Polaroid – Before and After – 1957 and 1958

Americans learned how to pronounce this tricky name, though it may have taken some half a century to do so. Like nuclear, a word that some of our presidents have never learned to say, Polaroid often came out poyle-a-rode. It had its origins in the polarization process for which Edwin Land and his associates produced material used in World War II. There's much more to it than that, but that's the short answer.
It's the brand name we were forced to work with. If you think this is bad, wait until you see the packaging on the pages that follow.

The logo above, in use until 1958, has been set in a typeface in which the lower case a is barely distinguishable from a lower case o. My simple solution was to set it in the only decent sans serif face that was available to us at the time, News Gothic. Restrained and classy, News Gothic is also distinctly American, one of several faces designed by the great type designer, Morris Fuller Benton (1872 - 1948) and cut by American Type Founders Co. There were other versions of this face, most common substitute being Trade Gothic, Mergenthaler's linotype product identifed as "after M.F. Benton." I specified the ATF version from Boston's best typesetter, H.G. McMennamin.