Catboat and old light, circa1965
Gay Head Light, circa 1965
Old trading post, circa 1965
Fitts Museum, Circa 1948
Old Brewster Village, circa 1965
Falmouth Green, circa 1965
Trout, circa 1965
Cape Cod sailor, circa 1965
Northern Light, circa 1965
ABOUT GIAMBARBA
Paul Giambarba was Polaroid Corpration's first art director, Then design consultant for Polaroid for 25 years. He designed for Tonka Toys and Tonka Corporation, the Gillette Company International; and His Highness Aga Khan. His work has appeared in Graphis and Graphis Annual (Zürich); and has been the subject of articles in Industrial Design; American Artist; Idea (Tokyo); Relax (Tokyo); Grafik (London); Brand eins (Hamburg) Blur magazine (Zagreb) and Communication Arts.
Giambarba is an illustrator as well as a designer and author. He was a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated and This Week magazine, as well as True and Spy magazines. He was a member of the San Francisco Society of Illustrators during the nine years he lived in Sonoma County, California. Articles about the books he has illustrated and published have appeared in American Artist magazine and Horn Book magazine, which reviews children’s books for librarians, parents and the book publishing trade. He is the author of more than a baker’s dozen of books, founded The Scrimshaw Press and CapeArts magazine, and was a founding partner of Arts & Flowers, publisher of botanically accurate greeting cards. He has lived and worked in Italy and Switzerland, California, and Massachusetts.
Honors and Awards:
Gold Medal, Art Directors Club of New York
Certificates of Merit, Art Directors Club of New York
Gold Medals, Art Directors Club of Boston
Certificates of Merit, Art Directors Club of Boston
Certificates of Excellence, American Institute of Graphic Arts Packaging 1972, 1974, 1976
Andy Awards, Advertising Club of New York
Hatch Awards, Advertising Club of Boston
Certificate of Excellence of Design, Industrial Design magazine Annual Design Review
Invited Lecturer:
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Simmons College, Boston, MA
D E S I G N / Product Identity
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!
Quotes from an article by John Weich, in Grafik [UK} 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.
For more click on The Branding of Polaroid
[How we beat Eastman Kodak and its little yellow boxes in the marketplace
despite a clunky product and an irrelevant corporate name]
My package design based on a need to be seen amid a saturation of Eastman Kodak yellow in the marketplace, 1958
This is what Polaroid had been struggling with in 1957. See colors, below:
M.I.T. colors and the crossed filters we called soap bubbles, 1957
Kodak yellow sat on these timid colors and an impossible to read Polaroid
My first job was to set Polaroid in caps to distinguish the A from the O in a legible type face . . .
. . . that could be used as corporate as well as product ID.
By 1966 we got the brand very visible and recognizable.
Set-up boxes did double duty as pedestals as well, 1958
Polaroid store interior and exterior illuminated signage, 1958
I then concentrated on creating a flag for Polaroid products. The very first was for sunglasses, 1962.
This image eventually became iconic internationally. The sunglasses were not sold in the USA.
The flag for photo products became this after Polacolor was introduced in 1968
The color stripes endured for all photo products through 1977:
1970
1970
1975
1977
1977
Then, for something completely different there was the entire SX-70 family of products
Polaroid SX-70 camera line and accessories, 1972
More Polaroid SX-70 cameras and accessories, 1976
I took on another corporate and product ID challenge on the shores of Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota
Tonka Corporation, 1974
Joint venture, 1974
Old Tonka Toys logo caused all kinds of register problems in printing.
My redesigned logo for Tonka Toys caused virtually no color registration problems, 1975
P O R T F O L I O S
Under Construction. Sorry. We'll be up and running soon.
A Brief Résumé
Paul Giambarba has also been a design consultant for Tonka Toys and Tonka Corporation, as well as Polaroid, the Gillette Company International; and His Highness Aga Khan. His work has been appeared in Graphis and Graphis Annual (Zürich);the subject of articles in Industrial Design; American Artist; Idea (Tokyo); Relax (Tokyo); Grafik (London); Brand eins (Hamburg) Blur magazine (Zagreb) and Communication Arts.
