The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977

Gone in Sixty Seconds

Click on image to enlarge it.

Thanks to Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners excellent and well-read web log, who consistently has had nice things to say about this web log, I linked to the excellent piece by Phil Patton on the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) web site.

This is what Jim had to say:

"...essentially a one-of-a-kind object, like an oil painting or daguerreotype." Gone in Sixty Seconds, an excellent essay by Phil Patton for AIGA, on the legacy of Polaroid. jc-today

Speaking of Polaroid, pretty much any excuse will do for a relink to The Branding of Polaroid, Paul Giambarba's first-hand account of the company's corporate image and product identity development. Required reading. jc-today

Metafilter calls this work "The Apple® of its Day"

BTW -- We've just received thousands of hits via Metafilter (May 22) entitled: Polaroid Packaging, the Apple of its Day. Thanks so much to the folks at Metafilter.com

The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977 in print

 

Click on image to enlarge it. I thought you might like to know that I've run another printing of The Branding of Polaroid. It's 180 pages 8.5 x 11 inches in size in black and white plus full color covers on coated stock with square "perfect" binding and it contains much 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.

You can buy the book by clicking on the link to Lulu, below.

Here's an unsolicited email I recently received from a professional colleague and buyer of the book:

Hi Paul,

I got your book and read it through last night.

Your philosophies about design are very much my own as well. It was incredible to read about how you and Mr. Calderwood were able to convince Polaroid to go with your simple and beautiful designs without forcing you to add copy and bursts and exclamation points.

As an often frustrated freelancer, I know very very very well the pressures of sales departments on us designers. Nearly every single commercial package I've ever designed has been bastardized in some way by these people.

I often make a "last stand," claiming to my clients that this type of thinking is fearful and even mildly condescending. And that, often subconsciously, the marketplace sees this type of over-hype as weak and pandering - not strong and confident. I point to your-era Polaroid and current-day Apple as prime examples that "less is more". Of course - almost every single time - their answer is "Well, we're not Polaroid/Apple and we need our [product] to "pop" off the shelves." At which point I tell them, laying on the sarcasm as thick as possible, that they should rig up a proximity sensor to a spring so that when a customer walks in front of it, it will pop.

I feel like my (our) points are even more true today. With any sort of information on any product at your fingertips via the Internet - most buyers are well-informed today and aren't looking to be sold-to. They're looking for some combination of price/performance/cache/need and know full well what their options are before entering a store.

So once again - cheers to you! Rest assured that many of us are carrying the "less is more" torch.

oh - by the way... I used to own one of those Tonka dumptrucks you picture in the book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you did the logo. My brothers and I tried our damnedest to destroy that truck as we got older. Finally resorting to sitting in the bed, riding it down our street and bailing out before it crashed into something solid - like a rock or telephone pole or wall. We called that little game "Stuntman" and we never did destroy the truck completely. And the logo never totally came off either. Those things were BUILT, I tell ya.

The first Kodachrome package design

Somebody called my attention to an old Daily Kos post showing this, the first Kodak Kodachrome package design, which appeared about 30 years before my Polaroid Polacolor stripes. You probably don't know that when Eastman Kodak did their package design for their instant color film, they used color stripes on that package as well. This early packaging used sun's rays as a design device. Did the Japanese Rising Sun flag have any influence here?

35 mm. film was a by-product of color film used in movie making, created in effect by just snipping off strips and packaging it in little metal cans that went into the little yellow boxes.

The film cost $5 per roll in the late 1930s and had to be sent back to Rochester, New York for processing. If I recall, we all had to do that well into the 1970s. It was great film. I have perfectly good Kodachrome slides from 1957 that don't seem to have ever faded, unlike Kodak Ektachrome transparencies.

Kodachrome taken by me of my young wife in 1957.

Back to film box package design. It's been 40 years since my Polacolor designs. Have we made as much progress with film box packaging in this equivalent period of time?

A Random Map of The Branding of Polaroid Viewers

Courtesy, thanks and copyright © my.statcounter.com

Click on image to enlarge it.

Imagine. I'm being quoted!

Never in a million years would I believe that someone would quote a few words I said off the top of my head during the CBS News Polaroid interview, at 00:34 to be exact.

I don't know who to thank for this, but if you link to it and scroll down to quotes between Stephen Hawking and Ralph Waldo Emerson, there it is.

Paul Giambarba
You know long it takes to do simple? About ten times longer than fast and dirty.

Thanks, jf.backpackit.com wherever you are.

Finally, here's the entire video from CBS Sunday News

Click on this hot link to view it.

The entire segment runs 03:37 minutes. I show up for my 15 seconds of fame at 00:34 and again at 02:47.

More on the End of Polaroid

Fox Business News wanted me to show up for an interview on their morning show today or tomorrow but I declined. Having spent all day to provide CBS for two very brief sound bites, the thought of having to spring for a roundtrip to New York without an offer to pick up the tab for anything made it a no-brainer.

More importantly, Dave Bias got to tell the Save Polaroid story on the ABC Nightly News which is a much better venue all around. Click on this link for the video.

For more from Flickr on the CBS Sunday Morning News segment click here.

More, later, when I get some time to fill you in on some of what CBS didn't use.

This story has legs, it would seem.

An Unsolicited Pleasant Surprise

Hi Paul,

I got your book and read it through last night.

Your philosophies about design are very much my own as well. It was incredible to read about how you and Mr. Calderwood were able to convince Polaroid to go with your simple and beautiful designs without forcing you to add copy and bursts and exclamation points.

