Reading 2....Response

Corporate Identity and Visual Systems

“A symbol is an image of a company, an institution or an idea that should convey with a clear statement or by suggestion the activity it represents...” 

This reading was a little confusing at some points, it seemed to skip from company to company pretty quickly and just giving brief descriptions. I really enjoyed reading about Paul Rand and Saul Bass. I think overall the article was interesting. It emphasized a lot on how a simple pictographic or identity can stick in someones mind just by being very metaphorical and simple. I really liked how at the end of the article they spoke about the idea of the Olympics and how making icons universal so anybody who isn’t blind but maybe deaf could see this icon and know exactly what it means, it was a very good communication skill also for those who did not speak the language of the country that the Olympics were in that year.

“Good design is good business” - To me this meant that if there is a good design, the audience who are the viewers would want to either buy the design or get a point across that influences the company and helps it in a positive way.

My favourite quote from this entire article is “Just when you’re beginning to get bored with what you have done is probably the time it is beginning to be noticed by your audience." This is so true! It is saying that if you yourself, the designer is getting bored of your design, thats a sign that the design is either becoming out of date or the viewers aren’t enjoying looking at it any longer and therefore it is time for a change. This is the best way to fix your designs, pretend you’re the audience viewing it.

- Before the 1700s, people trusted each other and didn’t feel the need to ‘imprint’ their mark on their designs.
- Camillo Olivetti - Founder of Olivetti Corporation in 1908
- Adriano (son of Camillo) - became president of the foundry and hired Pintori
- Giovanni Pintori - Was hired in 1936, he put his “personal” stamp on Olivetti’s graphic images

- CBS - Columbia Broadcasting System.
- President Frank Stanton and art director William Golden.
- Used many pictographics and surrealism in their designs for the company.
- Wouldn’t use the company signature if it didn’t match the design look.
- Golden made sure the designers had a sense of responsibility and an understanding of the function of their work.
- Design = Verb.
- Television was becoming a very fast paced medium and because of this the company knew it was going to grow in the next 5 years or so.
- Olden was the first African American designer due to the United States Postal
- Service who first commissioned him to design a postage stamp for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this was a huge campaign and he became well known very fast.
- As the company changes over time and continues the designers and designs also have to change and transform. New perspectives and ideas reflect on the business and this creates a better outlook. 
- Raymond Loewy was the man to recognise the significance of comprehensive design systems.
- Loewy used much of his personality to influence his design work.
- Also designed major industrial brands.
- Took note of what his audience wanted by studying his audience and doing specific analysis.

- A symbol should be universal, visually unique and timeless...this meaning it never ages.
- During Paul Rand’s IMB logo, he used metaphoric pictures to represent the letters.
- By having the logo on packaging this emphasis the usage of the logo also how well it can be applicable to other forms of design.
- The specific medium that the designer uses says a lot about the actual design, it shows a lot about the actual corporate-identity itself.
- A corporate-identity manual was created and the aim of this was to “provide management with a strong mark that could be readily adapted to an immense variety of applications.”
- Letterforms and symbols were altered to create a unique design.
- Consistency and uniformity in the application is extremely important.
- Different symbols that a successful logo portrays places a ‘stamp’ like image in the viewers mind.
- Muriel Cooper - First designer to create new electronic media as 3D text.
- The design must not go out of ‘date or time’, it must have a continuity affect on the society.
- Unimark - This is an international design firm that grew to 48 different offices around the world.
- Unimark rejected individual design and believed design was more of a system.
- Massimo and Vignelli were two incredible typographers, they were part of the
- Unimark corporation but then branched off into their own company called Vignelli associates.
- The focused very heavily on typography and this enhanced dramatically due to the period in time.

- Major international events, large airports and other transportation facilities have pictographic signage.
- Pictographic signage is an incredibly amazing way to communicate important information and directions quickly and simply.
- Pictographic signage is universal and consistent worldwide, therefore anyone should be able to read it and understand it.
- Many large corporation use pictographic signage.

- The Olympic games also use pictographic signage.
- This was a huge hit and very applicable, it could be on tickets, billboards, uniforms or even ‘giant balloons’.