Corporate Identity & Visual Systems:

Identity of large organization can be created or redefined by design
-Design was seen as a major way to shape a reputation for quality and reliability
Design at CBS
-Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) of NYC moved to the forefront of corporate
identity design as a result of 2 vital assets: CBS president Frank Stanton & William
Golden
-Golden designed one of the most successful trademarks of the 20th century for CBS
(the CBS eye) which also represented to larger management community that a
contemporary graphic mark could compete successfully with more traditional illustrative
or alphabetic trademarks.
-CBS’ philosophy was that design was to be managed and that the corporate design be
able to shift with the company’s needs and evolving sensibilities.
Corporate Identification
-Paul Rand believed that trademark should be reduced to elementary shapes that are
universal, visually unique & stylistically timeless
-Rand created trademark for IBM & later Rand updated the logo to include stripes to
unify the letterforms and evoke scan lines on video terminals
-IBM design was flexible enough to avoid stifling of creativity of designers
-Rand was further commissioned for Westinghouse Corporation, and developed a
typeface for them & worked for ABC and created their trademark
-Chermayeff & Geismar Associates responsible for visual image program for the
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York where sans-serif type was used and where
consistency & uniformity in the application of both logo and letterform enabled
redundancy to become third element
- C&G Associates produced more than one hundred corporate design programs
-Saul Bass created trademark for Minolta & redesigned Bell trademark
-*Muriel Cooper designed more than 500 books (i.e. Bauhaus by Hans Wingler) and
worked as a print designer for MIT publications
-Cooper was able to use powerful beta site computers at MIT which made her the first
graphic designer to use new media and 3-D text
-Cooper’s ultimate goal was to move graphic design from form to content; to be able to
create clear, compelling communication for Internet & was founder of MIT Media Lab
(the most advanced new graduate research program on new media in the world)
Unigrid: unified informational folders used at national park locations and is based on
simple basic elements: ten format sizes, broadside or full-sheet presentation of the
folders, master grid, etc. and typography was limited to Helvetica & Times Roman
Olympics
-1968, 72 & 84 games started evolution of trademark
-The theme was “The young of the world united in friendship through understanding”
-The trademark five rings were created by American Lance Wyman and was based on
Mexican art but was meant to create a completely unified design system that could be
understood from anyone
-Scores of designers and design firms produced Olympic graphics & environments
conforming to the design guide developed by the principal design firms
MTV
-Logo was commissioned to Manhattan Design, a NYC studio known for independent
risk taking and was comprised of Pat Gorman, Frank Olinsky & Patti Rogoff
-All had fine arts background and each influenced by comic book art.
-Gorman wrote the TV and Olinsky created the 3D “M”
-Because the trademark was versatile, the group created 100 different versions to pitch
-Gorman believed that MTV logo “changed the face, the idea, & the speed of graphic
design”
-MTV logo was one of the first to introduce motion graphics on TV and animated graphic
messages