Source: nypost.com Christopher Sadowski. License: All Rights Reserved.

Dom Bold and Agenda.

Fairway Market is a chain of grocery stores in the New York metropolitan area. From Wikipedia:

Founded in 1933, it expanded in the New York area in the 21st century, with 15 grocery stores plus 4 liquor stores in the tri-state area as of August 2018. The flagship store remains at Broadway and West 74th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Their visual identity is not exactly consistent, and has seen several changes over the past few years.

Perhaps referencing the long history of the sign painter’s brush script in U.S. grocery signs, the logo used on the store shown above is in yellow caps from Dom Bold, horizontally stretched and with added drop shadow, against a green background. The casual unconnected brush script easily withstands some amount of stretching, in this case a little more than 120%.

The slogan “Like No Other Market” sometimes is rendered in a mechanically extended brush script, too. In the photo below, the font in use possibly is the lighter Dom Casual. Here, with less chunky letters and in title case, the distortion is more problematic – at least the e looks somewhat pained. Other signs use the similar Impress. The setting with lowercase letters is also more revealing of the typefaces’ age. (Dom Casual goes back to the early 1950s when ATF adopted a film face originally drawn by Peter Dom for Photo-Lettering, Inc.; Impress is a digital version of Filmotype Prima which was first offered in 1955.) This may have been the motivation to replace the slogan typography with something more contemporary. The photo above shows “Like No Other Market” in Greg Thompson’s Agenda (1993), in all caps and without quote marks. The tapering red underline was maintained.

Source: www.flickr.com Jules Antonio (edited). License: CC BY-SA.

Dom Bold and Dom Casual (?), stretched. Red Hook, Brooklyn, 2012.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Top: The Fairway logo with slogan. Bottom: Recreation with stretched and respaced glyphs, featuring ① Dom Bold, ② Dom Casual, and ③ Impress (all by Bitstream).

Apparently this update still didn’t look modern enough. The Fairway website shows the latest logo version, in white on black. It’s not a drastic redesign, but a cautious revision. Dom Bold had to make way for a more recent typeface from the same genre, Ahkio.

Source: www.fairwaymarket.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Ahkio Bold (modified) and Neutraface.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Ahkio Bold (top) compared to the current Fairway logo (bottom)

Designed by Mika Melvas, it was released in 2014 in five weights. Ahkio is slightly inclined, adding a welcome sense of movement to the wordmark. The Bold weight already had the right weight and width. Some changes were deemed necessary, though: the bar in F was raised and shortened – maybe to mitigate the near crash with the protruding A bar – and crosses the stem; and the leg of R curves forward. While the apex of A was cleaned up, the opposite approach was chosen for W, with offset strokes that emphasize the handmade look. The slogan underneath now is set in caps from another sans serif, Neutraface by Christian Schwartz. Both typefaces are used for the Fairway website, too. The newest logo has the most professional appeal, but also borders on the slick.

Source: www.flickr.com Adam Kuban. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

The original Fairway store at Broadway and West 74th Street (see Google Street View) in 2008. Zoom in to spot two more typefaces from the same genre as Dom & Co.: Benguiat Frisky and Balloon are used for “Fresh cut flowers”.

Source: www.flickr.com Patrick Rasenberg. License: CC BY-NC.

The same store in 2012, shortly before the redesign was implemented. The banners at the top already show Dom Bold in stacked caps.

Until around 2012, Fairway used yet another logo version, in yellow caps on a blue background. It’s not clear to me if these letterforms are typographic or custom made. The closest typeface I’m aware of is McCullagh, which has a similar boldness and tall proportions, and shares three of its key characteristics: the high-waisted F, the asymmetrical W, and, most notably, the low-waisted R with a flat and vertically cut leg. The old Fairway logo looks like a sans-serif adaptation of McCullagh, but I can’t rule out that the similarities are just coincidental. This variant scores high in terms of uniqueness. On the other hand, it’s maybe too obviously rooted in the past. The red and black outlines and the gradient fill add to the nostalgic, sign-painterly charm.

