99% Invisible - 295- Making a Mark: Visual Identity with Tom Geismar

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

The Chase logo was introduced in 1961, when the Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company merged to form the Chase Manhattan Bank. At the time, few American corporations used abstract symbols for their identification. Seen as radical in that context, the Chase symbol has survived a number of subsequent mergers and has become one of the world’s most recognizable trademarks. Its graphic designer, Tom Geismar, has been a driving force in the field of design and graphic identity for over 60 years. The influence of the firm he co-founded can be felt in logos you see every day. Making a Mark: Visual Identity with Tom Geismar

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. You've seen a logo that Tom Geismar has designed. You probably saw one today. Xerox, mobile oil, NYU, PBS, Univision. The Boston Public Transit Systems Mark is a T in a circle. Tom Geismar did that. But his work in that of his long time business partner Ivan Tremayev, who passed away in late 2017, is truly fused into the DNA of most modern logos you see today, whether they design them or not. In 1961, the logo for Chase Bank that he designed, the blue octagon with the square in the middle, was introduced. It's still used everywhere, and it's considered one of the first of its kind in the US,

an abstract dynamic shape representing a giant company. The logo was a real sea change for Chase. Well, Chase at that time was really Chase Manhattan Bank because it was the merger of two giant banks, Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company. They had a logo which featured a map of the United States, a globe of the world, the wording, Chase Manhattan Bank, and a few other things. It was quite a mix.

They were in the process of building the first modern skyscraper in the Wall Street area because a lot of the financial firms were moving up to Midtown at that point. David Rockefeller was in charge of that process, though he was only third in command at the time at the bank. And he felt that it would be appropriate to have also a modern contemporary looking mark for this newly formed, basically, a merger of these two banks. And we discussed with him the idea of maybe we could just do something abstract because no one had any idea of a symbol of banking, of a dollar sign.

And Chase was so big, I mean, they were going to be either the number one or number two, and I remember largest bank in the country. They had advertising in the newspapers every day, certainly around the New York metropolitan area, you couldn't miss their branches. They were everywhere. So the idea that you could establish something So the idea that you could establish something relatively abstract as their mark, much as the Red Cross or Mercedes, Chevrolet, I mean, there are some around, there were some at the time, but not many at all. And that was the idea, anyhow, that we could do that, establish something that was bold, and that would be recognized as representing the bank.

Right. And so how did you come up with this shape? What were the drawings like? established something that was bold and that would be recognized as representing the bank. Right. And so how did you come up with this shape like what were the drawings like? What were you thinking when that shape was applied to Chase? Well, we wanted something bold, something that would stand out, something that could be reproduced in various materials, something that could work at a small size. And at the time, it was very important also that something that could work in black and white in the newspaper, there was no color printing

in newspapers at that time. Something that could work on television, but also on a letterhead or a formal announcement. So we tried to keep all those things in mind. And we looked at a number of different designs. This particular one is also quite similar to old Chinese coins. They were rectangular, they had a hole in the middle, and so on. And that was helpful in terms of rationalizing why that particular design. And so Rockefeller was on your side in this, but did they expect something quite so

dynamic and radical and revolutionary, or were they expecting something more akin to the map of the United States and the globe and the world banking word on top? I mean, what were they expecting? Well, you say David Rockefeller certainly went along with this idea, but the two people above him, John McCloy, the chairman, and George Champion, the president, were pretty shocked when we showed it to them. Champion said, well, why can't we just have a picture of the building? Or the sculpture we're going to have out front. And we tried to persuade them that was a bad idea. And then McClaude eventually said, David, we've given you this project. If you want

this for the retail bank, you can do it. But I don't want to see it on my letterhead. I don't want to see it in my office. I don't want to see it. I really don't understand it and don't like it. Soon thereafter they adopted it and the bank went ahead and did it and it was only I think six months later that we were down there and ran into McCloy in the hallway and there he was with a tie with the symbol on it with cufflinks with symbol on it, with a pin in his lapel with a symbol on it. So it was a great lesson to us because suddenly, someone who couldn't understand it

as an abstract design now really accepted it greatly as a representation of his company. So you mentioned the lessons of McCleley, you know, fully on board with the mark as soon as it became the mark of his bank. Could you expand on what some of those lessons are and how you use them to think about your work today and how you deal with clients? Well, I think the big lesson that we learned then was that what people react to is not the mark, but they react to is the institution that it represents. So if you ask people, you know, what do they think are good marks?

