Corporate Identities and International Style

Image and Identity Systems

By the 1950s the entire way business was conducted had changed.  Business now had multiple divisions and activities.  These corporations hired graphic designers to help with the branding so that they could be recognizable in different nations across the world.  A unified image allowed the corporation to exude authority and reliability.  The work of the graphic designer did not only include layout, composition, and style choices but it now also included slogans, catch phrases, logotypes, and other compact messages that the corporation needed.  There were many more opportunities for the graphic designers to show off their work: corporate reports, annual financial achievements, and other materials were not the responsibility of the graphic designer.

International Style

The Swiss style used clean and neutral forms which were perfectly suited for the nature of the new business patterns and models.  There was emphasis on the grid structure as well as the use of objective photography and sans serif type.  The aim was to create clean, direct, and clear images.  Some critics found this new style to be too formulaic and predictable.  However the International Style proved to be durable and functional in many different situations.  

1.  A manual designed with International Style.  Clear grid system is applied.

Technology

As technology evolved, many of the graphic designers began to utilize more of the photographic means of production.  Still graphic designers were trained to hand letter type and create thumbnails with pencil and ink, however, handwork became a sign of eccentricity.  Individualism vanished in the photographic production of type, images, and layouts.  American TV and film industry blossomed in the 1950-1960s and new markets for graphic designers opened.  Graphic work entered a new time based media and no longer confined to the page.

Industrially produced elements such as the transfer type, screen patterns became available for the graphic designers.  Also phototypesetting offered lower costs and yielded more flexibility than traditional metal type.  Designers were now beginning to experiment with the possibility of electronic type as well.  There was a newfound freedom with phototype.  No longer were designers constrained with the metal lines any longer.  

Other improvements with the photographic technologies allowed images prepared photographically to have finer details and tighter registration.  Process color became common and high quality, low-cost color printing was widely available.  Photo offest was becoming the norm and graphic possibilities seemed liberating compared to earlier relief printing methods.

2.  A phototypesetter's work station.

The Profession

As the corporate and civic organizations created their in-house design teams, the role of the designer continued to broaden as well.  Charged with coordinating campaigns, designers no grappled with the intangible but essential concepts.  The formulaic publications relied heavily on the cover designs to attract the attention of potential readers at the newsstand.  Branding often included single word typography as well as designing for gender, interest, and activity defined by the publication.

Glossary

Functionalism - an attitude according to which the effective operation of an object, space, or communication is of paramount value in its design; a principle of early twentieth-century movements that applied art to design problems and ran counter to art-for-art's-sake's embrace of purposelessness.

Identity - a unique profile for a group or enterprise, designed to be established in the public mind or marketplace through formal devices, such as logos and slogans.

International Typographic Style - an approach to design premised on the conviction that formal choices and effects could be governed by rational principles that transcended historical and cultural frameworks.

Logotype - two or more letters cast as a single graphic on the same block.

Universal language - the idea of a form of expression that could be understood by all people regardless of their native tongue and that would accurately encode knowledge in a systematic way.

Universal style - an approach to design based on the presumption that the truth of certain formal principles do not depend on history or culture but is shared by all human societies and could be articulated as a logical ideal.