The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977

Where were we going with this?

Don't ask me. By this time (1977) Stan Calderwood had been long gone, Bill Field was back home in Santa Fe, and I was dealing with yet another art director after his successor left. Products kept appearing out of left field such as this one above which I've mercifully blotted from memory. Yes, it's my design and I suppose I should apologize for it.

I did manage to get my teeth into this project which was created to cozy up to independent camera stores, otherwise long ignored while Polaroid concentrated on major market distributors. I guess no one was paying a lot of attention so I was able to get away with naming store owners CPSs or Certified Polaroid Specialists on their phony diplomas. Click on image to enlarge.

By this time Polaroid was falling upon hard times. Phone lines were being eliminated and for the first time I had to make phone calls to Accounts Payable to ask for payment of my invoices. The bean counters had taken over and it was evident that things would never be the same again.

Polaroid OneStep packaging prototypes, 1977

The design plot thickens as Polaroid product engineers crank out more and more camera models to hit all the price points in the photographic market. Someone decided that the face plate of the camera should carry the Polaroid color stripes because the ad brass decided to do their own corporate design in-house and the color stripes would be part of the identity program. I was not invited to contribute to this very significant overhaul. Since the product used the same film as the SX-70 I kept that mark on the box. Then I found out that Sales didn't want it (for whatever reason) and I came up with this version, below. It got shot down as well. Click on the image for an enlargement.

This, below, is my final and accepted prototype. You can see sell copy beginning to appear on the top of the box. It was becoming obvious that my influence had waned considerably and there was no Stan Calderwood to call off the in-house attack dogs. (Just by itself, the political intrigue at Polaroid in 1977 would take pages to describe and we won't go there.) Click on image for enlargement.

Polaroid Pronto! camera line

Sometime in 1976 I got the word that the in-house packaging guys had come up with some new concepts for the boxes that had been developed after some recent crash-tests. So it was back to the drawing board, the typesetter, darkroom, light table and Cromalin to come up with kindred designs such as the one shown above, and two dummies, shown directly below. Click on images below for enlargements.

The Polaroid Pronto! line of cameras and accessories

Click on image to enlarge. These are the packages for a whole new line of cameras that made their appearance in 1976 called Pronto! The marketing was a repeat of what Stan Calderwood had done with the less expensive one-piece plastic Colorpacks that sold for a lot less than the folding Color Packs. Pronto!s were a down-market molded plastic version of the already successful SX-70, but with a name that could be remembered throughout the world. The product identity design still says SX-70 but with a twist. As an inexpensive product that would probably be stacked in large outlets, I strove for a design that would create a strong and unique image.

By this time I had invested in precise typesetting equipment made by Berthold. The output from a glass disk was so sharp that a character could be enlarged up to a meter or more without soft edges. To enhance this capability I installed a Dupont Cromalin proofing system that allowed me to make perfect dummies of items such as the Pronto! kit shown here. This photo was made from the dummy shown below that, once approved by Polaroid, could be used for sales promotional collateral material allowing much more lead time than the conventional method of waiting for press proofs and shooting them.

Click on image to enlarge. This is the dummy made from Cromalin proofs produced from extremely sharp film positives that I had assembled on a light table in the way negatives are stripped up to make offset plates. I had also used 3M Color-Keys but they could not be used for dummy construction, nor could they approximate the real thing when photographed. The dummy is sitting on top of a conventional ready-for-camera mechanical from which the box printer made his plates.

Polaroid SX-70 Family of Package Design by Paul Giambarba

Click on images for enlargement. A year later in 1973, I got the assignment to design the graphics for an accessory kit for the SX-70 that included a panel to identify the individual accessories and how they might be used. Polaroid's in-house packaging people did the structural designing for the box, working with their folding box vendor. By 1975 the SX-70 family had grown considerably and I had to come up with design variations without compromising the original look.