While the slogan here is set in caps from Univers Bold, the web address below doesn’t follow suit: It’s the system font Arial, which makes this line look like a belated and thoughtless addition.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The Fairway logo on the original store (top) compared to McCollough, a digital version of McCullagh (bottom).

Source: www.flickr.com Zach Korb. License: CC BY-NC.

A large painted version of the old logo with outline, spotted underneath the Riverside Drive Viaduct, Harlem, in 2017. The awning at the left shows the version in Dom Bold, with the slogan in yet another bold grotesk, here in title case with straight quotes.

A modern day Publix. The company has started to give the letters in their logo a very wide spacing, which I see as a poor choice.

Sometime in 1972, Florida-based grocery chain rolled out a new branding system. The color green would stay but a new wordmark debuted that's actually still in use to this day. Six letters of Blippo Bold, the letter p has actually been re-purposed as an uppercase. The spacing started out tight and has loosened over the years. The corporate design department at Publix has been using other Universal-influenced designs to compliment the logo over the years.

Photo of a store opening in the late 1970s.

Not too sure of this font (if it is one). The g and i don’t match characters from Blippo Bold. “Where shopping is a pleasure” has been Publix’s slogan off and on for over 60 years. It was coined by Bill Schroter, Director of Advertising, in 1954.

The slogan looks to use a few styles of Harry.

Publix facilities in Lakeland, FL feature a water tower with a birthday cake top. You can see it at 3223 New Tampa Hwy, Lakeland, FL.

Staples recently revamped its identity. The supporting typeface chosen to carry the tough task of displaying vast amounts of information, printed, digital, constructed and everything in between is Plau’s Motiva Sans. Motiva is used on everything at Staples, from website to office signage and The Loop, its product catalog. The complementary script is Rocket Clouds (Wacaksara co, 2018).

It feels pretty crazy to see the first typeface I’ve ever designed be used for such a household brand. Yet when I think of it, my thoughts when designing are a good match for the job.

My reference in type design during my early efforts were Neville Brody, Erik Spiekermann and Adrian Frutiger. Because of Frutiger the typeface, I wanted to design a family that I could use on a daily basis without getting tired, one that could set my personal view on sans serifs, which back then I considered the ultimate challenge (a little too early for that I should advise my younger self, but still). One that could solve multiple problems while keeping a friendly demeanor. Motiva's lowercase a may be the most important point of personality, where the round bowl drops to the connection in a friendly way. When comparing to other more popular choices, such as Gotham or Proxima Nova, Motiva feels like it doesn’t take itself as serious (at least to my very biased pair of eyeballs). Even though it isn’t used in the identity, the italics are quirky – I decided I wanted true italics – a concept I didn’t quite grasp in the beginning. For that reason, there’s stuff in the italics that I wouldn’t do today – and I think that’s ok, it’s kind of a timestamp of an earlier time.

Since it was selected for brands as varied as Steam (the operating system, by Valve), a children’s hospital, and now Staples, it may have proved itself as a worthy effort!

Anyhow, Motiva is now almost 10 years old. Last year I partnered up with Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer (aka Mekka Blue) to improve Motiva on commission by Valve, extend its character set to Vietnamese, and hint it. I’m really glad we did it. If Motiva gives me as much joy out in the world as I had after releasing its very first version – only one weight and 5 bucks back in 2009 – ten solid years await.

The Loop Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2019 (cover)

The Loop Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2019 (opening spread)

Website detail (The Loop page)

Website detail (About page)

Nintendo Entertainment System, 1985

Corporate’s wide stance, simplified forms, and rounded rectangles are strongly associated with 1970s–90s tech. The original Nintendo Entertainment System, and many of its related components, used the typeface for its name and other labeling, copying the ColecoVision from three years before.

