Customer Reviews

American Trademark Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive S.)

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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.

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While a bit on the outdated side now (1976 was its original printing year), it still has has a useful 732 trademarks, logos, and corporate symbols depicted on its 149 pages.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, insurance
4) Food and Beverages
5) Miscellaneous Consumer Products, Paper Products, Drugs, Toys
6) Retailers
7) Printing, Publishing and other service industries
8) Real Estate and Construction
9) Transportation
10) Utilities, oil, and heavy industry

Besides 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.

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.

As a designer, how many really great logo books have you found over the years? My guess is next to none. What makes this book so great is that you can visually see the evolution of visual identities. The true power of design come across when you see logos that have stood the test of time, or my favorite - when you notice how people have recycled the same ideas and passed them off as original designs thinking that nobody would ever notice. I use this book in all of the classes I teach because I think it's a great example of when design was exemplary and had thought behind it. Of course many are dated but that just adds to the interest behind the evolution of our culture. Bonus: no gradations, transparencies, or faux-three dimensional globes within. Maybe some "branding" firms should pick this up and study what good design truly was - a solid identity and the ingenuity of how to market it. There was no "branding."

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 !