SX-70 kick-off

This is the press kit that was sent out to announce the introduction of the Polaroid SX-70. The layout and type selection were done in-house. I would not have chosen Times Bold as the typeface. It's a personal thing, but it looks a bit clumsy to me. The escapement between the numerals 7 and 0 is much too tight. Kiss-fits, as they were called in those days, were very much in vogue. This is not good typesetting because the SX looks normal and the 70 is too tight. Picky, picky.

TIME broke the SX-70 story on 26 June 1972 with a heroic cover photo of Land focusing the camera.
LIFE followed later with its own cover for its 27 October 1972 issue and called Land a genius. Each book had several pages of editorial about the inventor and the product.

The Nicest Compliment a Designer Can Get

This lovely lady from Mt. Vernon, NY, sent this note to Polaroid and it found its way back to Sales and Advertising, and eventually as a Xerox copy to me. A phone call determined that she didn't even own a Polaroid camera. Apparently she liked the package design so much she bought the film anyway and thereupon sent back the contents of the boxes.

She ends her note with, "Thank you for adding a little color to my life." Bless you, S.V.M. of Mt. Vernon, NY.

The ubiquitous SX-70 film box

The SX-70 film process owes its existence to Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady and wife of President Lyndon B. Lady Bird became aware of the trash in our National Parks created by the expended tabs of the original Polaroid film and requested that Polaroid Corporation invent a neater picture process. They did and the rest, as they say,
is history.

What you probably didn't know is that within a few years of its introduction it ranked Number One in dollar sales in drugstores, creating more cash flow than Kodak Instant Film or Kodacolor II film, which followed in order as numbers two and three.

In Unit Sales it was number eight compared to number six for Kodacolor II, but significantly ahead of Kodak Instant Film which is not shown on the chart (it was number fourteen).

The article is from and copyright by The New York Times of 01 August 1980. Click on image to enlarge.

Introduction of the Polaroid SX-70, 1972

Having mentioned the SX-70 just below, I think I should cut to the chase and upload this photo of the entire line at the time. The film box is just left of front and center, the camera boxes which include a Model 2 flank a host of accessory items. Click on the image for an enlargement.

The word came down from on high that Land insisted on a white box, so we did a white box. For those (and there were more than a few) who complained of the simple solution, I countered that only Chanel managed to keep packaging this clean and identifiable over a whole range of products.

For those others who would argue that Polaroid might possibly have too many images, would have been better to use existing graphics and set in large type: A NEW system of photography?

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I thought you might like to know that I'm running another printing of the book, shown here. It's 180 pages in black and white plus full color covers on coated stock, 7-3/8 x 9-1/8 inches (cm 18.8 x23.5) with square "perfect" binding and it contains a lot more information than is here on the web log. There are five pages of photos of my studio workshop and another six of designs that influenced me plus a full color sheet of the Iconography of the Polaroid mark from 1958 to 1977.

The cost is only US$30.00 which includes $5.00 shipping within the USA or Canada, or US$35.00 which includes $10.00 for shipping elsewhere. Payment can be made to giam at aol.com via PayPal using your credit card or PayPal account. Or you can send a check or an international money order to PAUL GIAMBARBA, P.O. BOX 1795, Mashpee MA 02649-1795, USA.
Allow three to four weeks for delivery. Please advise if you would like me to sign the book for you.

Click on image to enlarge it.

Polaroid Square Shooter Plus, 1974

This was another curve thrown at us. First there were the Polaroid Colorpacks, cameras that used rectangular format film. Then in an economy move, the Polaroid Square Shooters, which used less expensive (and smaller) square format film. Now, we were told, the engineers had come up with a camera that used BOTH film formats. A great concept, but what will work to create product identity?

Above is my solution. I think it solved the problem and created a very striking image, especially when stacked in any number of configurations. This product came after the Polaroid SX-70 (1972). I place it here to continue with the evolution of the color stripes and god's-eye product identity. Click on image for enlargement.