The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977

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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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.

Iconography of the Polaroid mark from 1958 to 1976

Click on image to enlarge.

Beginning at the top is the Polaroid mark I did in 1958, its application to package design and corporate identity, which is the bottom panel just above the date, 1958. Somewhere in the lower right of the photo is the corporate sign POLAROID, identical to the mark above.

On the left are package designs for Polaroid Sunglasses, 1962, Polaroid Colorpack and black-and-white filmpacks, package design for a Polaroid Colorpack camera, and to the far left, package design and product identity for Polavision, 1977. At the bottom of the row is a package design and product identity for a Polaroid Square Shooter camera.

In the row on the right are package designs and product identity for Polaroid SX-70 cameras and accessories, dating from 1972, and just below is a photo of package design for Polaroid Pronto!

Kudos

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.

brand eins: article in German

I was recently interviewed for the German publication brand eins by Steffan Heuer, author of this article, and he was kind enough to send me this .pdf file along with a copy of the publication, shown above. For those among you who read German, this is an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file of the article. Download brand_eins_Polaroid.pdf (1118.0K)

My comments were accurately recorded, I believe. The only correction at this point is the reference on page 31 to the early Polaroid packages before my redesign as being chosen from the Harvard University school colors. That should have read MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) school colors.

Edwin Land Introduces the First Polaroid Land Camera

Just got an email from Dave DeMeyer who was prompted by Janet Conley that 21 February 1947 was the "famous day in Miami Beach when Dr. Land performed his magic."

Thanks to the Science and Society (UK) Picture Library, for this use of a photo of the old Model 95 that he used and a link to their site.

To put this in proper context, keep in mind that this all happened in just 25 years, from the first camera model that was almost the size of the one Matthew Brady photographed the Civil War which produced sepia prints that faded, to the SX-70 that was the last model to get any real public interest.

Wow! How kind of LH!

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.

Additional Kudos

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.

Rest in Peace Old Friend

My dear friend of half a century departed this life on Tuesday, the day before yesterday, after a brief illness. Peter was one of my favorite clients, from his days at Little, Brown on Beacon Street in Boston, to Polaroid where he ascended the corporate ladder all the way to Executive Vice President. He leaves his lovely wife, Andrea, four splendid sons, their wives and seven grandchildren. We all mourn their loss, for he shall be missed.

Peter was the smartest guy I ever met. He and Andrea raised four great kids and got to live the American Dream.

The top photo is of Peter in 1958, this the two of us ten years ago at his home on Golden Pond, aka Squam Lake, New Hampshire.

I don't usually get much email except for those who want to know how much their old Polaroid cameras are worth (how would I know?) but Peter's passing has generated quite a bit from those saddened by the news.

"He was the best creative manager I ever worked for. Without apparent effort, he created a culture where everyone seemed to do the best work of their lives," was an email that said it all about Peter.

Peter is the author of Land's Polaroid, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1987; and a novel The Last Bastion, 1995, The Permanent Press. (Houghton doesn't carry its back list on its website so I've linked to used book sources.)

Update, 14 November, the obituary from The Boston Globe.

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Logos and Other Giambarba Design Projects

Business card for a local travel agency

Logo used as a menu cover for a local restaurant

Peace mug for sale at CafePress.com

Business card for a financial consulting firm

Logo for a greeting card publisher of botanically accurate designs

Logo for a start-up e-business

Logos used for educational print material

Logo for a local catering service

Logo for a fabric wholesaler

Folder and poster for a local museum

Folder for a local museum

Logo and collateral material for a supplier of kitchen and bath accessories

Product identity and packaging for floppy disks

Embossed logo on business card for umbrella corporation

Logo for use as decal and other items for product and packaging to eliminate printing register problems

Logo for the Kyoto-Boston Sister City Committee

From Polaroid to Patrons of the Arts

The New York Times hasn't carried this obit as yet, but the Boston Globe did with the heading, Norma Jean Calderwood, 84, leading patron of Boston arts. Norma Jean Calderwood was an old friend whom I hadn't seen for more than 25 years. I remember Norma Jean's dinner parties and how well she could cook. Stan was usually pretty subdued (for him) hustling drinks and serving guests.

This is a portion of a photo my late wife, Ruth, took of NJ, as I was pouring Soviet champagne she had brought back from the U.S.S.R. to our digs in the maid's quarter of a villa on Lac Léman in Switzerland, just down the lake from Morges and Lausanne. NJ was a dynamo, Stan's equal and fearless. One night she chewed out Land who was in the habit of phoning his underlings at all hours. "Don't you dare ever phone here again at this hour!" she said, and hung up. It was 3 A.M. "I am woman. Hear me roar!"

Rest in peace, NJ.

An Unabashed Tribute to Stan Calderwood (1921-2003)

This is how I want to remember Stan. The year was 1973 and Stan had been three years away from Polaroid and his boss, Edwin H. Land. We were at my favorite Boston restaurant, Café Budapest. (Yes, I know the photo is out of focus but so probably was I.)

Upon leaving Polaroid Stan immediately took over as president of WGBH-TV in Boston. Within months he had consumated a fortuitous deal with the BBC to import Masterpiece Theatre; and then convinced Mobil Oil to fund the series. During the same brief period he arranged for Julia Child to introduce her series, The French Chef, to American television audiences. With this kind of phenomenal success, we were all sure that it wouldn’t be long before Stan Calderwood would be running the entire Public Broadcasting network.

Little did any of us know that before the summer’s end in 1970 that he would be embroiled in a no-win situation with activists in Boston’s black community. It was about the use of socially unacceptable profanity on prime time television.

The irony here is that PBS lost a good man who had done what he could to help recruit minorites, especially blacks, at Polaroid. Along with being insulted and jostled at confrontations, he began receiving death threats for cancelling the show. Responding to public pressure, WGBH reinstated Say Brother and called the prior cancellation a “mistake.” Stan quit in disgust.

In 1972 he joined a money management business controlled by Yale University and found his comfort level among kindred spirits in corporate management and the shepherding of institutional pension funds.

In 1981 he had accumulated enough personal wealth to buy control of Trinity Investment Management of Boston. By this time we rarely saw each other anymore, let alone socialize with our wives as we once did, so I have no first-hand knowledge of him or Norma Jean in the last two decades of his life.

I choose to remember Stan the cowboy from Chugwater, Wyoming, via Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Boulder, Colorado. I’m sure he would prefer to be remembered as a Harvard Fellow and Brahmin benefactor who, with Norma Jean, has endowed more University chairs and museums than any of his philanthropic contemporaries.

Finally, it's my prejudiced opinion that if Edwin Land had not insisted that his successor be a fellow engineer and had encouraged and groomed Stan to run the company upon his retirement, Polaroid would never gone belly up into Chapter 11 as it did.

Stan departed this life on 10 May 2003 at Massachusetts General Hospital, where, typically, he was a significant benefactor.

Rest in Peace, Big Spender from Chugwater.

_________________________________________________________________________________________ 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.