Collated by Richard Baird, founder of LogoArchive, the world’s largest historical logo book, and of LogoHistories, home to 200+ in-depth logo histories.
A logo is only the beginning. Corporate identity is the system around it: the typefaces, colours, rules and manuals that keep a company recognisable across vehicles, packaging, buildings and print.
This collection brings together case studies and essays on how identity programmes were built and managed, from IBM, Olivetti and British Rail to NASA’s unified visual communications system, alongside reflections on design coordination, opinion research and the standards manual.
For the logos at the heart of these programmes, explore our collections on Paul Rand, Chermayeff & Geismar, Lippincott & Margulies and Unimark, or the other Magazine collections on trademark design and legendary designers and studios.
Key Takeaways
Identity is a system
The most successful programmes extended a mark into typefaces, colours and rules that could be applied consistently everywhere.
Manuals made consistency possible
Standards manuals translated a design vision into instructions that thousands of people inside a company could follow.
Identity reflects strategy
Many of these case studies show identity work beginning with research into how a company was seen, not with drawing a logo.
Go behind the logos. Explore 200+ in-depth and meticulously researched logo histories revealing the designers, design decisions and ideas behind the world’s most iconic logos and important brand identities.
Continue reading to discover all 16 articles in this collection →
IBM – International Business Machines, 1974
Since 1956 IBM – its full company style is International Business Machines Corporation – has had a corporate design programme directed at maintaining a high level of quality in all the company's visual expressions. The programme encompasses architecture, interiors, products, graphics, exhibitions and films. Three outside consultants have worked continuously on the programme together with IBM designers and management people: Eliot Noyes, Consultant Director of Design; Paul Rand, graphics consultant; and Charles Eames, consultant for films and exhibitions. The consultants set quality standards and act as teachers, critics and evaluators.
A3 Corporate Communications of Olivetti, 1979
Motoo Nakanishi wrote this foreword in April 1978 for the book A3 Design Systems for Corporations: Corporate Communications of Olivetti 1. I selected this as it touches on corporate social responsibility, which was highly progressive for the time.
British Rail Design, 1986
British Railways have made design-history more than once. First, they invented the thing and developed it into a system. Robert Stephenson gave train and track their basic shape. Isambard Kingdom Brunel conceived and built the Great Western Railway as an entity including trains, tunnels, bridges, buildings and steam-boats. In the beginning of this century, Frank Pick shaped London Transport into what it still is: The prototype of total public design and an example to be followed ever since.
Towards the space graphics, 1977
This article was first published in issue 68 of Japanese magazine ‘Graphic Design’. The images that accompany this article were black and white, so have been illustrated here by drawing on the NASA brand guidelines developed by Bruce blackburn, Danne & Blackburn.
Corporate identity of two airline companies on the U.S. West Coast, 1974
The father and son were from a south European country. The father, who had been watching the jet airliner move toward the runway from the window of the airliner, was naming out loud the airlines of the airliners that could be seen from the window to his pre-school son, "KLM, PanAm, Cathay, Philippines Airlines..." Watching the father and son from a nearby seat, I thought that this was a most modern educational scene. It was just a variation of a father teaching his son the names of horse-drawn carriages such as "Caleche, Surrey, Top Buggy and Phaeton" or, about ten years ago, the names of cars such as "Falcon, Cougar, Barracuda and Impala."
The Importance of Corporate Communication, 1984
Here, in an article published in Minolta CI Story, 1984, Hirowo Itow writes about the importance of corporate communication.
From up here we can see the change
This is an introduction to the Land Registry brand identity designed by North in 2003, taken from a copy of the corporate identity guidelines.
The SPD's Election Campaign, 1977
In this article from Idea 142, 1977, Shigeru Watano writes about Helmut Schmid’s campaign identity for the SPD’s 1977 election.
The people, the place, the point of view
In this article, published in Idea Archive 01, 1979, Saul Bass & Associates introduce the people, the place and the point of view behind the studio.
Shaping the corporate image, 1970
This is the first part of a three-part introduction to The Corporate Search for Visual Identity written by author Ben Rosen.
Design Coordination and Corporate Image, 1967
Here are three sections taken from an extended introduction to corporate image written by FHK Henrion and Alan Parkin for their book Design Coordination and Corporate Image, published in 1967.
Thoughts of and a vow for corporate identity, 1984
This is an introduction to Corporate Design International written by Wolfgang Schmittel and offering thoughts on corporate identity.
A Quest for Identity, 1991
This is an introduction to Sudarshan Dheer’s book Symbols, Logos and Trademarks, 1500 Outstanding Design from India. Rose DeNeve reflects on how India designers are heirs to two traditions: an ‘ancient attitude’ deeply imbedded in the national psyche and the legacy of the Bauhaus.
Design & Social Change, 1974
A good deal of the social change that has occurred in the world recently has developed, I think, because we are all so much closer together, thanks to modern transportation. We can get to know the people and the lifestyles all over the world, and this is bound to change our thinking and - best of all - to keep us more aware, more alert, and to enable us to learn from each other.
Opinion research - A creative process, 1971
This section is taken from ‘A management guide to corporate identity’, published in 1971 by the Council of Industrial Design, edited by John E. Blake.
Standards Manuals, 1989
In this piece from 1989, Eugene J. Grossman writes about the importance of corporate identification standards manuals.
Go behind the logos. Explore 200+ in-depth and meticulously researched logo histories revealing the designers, design decisions and ideas behind the world’s most iconic logos and important brand identities.