manual with guidelines for visual identification and publication formats, was designed for the Department of Labor by John Massey. - Many leading designers in America were called upon to develop visual identification programs for over forty government agencies

" 2008 Beijing Olympics icons"

- Min Wang, designer, art director, design: Hang Hai, Wang Jie, and ARCOG at CAFA. - Pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, with borders. - The designs were inspired by calligraphic inscriptions of ancient Chinese seal script (zhan wen), oracle bone writing (jia gu wen), and bronzeware script (jin wen). - These scripts were adapted to create symbols for the Olympic sport that could be recognized by a vast and diverse audience.

Norman Ives

- One of the long neglected masters of corporate image design. His carefully constructed logos clearly reflect the teachings of one of his principal mentors, Josef Albers. He believed that a symbol, as "an image of a company, an institution, or idea...should convey with a clear statement or by suggestion, the activity it represents." He also charged that a logo should be memorable and legible, a "true gestalt, in which the psychological effect of the total image is greater than the sum of its parts would indicate."

"covers for the Munich Olympics Bulletin"

- Otl Aicher and team, - 1972 - An inventive variety is achieved with a consistent format. - Each poster had a wide expanse of one dominant posterized photo of an athletic competition - At the end of the modernist movement - Clear, lucid, delineation of the grid

Closed Identity System

- Otl Aicher believed a large organization could achieve a uniform corporate image and consistency of presentation by systematically controlling the diverse elements within the program. - An example of such a case was conceived and produced at the Ulm Institute of Design in 1962 when Aicher, Tomás Gonda, Fritz Querengässer, and Nick Roericht designed a highly systematic identity program for Lufthansa German Airlines. It anticipated every detail, from trademarks to uniforms, packaging, aircraft interiors and exteriors, and standardized paper formats, color schemes, typographic specifications, and the character of photographs to be used in ads and posters. - This program became a prototype for the closed identity system, which adhered to absolute conformity.

"page from the Lufthansa identity manual" (supercargo)

- Otl Aicher in collaboration with Tomás Gonda, Fritz Querengässer, and Nick Roericht - 1962 - The company's air freight service combined the crane icon with an isometric package and bold lines to create an arrow configuration. The supercargo double trademark gains weight through consistent line weight (image in power point)

"trademark for Minolta"

- Saul Bass & Associates - 1980 - blue sphere - readily understood - possesses recognizability and ambiguity - futuristic

AT&T computer graphics animation identification tag

- Saul Bass & Associates - 1984 - Spinning - nostalgic - looking to a quality of technological transmission of the time - computer graphic animation stands in for the network, the grid, best technology of the time (most advanced) - Bass designed a new mark to reposition the firm as a global communications company, rather than a national telephone system, with information bits circling the globe. This concept was expressed by making computer-graphics animation the identification tag for AT&T. (image in powerpoint)

The 1984 Los Angeles Twenty-third Olympiad

- Spearheaded by the architectural firm the Jerde Partnership and the environmental and graphic design firm Sussman/Prejza & Co. - Post-modernism - The design parameters allow diversity within a fixed range of possibilities.

Unimark Visual Identity Systems

- Unimark, an international design firm with forty-eight design offices throughout the world, was founded in Chicago in 1965 by a group of partners including Eckerstrom, James K. Fogelman, and Massimo Vignelli, Unimark's director of design and head of the New York office. - Unimark rejected individualistic design and sought objectivity through the use of the grid, a basic organizational structure set up to guide implementation of graphic communications. - Because it was considered the most legible type family, Helvetica was used for all Unimark visual identity systems. - The company established design programs for many large clients, including Alcoa, Panasonic, Steelcase, and Xerox. - The Knoll program, directed by Vignelli, set the standard for furniture industry graphics for years to come. - Massimo and Leila Vignelli founded Vignelli Associates in 1971 after Unimark closed its New York office. - The new firm continued to implement the ideals of the Unimark philosophy of rational order through the use of grid systems and emphasis on lucid and objective communication.