Corporate was released in 1971 by Alphabet Innovations, having licensed the design from its creator, Roc Mitchell. Mitchell passed away in 2015 after a 60-year career in commercial art — and his letters printed on millions of electronic gadgets.

Nintendo Entertainment System controller

Nintendo NES Four Score, 1990. This version of Corporate has angled cuts in many of the strokes. It’s available digitally as Corporate URW.

Nintendo Entertainment System, model NES-101, 1993

The Nintendo Zapper is a light gun that was launched on October 18, 1985. The orange variant shown here followed in 1988. It uses Inverserif for “Zapper”.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) introduced a refreshed mark by The Original Champions of Design and steadily started integrating it in 2017. The overall identity will be officially put into place across all properties for the 2018-19 regular season beginning October 16, 2018. [NBA]

This is a very slight update of an original 1969 logo by Siegel+Gale. The player shown in silhouette is still that of Los Angeles Laker Jerry West. The typeface used on the updated identity is Commercial Type's Action Condensed designed by LettError, replacing a previous variety of sans serifs.

The foundation of a brand makeover for Hershey's Chocolate is not Helvetica Extra Compressed, but Milton, a custom font named after the company's founder, Milton Hershey.

The redesigned logo and supporting identity was launched in 2014 and designed by Hershey Global Design — led by Ron Burrage, Sr. Director Global Head of Design — and Cincinnati, OH-based goDutch. The custom font was provided by New York, NY-based Alexander Design Associates. Brandon Grotesque is used as supporting typeface. See also the review on Brand New.

The current website combines Milton (for call-to-action buttons) and Brandon Grotesque (menus) with Brandon Text (smaller copy). Europa is yet another sans serif that appears in headlines.

In 1961, Ken Garland redesigned the identity for Galt Toys, set in Folio. Later, the company accepted his offer to design their toys and games. They remained a client until 1982.

When we were working for Galt Toys, although we used the same logo, we twisted it round and did umpteen versions of it and never let it stay the same. — Ken Garland, Eye

The style was maintained consistently for 20 years. The letterforms chosen for GALT TOYS were from a very recently issued typeface, Folio Medium Extended. … [We] were determined not to let the Galt Toys logo become a sacred cow, not to be mucked about with (as was decreed with so many logos in the 50s and 60s). It would, indeed, be mucked around with, but only by us. — Ken Garland, Galy Tots

Cover of first Galt Toys catalogue, 1961

publicity leaflet, 1967. Drawing by Wanda Garland.

publicity leaflet. Photography: Harriet Crowder.

Galt Post Office, Ken Garland & Associates, 1967.

Box for Montage toy.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Ken Garland & Associates designed the original Fizzog matching game in 1969. This is a mid-1970s edition. The designer of this box is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

The designer of this box is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

One of two boxes for Linking Letters. The designer is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

One of two boxes for Linking Letters. The designer is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

Memory tile game with illustrations by Kenneth Townsend.

Catalog cover for Galt Toys, 1969–70, playing with the logotype (in Folio). The small type in the ‘O’ is Univers, which was often used as a secondary typeface during this period.

Detail of above cover, reprinted as a limited-edition poster by Trunk Records.

Catalog cover, 1974–75. Drawing by Daria Gan.

Tootsie Rolls have been a staple of American candy since the early 1900s. Their brown, red, and white branding has been one of the most iconic and consistent uses of Cooper Black, going back at least as far as the 1970s – seemingly part of the surge in the typeface’s popularity after the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds in 1966 – with the basic design changing very little over the decades.

And Cooper Black’s style seems to ideally match the taste and texture of Tootsie Rolls. As Ellen Lupton once said: “It's a chewy, dark font that perfectly reflects the Tootsie Roll candy”.

Founder and owner Stelios Haji-Ioannou on the first easyJet flight from Luton to Glasgow, Nov. 10, 1995.

