American Trademark Designs: A Survey of Seven Hundred and Thirty Two Marks Logos and Corporate Identity Symbols

By Barbara Baer Capitman

Book Overview

This collection of 732 American trademarks and symbols is widely representative of major past and current trends in American trademark design. The marks are arranged in categories that include entertainment, education, real estate, insurance, food and beverage, retailing, transportation, utilities, heavy industry, and others, and are chosen from local and internationally known examples.
Reprinted in black-and-white, the marks appear here in their standard form on signs, letterheads, book bindings, T-shirts, sugar bags, household appliances, bank checks, drinking cups, coasters, screened commercials and printed ads, ashtrays, clothing labels, shopping bags, awnings, and so on. For several current trademarks, earlier versions are also illustrated and dated, tracing trademark genealogies of possible interest both as history and design. Captions identify the trademarks, giving year of design, and, when known, the name of the designer. The editor in her introduction describes the development of American trademarks from Ralston Purina's homespun "checkerboard square" to the Cities Service corporate "triangle." Notes on the specialized uses and requirements of various kinds of marks introduce each section.
This is a remarkable sourcebook for graphic artists, students, and commercial designers. Social psychologists, market researchers, and others interested in group behavior may find it the starting point of ideas and experiments. This book also has a curious fascination as browsing, illustrating at a glance how familiar, memorable, and widespread trademarks seem to be.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 048623259X
• ISBN13: 9780486232591
• Release Date: June 1976
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.4" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

My industrial designer father thought it was great.

My father did a lot of corporate identities back in the 1960's so I bought this book just to see if any of his trademarks might have found their way into this book. None of them did, but I showed this book to my father and he really liked it, so I gave it to him.

Good reference

Bear in mind this book is in black and white, but it is a good reference for logo designers and it is cheap! There isn't much commentary, but you are told who did each of the designs.

Influences upon the Consumer Mindset

Sometimes, when I'm a bit bored and need something to occupy my mind, I find myself flipping through the American Trademark Designs armada of listings. I personally like to try and find things that I've seen here and there, slickly hidden in various venues that are passed every day, in hopes of understanding many of those truly unique advertising campaigns.While a bit on the outdated side now (1976 was its original printing year), it still has has a useful 732 trademarks, logos, and corporate symbols depicted on its 149 pages. Added to this is the fact that, even though the illustrations are in black and white, the book actually goes to the trouble of footnoting the colors and many of the meanings behind some of the symbology. Its broken down into sections, listing :1)Entertainment, leisure, sports 2)Civic institutions and Education 3)Finance, insurance4) Food and Beverages5) Miscellaneous Consumer Products, Paper Products, Drugs, Toys 6) Retailers7) Printing, Publishing and other service industries8) Real Estate and Construction9) Transportation10) Utilities, oil, and heavy industryBesides being a wonderful sociological piece, this book helps out if you want to know how long a companies been profiteering off the public, what that mesh of pictures flying by on that bus/billborad actually is, as well as if that really is someone (edited to keep a G rating) in that little logo. Recommended for people who like understanding the industrial mindset when presenting themselves to the public.

soul chasin`funk with a bag o`disko in the trunk!

this lovely piece of art, works as my bible. Whenever I`m out of ideas or inspiration, I reach for this one. page after page of corporate nostalgica.Wanna groove ? This one`ll make you move! Kowalski.Givin` you the black man`s sound, in a white man`s town !