Raymond Loewy (ppt)

-Like Stanton, Raymond Loewy recognized the significance of comprehensive design systems and left an indelible mark on America's history of visual styling. - His streamlined aesthetic can be seen across a range of industrial products, packaging, architecture, interiors, and corporate identities; his aesthetic suggested speed, economy, and modernity. - He changed the way industrial designers engaged with corporate design culture by assuming more control over entire industrial and visual campaigns. For example, product designs for blue chip companies such as BP, Shell, Exxon, Nabisco, and Lucky Strike were not limited to packaging or industrial products but also included complete identity designs. Loewy also initiated a study of his audience—the public—as he aimed to define their needs and wants. This analysis affected the way he introduced designs into consumer culture.

Art Research Center for the Olympic Games (ARCOG)

A working group at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. Under the leadership of Wang Min, the center's design teams, including CAFA students, developed a comprehensive design system for the 2008 Olympic Games that included athletic pictographic symbols, the Beijing Games emblem and its applications, the design of medals, torch graphics, and extensive promotional and advertising graphics (Figs. 20-61 through 20-63).

Paul Rand (1914-96)

After playing a pivotal role in the evolution of American graphic and advertising design during the 1940s and early 1950s, he became more involved in trademark design and visual identification systems in the mid-1950s. The trademark for International Business Machines was developed from an infrequently used typeface called City Medium. The 1958 IBM annual report he designed established a standard for corporate literature (Figs. 20-15 through Fig. 20-19 and Figs. 20-22 through 20-25).

Massimo Vignelli

An Italian, _________ was born in Milan in 1931. It was there that he first studied art and architecture, un;l he came to America in 1957. In 1960, together with his wife Lella, he established the _________ Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. in 1971 they formed __________ Associates, and in 1978,__________ Designs. His work covers nearly every field of design including advertising, identity, packaging, product, industrial, interior and architectural design. An avid fan of modernism, his work is always very clear and concise with no clutter or unnecessary material.

Unimark

An international design firm founded in Chicago in 1965 by a group of partners including Ralph Eckerstrom, James K. Fogleman, and Massimo Vignelli. They rejected individualistic design and believed that design could be a system of basic structures set up so that other people could implement it effectively. The basic tool for this effort was the grid, which standardized all graphic communications for dozens of large Unimark clients, including Alcoa, Ford Motor Company, JCPenney, Memorex, Panasonic, Steelcase, and Xerox (Fig. 20-38).

Design Systems for the Olympic Games

Another milestone in the evolution of graphic design and information systems was reached by the Olympic Games, at which international and multilingual audiences had to be directed and informed. Among the many outstanding efforts were the design programs for 1968 Mexico City Nineteenth Olympiad, under the direction of American graphic designer Lance Wyman and British industrial designer Peter Murdoch.

Lou Dorfsman (1918-2008)

Became art director for CBS Radio in 1946. He combined conceptual clarity with a straightforward and provocative visual presentation. Typography and image were arranged in well-ordered relationships that used blank space as a design element. The high quality of his solutions to communications problems during his four decades with CBS enabled him to project an exemplary image for the corporation. He was named director of design for the entire CBS Corporation in 1964 and vice president in 1968, in keeping with Stanton's philosophy that design is a vital area that should be managed by professionals (Fig. 20-9).

Massimo Vignelli (b. 1931)

Began as a partner at Unimark, and when the New York office closed, founded Vignelli Associates with Leila Vignelli in 1971 (Fig. 20- 38).

Saul Bass/Herb Yeager & Associates

Believed a trademark must be readily understood yet possess elements of metaphor and ambiguity that will attract the viewer again and again. Many of Bass's trademarks, such as those for Minolta and AT&T, have become important cultural icons (Figs. 20-31 and 20-32).

Lester Beall (1903-69)

During the last two decades of his career, he created pioneering corporate identity programs for many corporations, including Martin Marietta, Connecticut General Life Insurance, and the International Paper Company, which he co-designed with Richard Rodgers. He also contributed to the development of the corporate identity manual, specifically prescribing the permissible uses and forbidden abuses of the trademark (Figs. 20-26 and 20-27).

Vignelli Associates

Founded by Massimo and Leila Vignelli in 1971. They developed the Unigrid system in 1977 for the United States National Park Service in collaboration with the Park Service Division of Publications, headed by Vincent Gleason (Fig. 20-40).

Thomas H. Geismar

Headed a committee of five prominent graphic designers to act as evaluators of and advisers for the creation of a master set of thirty-four passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities for the Department of Transportation (Fig. 20-43).