They will almost inevitably mention companies or institutions or whatever that they think highly of. So they'll often say Apple and they'll say Nike and others that they think highly of. So they'll often say Apple and they'll say Nike and others that they think highly of. The alumus never say Enron, for example. Even though Enron had a very good mark designed by a famous designer, Paul Ren, so it has nothing to do with the quality pretty much, it has to do with what it represents. Right. So the Chase logo was something that's from the ground up, just a brand new invention. But you've also done a number of adaptations and updates. And I was wondering if you could talk about the PBS logo, which is something that I think

a lot of people are familiar with, what that process was like and what you were trying to do there. Yeah, very often we will try and build on something that's there if it has real value. In the case of PBS, there was a problem that they and the stations, the various public broadcasting stations had. At the time, people presumed it was the public broadcasting system, the way CBS is, the Columbia broadcasting system, the way CBS is the Columbia broadcasting system and so on. At CBS, they have a number of own stations and whatever. And the issue was that actually the stations had complete responsibility for raising their own funds to keep in business.

And PBS is not a conglomerate that supplies funding and so on. It provides some programming, but not funding. People misperceived what PBS was and their logo was a very clever PBS where the P was a person sort of a silhouette of a man. And the idea was, could we do something that makes it clearer that it's public television, not some kind of network? So our thought was actually at the time to take that P that they had out of the PBS, turned around, sort of gave them a lobotomy and fixed them up a bit and then repeated it so that it was the idea of multiple people, that it was public TV. But that was the whole reason to do it, but again it got built on something that existed a part of the letter, so it

was no great radical change at the time, but it was something more appropriate and something to solve a problem. So how do you steer a client to select the shape and the idea that in your heart you really know is the right one. How many options do you give them? How many variations do you present? Is there a psychology in presenting a logo to a group like this. Well, today we do often present options. We almost always do, because there is not necessarily one right answer for these issues. You're having to make a decision and go ahead with it. But we explain what the pluses and minuses are

of the various options. And we often have a favorite, which we try you know, explain what the pluses and minuses are of the various options. And we often have a favorite, which we try to push, if we can. But there's not necessarily, you know, the obvious right answer. And when you have a favorite, do you plainly state that it's your favorite or do you just present it first or present it last? Is there a gavesmanship in this at all? There may be a little bit, but not that much. And we don't usually state which one we favor if we're showing options, but we encourage them to ask us later.

And we try to also get there, take on it. And one of the first things we say, actually, when we're before we present anything, is it's never love at first sight. So the thing is, if you can imagine what it might be like in actual use, and that's what we try to show when we're showing designs to be marks, what it might look like in various appropriate kind of uses.

So I see the chase logo on my iPhone. It works really well as an app icon. Is that a coincidence? Is there something that has made it indoor over 50 years and works on a tiny screen as well as a print ad and as a tie-tack and everything? Well, it is a coincidence, but it happens to have worked very much in our favor, because we've always tried to do things that are very clear, very simple, and that can be reduced to a small size. So suddenly today, it's a requirement, really, of almost every mark that has any kind of social exposure, and it does work well. And it just happens, I think.

Maybe our approach was the right approach that we were lucky that it's certainly applicable today. And in fact, a lot of work we get today is because people have marks that can't work as an app. So has the approach for creating marks changed over 60 years? And because of this, or there are other things that are more fundamental So has the approach for creating marks changed over 60 years? And because of this or there are other things that are more fundamental

and the change in the work that you guys do? You know, it actually hasn't changed that much. At least our approach to it hasn't changed that much. Because as I mentioned, we try to really get down to the basic thing, a basic mark that can identify whatever the institution is that we're identifying in a clear way. And we have three criteria, really, which are the basic criteria. One is that it'd be appropriate. You would do something for a sports team that would be quite different for something you

do for a bank, for example. It'd be appropriate to the client and to what they do. The second one would be that it'd be distinctive, that you can see it, you can remember it, you can recognize it, maybe you can do it quickly after having seen it a couple of times, that it will stand out and be recognized. And then the third thing is just that it works in all kinds of sizes, different materials and so on, if that's appropriate and it often is. So if it can meet those three criteria, then we're doing pretty well. How do you balance the concept of being appropriate towards a certain institution and it being