British low-cost airline easyJet was established in 1995 as the first company in what would later become the easyGroup conglomerate. Right from the start, the visual identity was based on the color orange and chubby Cooper Black, making it a perfect candidate for our tag typeface plus color equals brand. The brand manual defines it as:

(a) white lettering on an orange background (Pantone® 021c on glossy print materials; on other surfaces the nearest practicable equivalent) and
(b) in Cooper Black font (not bold, italics, outline nor underlined) the word “easy” in lower case followed (without space) by another word, only the initial letter of which is capitalised

For the first few years, the jets’ fuselages displayed the booking phone number in Cooper Black’s gently ranging oldstyle numerals. In 1998, when online bookings became more popular, the numbers were replaced with the web address, with “.com” set in Futura.

The manual acknowledges that “the Cooper Black font has played an important part in building the ‘easy’ brand. Its bold, confident and distinct appearance has made it recognisable and associated with ’easy’. Its soft friendly curves have given a warm personality to the ‘easy’ businesses.” Unlike in the early days, Cooper Black nowadays is only to be used for the business names. The business names should always appear in Cooper Black, though, even in body text.

“Picture this: a sky full of thunder / Picture this: my telephone number” (Boeing 737-3M8; Jan. 1998, BKU)

The iconic livery with the easyJet.com web address (A319-111 at CDG)

The lettering typically is positioned and sized so that the windows align more or less with the counter in ‘a’ as well as the interior space of ‘J’ (Photo by www.heatheronhertravels.com).

The 200th easyJet Airbus (A320-200) is painted in inverse colors. Spotted in Dec. 2014 at TLS.

The Romeo Alpha Juliet (A319-111) celebrates the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth in 2014.

In 2015, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary, easyJet announced a refreshed livery. This image shows the special “20 years” jubilee edition, a variation of the new look, taking off from ZRH in April 2017.

A good logo needs to work even when faxed, they said. And when embroidered!

Contender for largest application of Cooper Black: Hangar 89 at Luton airport, easyJet’s corporate office.

The “easy” brand owned by the easyGroup is licenced to an ever-growing number of “easy” branded businesses. It “currently operates in more than a dozen industries mainly in travel, leisure, serviced office accommodation and other consumer facing sectors” — from easyBus to easyLimousines, and from easyPizza to easyGym — all united by the brand formula orange plus Cooper Black.

Source: stone-thrower.com Photography: Evan Kafka / Glasshouse. Art Director: Vince Soliven. Creative Directors: Chris Turner, David Metcalf / Ogilvy & Mather. License: All Rights Reserved.

Huggies is Kimberly-Clark’s brand name for disposable diapers, baby pants, baby wipes and related product lines. Since 2010, Omnes by Darden Studio is the main typeface of the corporate identity. The rounded sans serif is used for all aspects of the international brand, from packaging, print ads and TV commercials to websites and apps.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Snug & Dry packaging

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Litte Snugglers packaging

Source: www.plunketshop.co.nz Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

In New Zealand and Australia, Huggies diapers are marketed in gender-specific versions for girls and boys. Omnes works for both.

Source: sensorsensibility.evankafka.com Photography: Evan Kafka / Glasshouse. Art Director: Vince Soliven. Creative Directors: Chris Turner, David Metcalf / Ogilvy & Mather. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ads from the “We Want You” campaign for the new SureFit design, with bold caps from Omnes.

Source: sensorsensibility.evankafka.com Photography: Evan Kafka / Glasshouse. Art Director: Vince Soliven. Creative Directors: Chris Turner, David Metcalf / Ogilvy & Mather. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ads from the “Little Mover’s Slip-On Diaper” campaign. See also the TV spots directed by Bruce Hurwit.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

The website uses Omnes for all text, from headlines and teasers to smaller texts and navigational items.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Menu of the French-language website with “Mommy Answers”. Omnes is paired with matching icons.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

The website employs a range of styles from the Omnes family. This detail shows the Extra Light in a center-aligned display setting, combined with caps from the regular weight.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

To maintain brand consistency across all media, Omnes is used in the Huggies Rewards app, too.

Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Logo of the current “No Baby Unhugged” program, featuring Omnes Regular and the Semibold Italic.

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail of a Spanish-language diaper sizing chart, with reversed glyphs from Omnes Bold

Source: www.huggies.com Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Packing for the Hospital. A Labor of Love” — detail of an illustrated infographic aimed at parents-to-be

Source: www.littleswimmers.co.uk Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

The animated microsite for Little Swimmers swim pants makes colorful use of Omnes Bold and Semibold.

Source: huggies.it Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Italian website features a very different color range, but adheres to Omnes as the corporate typeface.

Source: www.huggies.com.tr Huggies / Kimberly-Clark. License: All Rights Reserved.

Thanks to its wide and ever-growing language support, Omnes can be used for the Turkish market, too.

AT&T’s globe logo is complemented by the marketing proposition “Mobilizing Your World”, rendered in right-aligned caps from Omnes.

AT&T Inc. is the second largest provider of mobile telephone services and the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States, and also provides broadband subscription television services through DirecTV. It is the largest telecommunications company in the world by revenue [Wikipedia] and was ranked at #4 of the Most Valuable Global Brands 2016.

The typographic cornerstone of the brand is Omnes by Darden Studio. In his review of AT&T’s latest brand update in 2016, design critic Armin Vit comments:

Omnes […] is one of my favorite typefaces and it works nicely as a playful corporate typeface in its lighter weights.

AT&T uses a custom version spanning several weights mostly from the lighter end of the family’s range, plus italics. The friendly sans serif with selective rounding is employed across all media, from the various websites to corporate brochures, reports, infographics, videos, and more.

For many years, AT&T’s slogan was “Rethink Possible”, set in Omnes Italic. This theme was introduced in 2010 and phased out sometime between 2014 and 2016.

Omnes in use for headlines and teaser texts on one of the Enterprise Business blogs

Detail of an infographic featuring Omnes Light with matching icons.

For this graphic from AT&T Aspire, the company’s educational section, numerals from Omnes Bold Italic were rendered with a texture to emulate the aesthetics of a chalkboard.

Headlines often are in italics. The cursive shapes augment the approachable character of Omnes.

With its eye-catching ‘1’, Omnes is great for drawing attention to important numerical data.

Infographic “Connect to Good: A Roadmap to 2025”

Cover of a whitepaper about technology for the Internet of Things

Point-of-sale advertising

Omnes here is used in a futuristic interface, providing ubiquituous access to personalized data. Still from the video clip “Mobilizing Your World with AT&T”

Header of the Spanish-language website

“Movilizando tu mundo” — the slogan in Spanish, as seen in videos on the ATTLatino channel

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

It isn’t adored by quite as many young fans as other riders of the current geo-sans wave — typefaces like GT Walsheim, LL Brown, and LL Circular — but FF Mark is one of the more popular releases of the last three years, and it’s picking up steam. You see it in industries from tech to editorial, in print and on the web. As a plain, clear sans with a moderate x-height it works reasonably well in most of these environments, yet it’s often called to do jobs it’s not really meant to do: especially pages full of light body copy where the design’s uniform stroke and letter widths paint a pretty drab monotone.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

That’s not a period, it’s a ®. Trademark symbols have become like terms and conditions texts: legally required, but practically useless. Designers prefer to make them as small as possible to get them out of the way of their logo.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

Designed by Hannes von Döhren and Christoph Koeberlin in 2013, FF Mark filled a gap in FontFont’s library: a geometric sans with a large lowercase. This sample image is by Pentagram, who is admirably steadfast in crediting the type they use.