Giovanni Pintori (1912-98)

Hired by Adriano Olivetti to join the publicity department of the Olivetti Corporation. The logotype he designed for Olivetti in 1947 consisted of the name in lowercase sans-serif letters, slightly letterspaced. Identity was achieved not through a systematic design program but through the general visual appearance of promotional graphics. In one of his more celebrated posters, Olivetti's mission is subtly implied by a collage created solely from numbers and the company logo (Fig. 20-2).

Georg Olden (1920-75)

Hired by CBS in 1945 to establish a graphics department to design on-air visuals for its new television division. During his fifteen-year tenure at CBS, he played a major role in defining the early development of television broadcast graphics. He designed on-air graphics from the center out, using simple symbolic imagery with strong silhouettes and linear properties. Emphasis was placed on concepts that quickly captured the essence of each program, using the connotative power of simple signs, symbols, and images. Olden was the first African American to achieve prominence as a graphic designer, and in 1963 the United States Postal Service commissioned him to design a postage stamp for the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (Fig. 20-8).

Herbert Matter

In 1954, Patrick McGinnis, the president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, launched a short-lived but highly visible corporate design program. McGinnis believed a contemporary logo and design program would project a modern and progressive image to industry and passenger alike. ____________________ was commissioned to design the new trademark, and Marcel Breuer was commissioned to design the interiors and exteriors of the new trains. Unfortunately, financial problems forced the corporate identity program to come to an abrupt halt.

Federal Design Improvement Program

Initiated in May 1974 by the United States government in response to a growing awareness that design could be an effective tool for achieving objectives. This initiative was coordinated by the Architectural and Environmental Arts Program (later renamed the Design Arts Program) of the National Endowment for the Arts. Under the direction of JeromePerlmutter, this program set out to improve the quality of visual communications and the ability of government agencies to communicate effectively to citizens.

Cook and Shanosky Associates

The company in Princeton, New Jersey started by Roger Cook and Don Shanosky, who designed and drew the final set of thirty-four passenger- and pedestrian-oriented symbols for use in transportation facilities for the Department of Transportation (Fig. 20-43).

Muriel Cooper (1925-94)

She had two careers—the first as a print designer for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) publications and books and the second as founder and director of the Visible Language Workshop (VLW). She designed more than five hundred books, including the seminal 1969 Bauhaus by Hans Wingler, which is perhaps her most well-known design. Her goal was to move graphic design from form to content—to be able to create clear, compelling communication that could be plucked and digested from an ocean of print and the electronic sea of the World Wide Web (Figs. 20-33 and 20-34).

Adriano Olivetti (1901-70)

Son of the founder, he became president of the Olivetti Corporation in 1938. He had a keen sense of the contribution that graphic, product, and architectural design could make to an organization.

Chermayeff & Geismar (textbook)

The firm moved to the forefront of the corporate identity movement in 1960 with a comprehensive visual image program for the Chase Manhattan Bank of New York. One of its most far-reaching corporate design programs was for Mobil Oil, in which the name became the trademark, with the round, red o separating it from the visual presentation of other words. Rather than maintaining design consistency from project to project, the company allowed each solution to evolve from its problem (Figs. 20-28 through 20-30).

Otl Aicher (Munich)

The 1962 Lufthansa German Airlines identification system was conceived and produced at the Ulm Institute of Design by this designer in collaboration with Tomás Gonda, Fritz Querengässer, and Nick Roericht. Aicher believed a large organization could achieve a uniform, and thus significant, corporate image (Figs. 20-35 and 20-36). He also directed the design team for the 1972 Twentieth Olympiad in Munich, Germany (Figs. 20-52 through 20-54).

Lance Wyman (b. 1937)

The American designer hired as director of graphic design for the Nineteenth Olympiad (Figs. 20-47 through 20-50).

William Golden (1911-59)

The CBS art director for almost two decades. He brought uncompromising visual standards and a keen insight to the communications process. The quality and intelligence of each successive design solution enabled CBS to establish an ongoing and successful corporate identity (Fig. 20-6).

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez (1919-2013)

The Mexican architect who chaired the organizing committee of the Nineteenth Olympiad. Realizing that an effective information system encompassing environmental directions, visual identification, and publicity was needed, he assembled an international design team, with American Lance Wyman as director of graphic design and British industrial designer Peter Murdoch as director of special products.