abstract enough to be this empty vessel that people poor meaning into? Well, it doesn't have to be an empty vessel at all. It doesn't have to be abstract. For banking, we couldn't think of anything that properly represents banking, but that's not always the case by any means. I mean, if there is something real that's appropriate, then you try to work on that and make it understandable. That's a lot easier for people to understand. The other thing is that once we did the Chase bank, Mark, then banks all over, in fact people all over started using making abstract marks, but it didn't necessarily make sense because

they didn't have anything like the exposure that Chase had. That kind of thing only works really well if you have enough exposure that people come to recognize it. Right. Right. Oh, that makes sense. Like, for example, I know that your group is responsible for a lot of aquarium logos. And those are, you know, they have nice shapes to them and they're abstracted in certain ways. But they often have waves and fish and things that you recognize as the things that it represents as an aquarium. Yes, and actually all those aquariums, they all have different emphasis in terms of the concept of the building and the exhibits and so on. And so we're even trying to represent that. Obviously fish and water are the key part of all of them, but some are about the oceans and some are about fresh water and so on. Can you talk about how you decide when you are in the very beginning stages of working with a client, whether or not you're going to do some kind of wordmark that uses the company's name or something more abstract or pictorial, how do you make that type of decision?

Well, that's always a key decision. And often we don't necessarily make the decision. We might show both options, for example, and what the pluses and minuses are of those two things. And a lot of that depends of course on what the name is to begin with. But generally, if the name is short and by short, I mean maybe five letters or something, and is distinctive, then we would start with the idea of making that word distinctive. We've been doing a lot of work for a lot of technology companies recently. And, you know, what they're doing is pretty hard to understand and certainly

very hard to represent in any meaningful way. You know, it's not as if they're harvesting apples or something and you can do an apple or whatever. It's extremely difficult to find something that's appropriate, meaningful, but also distinctive. And so is there a certain thing that you listen for when somebody describes, when a company describes what they do that is a key into your process of beginning to design something for them or is it just different every time?

Well, we go through a whole process of beginning to design something for them, or is it just different every time? Well, we go through a whole process of trying to interview a lot of people, really trying to understand the culture and what they do, obviously, and to understand the competition, and who they're seen with or against, and really to get a pretty in-depth understanding of what the situation is. And in the process of doing all that and interviewing people, often ideas, funny places,

come up, might be just a wise crack in a conversation or something, but that's where a lot of the ideas come from. So, in 1961, you can introduce an octagon and have it be pretty simple, be bold, and be associated with Chase because Chase is so big. Now, the octagon, it's closed off. You can't put an octagon out there as an abstract mark for a company. Is it harder to have a bold graphic that's simple today, just because of the number of shapes or just limited in the world?

Well, it is hard. Yes, there are so many. And now with little icons and emojis and whatever, there's just so much around. So yes, it is difficult. What we do now is before we show anything to our clients, we have done a preliminary legal search. So we try not to show anything to a client that hasn't at least passed the initial, what they call a knockout search, because we don't want them to fall in

love with something and then find out, you know, if they can't use it. Have you ever fallen in love with something and found out you couldn't use it? Oh, sure. We just don't show it. No, I mean, very much. And one of the one of the complications is of course things are registered as marks with the end of a certain area of business. For example, I'm one example we give is the red star. So obviously, represents China, but it's also Macy's. It's San Pellegrino, it's Heineken. It's many different things, and they're all doing it legally. They will have the right to use it, and we're another. So, it's not

quite so simple. So, you might have something, you come up with it, maybe similar to something in a very different field, and you have to register the mark in particular, you know, whatever area of business you're in. And so, then there's that decision, you know, do you go ahead presuming it's going to be okay, because there's not going to be confusion, because you're in a completely different world, or not. Yeah.

