Heading in the right direction

Anspach Grossman Portugal’s 1975 logo and corporate identity for Citibank.

Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York and later came to be known as the First National City Bank of New York. The creation of Citicorp, a holding company, in 1968 began a trend amongst the larger banks as they expanded into new areas of business.

Citibank's need for a corporate identity (CI) program in the mid-1970s arose from the increasing complexity and diversity of its business and confusion around its name. Although many of its international customers referred to the bank as Citibank in New York City its retail branches were known as First National City Bank.

Under the guidance of Citibank's Ed Dooley, Advertising and Marketing, and Jack Odette, Communication Design, the New York design firm Anspach Grossman Portugal was invited to develop the new corporate identity for the bank. This intended to eliminate the discontinuity between the bank in New York and its operations abroad. With the introduction of the CI all the bank’s operations, which included retail, international and merchant banking, would be consolidated globally under a single name.

Leading the Anspach Grossman Portugal team would be Eugene Grossman with Dan Friedman responsible for generating many of the logo ideas and the final design.

Building on the heritage and recognition of what was known as one of the most well-recognised graphic symbols in the banking world, the globe and compass rose, Dan Friedman explored new interpretations. Ideas included introducing dimensional effects, a sense of rotation and different versions of the compass rose.