Giambarba is a cartoonist and illustrator as well as a designer and author. He was a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated and This Week magazine, as well as True and Spy magazines. He was a member of the San Francisco Society of Illustrators during the nine years he lived in Sonoma County, California. Articles about the books he has illustrated and published have appeared in American Artist magazine and Horn Book magazine, which reviews children’s books for librarians, parents and the book publishing trade. He is the author of a baker’s dozen of books, founded The Scrimshaw Press and CapeArts magazine, and was a founding partner of Arts & Flowers, publisher of botanically accurate greeting cards. He has lived and worked in Italy and Switzerland, California and presently in Massachusetts.
Honors and Awards:
Gold Medal, Art Directors Club of New York
Certificates of Merit, Art Directors Club of New York
Gold Medals, Art Directors Club of Boston
Certificates of Merit, Art Directors Club of Boston
Certificates of Excellence, American Institute of Graphic Arts Packaging 1972, 1974, 1976
Andy Awards, Advertising Club of New York
Hatch Awards, Advertising Club of Boston
Certificate of Excellence of Design, Industrial Design magazine Annual Design Review
Invited Lecturer:
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Simmons College, Boston, MA
B O O K S
As designer and illustrator for national publishers
Printed cover, 1963
My original dummy, 1963
Client: D.C. Heath, 1963
Client: Houghton-Mifflin, 1963
________________________________
As designer, author and illustrator for my own Scrimshaw Press:
2 Editions, 6 Printings
1967
Hand-made rack, 1967
1967
1967
1967
1969
1985
3 Editions
1967
1985
2 Editions
circa 1966
2 Editions
1969
2002
2 Editions
1985
1985
Doubleday, 1969
3 Editions
Branding of Polaroid 2005, 2008, 2010; 30 Years of Instant Photos 2011, 2012
Atlantic, Little Brown, 1969
OnCape Publications, 2000
2 Printings
______________________
Monographs
2005
2011
2014
2017
2016
2016
_______________________________
P H O T O G R A P H Y
Edward Gorey, circa 1980
David McCullough, circa 1980
Joyce Johnson, circa 1980
Harry Holl and daughters, circa 1980
Alec Wilkinson, circa 1980
Beverly Edward, circa 1980
Alexander Theroux and parrot, circa 1980
Nancy Frangione, circa 1980
Henry Smith Rohrberg, circa 1980
Joyce Johnson, circa 1980
Miriam Rogers, circa 1980
Marion Potter Sharpe, circa 1980
Steve Whittlesey, circa 1980
Ruth, Dowses' Beach, Osterville, 1963
Ruth, Arlington, 1958
Ruth on the Bremen, 1960
__________________________
You are invited to visit my blog
Analog Photography at its best
P R I N T S
Nude torso X 3, VI 71 silk screen print, 1971
Maggie's Drawers, silk screen print, circa 1970
Me and my one-man squeegee, 1971
Gripsholm and Gulls, silk screen print, 1971
Cape Cod Spring, silk screen print, 1963
Cape Cod Summer, silk screen print, 1963
Cape Cod Autumn, silk screen print, 1963
Cape Cod Winter, silk screen print, 1962
Schooner, V 71, silk screen print, 1971
Magpies, silk screen print, 1970
I never expected to find that one of my prints would be part of a prestigious collection. It was drawn directly on the screen with tusche and then printed by me in white paint on black paper. The original was given to the Boston chapter of CORE and they printed it by commercial lithography to include in a collection of prominent printmakers.
Provenace
Paul Giambarba
North American
The Withered Arm, c. 1960
Series/Book Title: The Freedom Prints
Print
American, 20th century
Photolithograph
35.56 x 27.94 cm (14 x 11 in.)
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Stephen Lee Taller Ben Shahn Archive,
Gift of Dolores S. Taller, M25505.5
Department of Prints, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art
This is my sketch from which the print was made. I drew two different images. As with all sketches, this is much more dynamic.
Below, an alterative print that was not accepted:
Garibaldi and Aguyar, silk screen print, 1965
Garibaldi and Aguyar, sketch by black Prismacolor pencil on tracing paper, 1965