Has this method of introducing things to the public, that's really changed in the time period when you've been working? How do you approach that now? And what do you think of the sort of blood sport of introducing logos and reactions online? And that kind of thing? Well, our usual recommendation is don't say a word, just do it. Well, I think if you look at more broadly, I think people are much more visually aware today. are much more visually aware today. Everyone's looking at their phone, they're looking at icons,

they're looking at apps, they're looking at all these things. And so it's much more a part of the culture. So I think the desire to do something good, which from our point of view, is certainly a positive thing, is part of that. The idea of being a critic is another part of it. But I think overall, it's great that people are much more conscious and aware and critical of these things.

Tom Geismar is the co-founder of Tremayev and Geismar and Haviv. As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, Tom's longtime partner Ivan Tremayev died in December of 2017. They worked together for 60 years. An expanded text version of this interview will be included in a new book about the firm

that will be published by standards manual in May of 2018. We'll have a link on the show page. Coming up, an extended preview of a brand new radio topia show from the producers of Criminal. Criminal, by the way, depending on what they ask me, is my personal favorite podcast I cannot praise it enough, while the short story and preview of their brand new series right after this. And now a preview of a new show in radiotopia from the makers of criminal. Generally speaking, they lay about 50 to 100 eggs and these are laid in a white silk

and sack. And after the baby's hatch, the mother just about immediately lays another set of eggs. And these are what are known as trophic eggs. These are eggs that are never going to hatch, and they will serve as food for the spiral wings. This is Dr. Bill Schott, a professor of biology at Long Island University, and a research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History. He's telling us about the black lace weaver spider. It's common in the United States. You've

probably seen one before. You probably have one somewhere in your yard right now. They're hard to describe because they look like a spider. They're about half an inch brownish black in color. No unusual markings. No beautiful webs. So when the spiderlings hatch, they immediately set about eating the eggs, the trophic eggs that their mother has laid.

Now, spiders and a lot of other orthropods, animals that have an outer cover and they have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies like shrimp or lobster or scorpions or insects. It's the only way that they can grow in size is to shed their outer, that's the mold, their, their, their, this cuticle. So after their first mold, they're pretty much out of food. So they've gone through the trophic eggs that their mother has produced. And that's when they do something really kind of strange. The mother basically thrums on the web, drawing the babies to her. So it's like she drums on the web a bit and they are attracted to that vibration of the

web and they swarm all over her. Spiders are all about vibration and so what she basically does is she's plucking on her silk and attracting the youngsters to come to her. This is Dr. Linda Raior. She's a senior lecturer and senior research associate at Cornell and her specialty is the social lives of spiders. They respond to the movements and move in toward her as a group and start feeding. And evidently, they eat her within the hour. How does she get them to eat her? Do they just know this instinctually that they know this instinctually. What they do is...

is basically inject this enzyme-laden... gut juice... and break down the inside of her body. You know, it's almost like they slurper up through a straw. Like a protein milkshake. Eating her alive. Yeah, eating her alive. And then they will hang out for another three, four weeks together. So there's a mass of these baby spiders and then they'll disperse from the web to become

adults. It is just natural. I would call it parental behavior. To a degree that we would consider to be extreme. They turn out to be just awesome mothers. The act of inducing the young to come to her and start feeding on her is absolutely intentional. She is inviting them. She's asking them to do this, and this is her sacrifice for her youngsters. This happens every day. These quiet, selfless acts all around us and we have no idea.

We've been making criminal for more than three years. And when we began, we set out to explore stories about crime that went places you might not have seen coming. And so, we thought we'd try our hand at something new, a subject as enormous and varied and arguably overexposed as crime. Love. criminal isn't going anywhere, but we're also going to bring you this new thing, a show about people, not spiders, dealing with the inescapable nature of love, and how a simple act of love isn't always pretty or grand and doesn't always make things better, but can change the course of it all. We're incredibly excited about these stories, and we hope you'll listen.

I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Love. You can subscribe and Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and learn more at thisislovepodcast.com. 99% Invisible is Emmett Fitzgerald, who helped me edit this interview. Avery Truffman,-Sharifuse of Terran Mazza, composer Sean Rial, senior producer Katie Mingle, senior editor Delaney Hall, digital director Kurt Colstead, and me, Roman Mars. We are a project of 91.7K ALW in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row, in beautiful, downtown, Oakland, California. In beautiful, downtown, Oakland, California. We are a part of Radio Topia from PRX, a collective of the best, most innovative shows in all of podcasting.

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