As an often frustrated freelancer, I know very very very well the pressures of sales departments on us designers. Nearly every single commercial package I've ever designed has been bastardized in some way by these people.

I often make a "last stand," claiming to my clients that this type of thinking is fearful and even mildly condescending. And that, often subconsciously, the marketplace sees this type of over-hype as weak and pandering - not strong and confident. I point to your-era Polaroid and current-day Apple as prime examples that "less is more". Of course - almost every single time - their answer is "Well, we're not Polaroid/Apple and we need our [product] to "pop" off the shelves." At which point I tell them, laying on the sarcasm as thick as possible, that they should rig up a proximity sensor to a spring so that when a customer walks in front of it, it will pop.

I feel like my (our) points are even more true today. With any sort of information on any product at your fingertips via the Internet - most buyers are well-informed today and aren't looking to be sold-to. They're looking for some combination of price/performance/cache/need and know full well what their options are before entering a store.

So once again - cheers to you! Rest assured that many of us are carrying the "less is more" torch.

oh - by the way... I used to own one of those Tonka dumptrucks you picture in the book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you did the logo. My brothers and I tried our damnedest to destroy that truck as we got older. Finally resorting to sitting in the bed, riding it down our street and bailing out before it crashed into something solid - like a rock or telephone pole or wall. We called that little game "Stuntman" and we never did destroy the truck completely. And the logo never totally came off either. Those things were BUILT, I tell ya.

Dave [Bias]
Brooklyn, New York

Concerning the demise of Polaroid and other thoughts

Paul:

In my excitement and eagerness to send in my order for your book, I neglected to say 'thank you' for making all of our lives more colorful and saturated with great design. You began this odyssey when I was just 5 years old, two years before I first took a Polaroid picture with my 'new' model 95. I watched the brand grow and the designs get more and more interesting. One of my favorites was The Swinger and of course, the SX-70. I still find myself singing the tune to The Swinger commercials and am proud that I still have one that says 'YES' AND 'NO' in the viewfinder! (I never understood that people didn't understand what 'no' meant and just had to be told to go for the 'best possible Yes). Anyway, as I stumbled across your blog, I finally was able to put a face with a name and look forward to seeing the piece that was recently shot by CBS. Again, my heartfelt thanks for bringing lots of pleasure to so many of us.

[I did the other product identity but not The Swinger. It was done inhouse by the design director at the time, Bill Field -- PG]
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Hello Mr. Giambarba,

I'm a 39-year-old graphic designer who owes you a debt. I grew up in a family that always owned at least one Polaroid camera, and being a suburban kid, I spent many hours in K-marts, malls and drug stores ogling your packaging. It was so ubiquitous in my life that it has made a very lasting impression on my life and my own design certainly owes much to your work.

I am, in fact, a much bigger fan of Polaroid today and for the last five years than ever before in my life. I have an ever-expanding collection. I refurbish SX-70s and various packfilm cameras for resale on eBay. I am the owner of a new site, currently in development, called plroid.com that is specifically for fans of Polaroid films and cameras. Many of us in this community were completely shocked and saddened by Petters' recent announcement of the discontinuation of all films. If you were to ask any of us the day before, we would have all said that we felt a real resurgence in Polaroid. We saw it's popularity as clearly on the increase.

But Petters has been a negligent steward of the Polaroid brand since they raided the company a few years back. I would say that their recent actions border on criminal - or at least immoral. I say this because in my view, they are single-handedly eliminating an artistic medium. To me, it's as if someone decided that paint or pastels weren't profitable enough to produce. Or if Kleenex decided to stop making tissues.

Several of us have formed a new website and we are attempting to rally people around our cause. The website is http://www.savepolaroid.com and I am one of the founders and administrators. We are very serious in our desire to mount an effort to license and continue producing Polaroid films - at minimum 600/Spectra film, but hopefully (and much more ambitiously) most of the best emulsions of the last 10 years.

We would be thrilled if you would make some sort of statement of support or encouragement that we could put on our site.

If not, no hard feelings - I'll certainly enjoy reading your book.

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Yes, of course, I'll endorse your efforts -- the link is here and again on the sidebar, left under Thanks to.

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Dear Mr. Giambarba,

I wrote to you a while back and very much enjoyed reading your response. Lately, I have been reading a great deal about Polaroid's history (I just finished Mr. Wensberg's excellent book on it), and noticed that you have a book of your own going into another printing. I am hoping to get a copy of it, but am wondering if it is possible to pay by check; I noticed that you mentioned Paypal, but I would prefer to pay by the more "old-fashioned" method if at all possible.

By the way, thank you for standing up for your opinions on what the current "Polaroid" Corporation (I use quotation marks, as the company today hardly seems fit to use the name; Dr. Land would be entirely upset with it, I would imagine) has become. I can assure you that those of us who continue to use the film and appreciate the history are very upset with how everything has turned out, as well.

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Hi Paul,

Polaroid should serve as a lighthouse to poor management – keep clear of the rocks or drown.

There are attempts being made by Ilford and others to buy some of the rights to produce certain of the more popular Polaroid film stocks – let’s hope they have at least limited success.

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Paul,

Saw you on Sunday Morning. I think they should have devoted a half hour to Polaroid, not just a few minutes and in regards to money.

Any who, I finished my project and would like to share it with you.

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Check it out at -- http://www.michaelblanchard.com/index.cfm?postID=184. It's also linked under Thanks, left.

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