The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977

A Shameless Self-Serving Announcement

(Thanks to son Allan Wright for this photo.) CBS's Dan Sieberg is pointing out the Polaroid package design that was in use before I tackled the assignment. Scroll down to find it.

Sunday morning, 17 February 2008.

It's a grab shot from TV just taken an hour ago. That's the blog on the screen in the background. Below, my congenial interviewer and CBS Science and Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg mentioned how simple my designs were and I responded "You know long it takes to do simple? About ten times longer than fast and dirty." The last two words were cut probably because fast and dirty is too much of an inside joke among designers and ad people to describe their frustration with clients who invariably want everything yesterday.

Anthony Laudato (scroll to image 07) was the production manager on the shoot. It was his phone call on last Wednesday that made it all happen.

Friday, 15 February 2008.

I spent yesterday, Valentines Day, getting myself up to the Harvard Business School, among all the banners promoting its 100th Anniversary, for a taping by CBS news relating to the future of the Polaroid name. After two hours of trying to remember to smile -- as requested by my dear wife -- the interview ended with my being awfully tired of listening to myself talk. Alas, the long-suffering crew of very considerate young men who had a Polaroid story to put together so they had to persist with their questions in order to cut and edit their story. Perhaps I'll learn tomorrow when the piece will air. The tentative date was to be Sunday morning the 17th but there was the ghastly multiple murder and suicide at that Northern Illinois University that might be a lot more newsworthy. So that's about all I can give you in the way of heads-up for now. More, later.

Just a footnote in the news cycle for the week

Polaroid is now totally out of the film business, as reported on the inside pages of the press and after the weather reports on television. That's how important it is to the media. Here's a hot link that you can read.

Petters, the company that bought out Polaroid, is sticking the Polaroid name on anything that will bring in some cash flow. I don't understand this at all as a business practice. It would be similar to putting the Kodak name on laundry detergent or Lysol on car wax. Of course they didn't ask me. What do I know compared to a group of marketing experts with hundred dollar haircuts and extravagant expense accounts?

Last year I did an interview for a German magazine about the Petters Group ownership of Polaroid. Click on this link

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This is what happened when Polaroid really fell apart three years ago. Read it and weep for the folks who gave their working lives to the new corporate owners.

The demise of Polaroid is worth $47 to each retiree while newcomer top management makes millions on the bankruptcy sale.

Distressing news from the Boston Globe of 27 April 2005.

Keep smiling.

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It's shameful but I'll close with some kudos about this blog.

This was just posted here on the 11th of this month. J.R. commented". . . here's a link to a blog detailing the branding of Polaroid. So elegantly simple, yet still powerful. . . but now Polaroid means nothing but cheap electronics."

Additional Kudos

An outstanding, focused, superbly written site that will hopefully remain available for a long, long time. So much of our changing culture gets lost. The Polaroid and its iconic branding is a chapter in an unwritten missive: "American Lifestyle." Your participation in the product's life cycle and your attendant blog captured the moment just like the product you helped create. Thanks for an excellent read!! LH

What a treat to get such kind and generous comment on a gloomy wet cold day with the threat of snow!
Many, many thanks, LH.

As announced in the brilliant UK publication Grafik for August 2005, The Branding of Polaroid, 1957-1977 was published in book form.

For an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file of the article, click on this link: Download G131_Polaroid.pdf

Quotes from the article by John Weich, Grafik, August 2005 --

"Like Apple today, Polaroid supplemented its superior product with superior branding. . . ."

"In 1958 the company decided to hire freelance designer Paul Giambarba with a view to revitalizing the brand. This was the start of a relationship that was to last an amazing twenty-five years—Giambarba changed the face of Polaroid. He was responsible for creating packaging for Polaroid's Colorpacks, its SX-70, Square Shooter and Square Shooter 2 and the OneSteps. Giambarba's first initiative was to transform the logo into an uppercase News Gothic, and his second was to give the company's B&W film shelf distinction by way of black end panels, which were easily discernible in its TV spots (which, of course, were black and white).

"The first round of rebranding lent Polaroid some design credibility, but its second, more significant evolution elevated the brand to design icon. . . ."

Thank you, John and thank you, Grafik Editor Caroline Roberts. Grafik is the UK's only magazine dedicated entirely to showcasing the most exciting new graphic design work every month. It's also an essential tool for a designer in search of information and inspiration.

Thank you also Jim Coudal for this generous plug:

Insightful, well-researched and illustrated feature on Ludwig Hohlwein, at 100 Years of Illustration and Design. 100 Years is a fantastic new resource from the mind of Paul Giambarba, who is also responsible for the absolutely-mandatory-for-modern-designers blog, The Branding of Polaroid.