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IBM Brand Development History

What this logo design means by Paul Rand
If the word legend has any meaning in the business logo design and if the term legendary can be applied with accuracy to the career of any logo designer, it can certainly be applied to Paul Rand (1914-1996). In 1951, the legend was already firmly in place. By then Paul had completed his first career as a logo designer of media promotion at Esquire-Coronet—and as an outstanding cover business logo designer for Apparel Arts and Directions. He was well along on a second career as an advertising designer at the William Weintraub agency which he had joined as art director at its founding. Paul Rand’s book, Thoughts on Design, with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on business logo design, had been published four years earlier—a publishing event that cemented his international reputation and identified him as a business logo designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo.

In an interesting way the chronology of Paul Rand’s business logo design experience has paralleled the development of the modern design movement. Paul Rand’s first career in media promotion and cover design ran from 1937 to 1941, his second career in advertising design ran from 1941 to 1954, and his third career in corporate identification began in 1954. Paralleling these three careers there has been a consuming interest in design education and Paul Rand’s fourth career as an educator started at Cooper Union in 1942. He taught at Pratt Institute in 1946 and in 1956 he accepted a post at Yale University’s graduate school of design where he held the title of Professor of Graphic Logo Design.

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software and services.

IBM History

IBM's history dates back decades before the development of computers -- before that it developed punched card data processing equipment. It originated as the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation, which was incorporated on June 15, 1911 in Binghamton, New York. This company was a merger of the Tabulating Machine Corporation, the Computing Scale Corporation and the International Time Recording Company. The president of the Tabulating Machine Corporation at that time was Herman Hollerith. Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, became General Manager of CTR in 1914 and President in 1915. On February 14, 1924, CTR changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation.

The companies that merged to form CTR manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, and most importantly for the development of the computer, punched card equipment. Over time CTR came to focus purely on the punched card business, and ceased its involvement in these other activities.

IBM's success in the mid-1960s led to enquiries as to IBM antitrust violations by the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a complaint for the case U.S. v. IBM in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, on January 17, 1969. The suit alleged that IBM violated the Section 2 of the Sherman Act by monopolizing or attempting to monopolize the general purpose electronic digital computer system market, specifically computers designed primarily for business. Litigation continued until 1983, and had a significant impact on the company's practices.

On January 19, 1993 IBM announced a $4.97 billion loss for 1992 which was at that time the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history. Since that loss, IBM has made major changes in its business activities, shifting its focus significantly away from components and hardware and towards software and services.

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The logo designers at Logo Bob understand how to make a logo design work for you and trigger something to your target market. Their responsibility as logo designers is to create a unique symbol that has power to communicate within a split second what the company is about.

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Business logo design is one of the most important stages in building brand awareness for your customer. At Logo Design Bob, we understand how critical that stage is. Our goal is to provide you with specialized professional custom logo services at a price that will fit your budget.

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