This major redesign for Mastercard, however, is exactly the kind of mission FF Mark was trained for. Pentagram began by refocusing on the iconic interlocking symbol, now nearly 50 years old, wisely clearing it of its clutter and moving the name to the side or below. The new circular typeface obviously echoes the symbol’s geometry, but it’s not just about circles: FF Mark’s other characteristics fit well too — its broad stance, open forms (‘s’ and ‘c’), the roundness of the ‘m’ arches and ‘t’ tail.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

This redesign is not so much a revolution for Mastercard as a callback to the best logo of the brand’s past. In 1979, “MasterCard” was set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic, stamped boldly over the center of the circles. This was replaced in 1990 by an ill-advised italic which was later littered with a drop shadow in typical ’90s fashion. Going back to a geometric sans serif is a no-brainer, but Avant Garde is rather cold and closed. Switching to all-lowercase FF Mark refreshes the banal corporate presentation with a more approachable air.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

As we can expect from an experienced firm like Pentagram, the logo and type harmonize naturally. The designers resist the urge to rationalize the geometry via some contrived construction grid. And all the work is thoughtfullly implemented in a variety of environments where bite-size chunks of type combine with large images and the overlapping circle motif.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

These teaser images for the new identity came out pretty nicely. It’s solid work. Not thrilling, but as fresh a look as you can expect from a multinational payment network. The question remains, however: Will FF Mark be the only part of the typographic palette for this new identity? Will it be used to set long passages of text? Will it be pushed beyond its purpose? We’ll have to wait for the answer because the redesign was just announced today. (Mastercard.com is still set in Accord Alternate, a 2010 face that already feels dated, perhaps because it piggybacks on the well-worn spurless concept from 20 years ago.)

Source: www.youtube.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

This mockup (not necessarily a final design) overlooks a basic principle of setting body text: the more space letters have inside them, the more space they need between them.

I hope this teaser video is not an indication of FF Mark’s intended role, because some of these screens make all the most common geo-sans mistakes: a light weight, spaced way too tightly, for all the text on the page. A financial services company striving for clarity and simplicity should take the readability of mundane info as seriously as its logo.

Source: www.pentagram.com © Mastercard. License: All Rights Reserved.

At its core, this is a strong mark, returning Mastercard to its former glory, by emphasizing not the name, but the symbol: a couple of unmistakable dots that shine your way to a shop door, even from across the street.

Both the packaging and contents of tương ớt sriracha hot chili sauce bottles from Huy Fong Foods, Inc. have become condiment icons in recent decades. Sometimes referred to as “rooster sauce” because of the rooster on its label (the illustrator of which is unknown), the chili sauce features a chaotic jumble of elements on its packaging in multiple writing systems.

The most prominent Latin text elements are rendered in a variety of informal script typefaces released by American Type Founders in the 20th century, namely Balloon and its shaded counterpart, Balloon Drop Shadow, as well as Brody. Smaller text on the back of the bottle is set in Impress and Tekton.

Unfortunately my skills with recognizing fonts for Chinese text aren’t good enough to identify those used on the label. Any insight is welcome.

The brand’s product range also extends to potato chips and popcorn.

The logo for NYC-based clothing brand and skateboard shop, Supreme, is a direct imitation of a typographic style established by Barbara Kruger in her artwork.

Despite the fact that their branding and many of their clothing graphics are themselves an imitation of someone else’s style, Supreme has filed lawsuits against others, claiming they are infringing on their intellectual property.

When asked what she thought of the situation, Barbara Kruger replied:

What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers.
I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce.
I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement.

AnOther magazine:

"In most households, the first three names [Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein] are household words. Get ready for another. His name (hint) is Tommy. The second name is not so easy. But in a few short months everybody in America will know there's a new look", read the campaign.

"When we launched, I teamed up with George Lois to do a series of ads that compared me to all the designers I’d idolised for so long – Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein," Hilfiger reminisces in his 1997 book All-American. "It was a gutsy move, and I’d be lying if I said I was entirely comfortable with it at the time. But Mohan, Joel, and George convinced me to go for it, to leapfrog the competition in marketing. It worked."

George Lois:

Knowing we struck gold, I then positioned him in three successive spreads as the leader of fashion’s third wave of designers: “First there was Geoffrey Beane, Bill Blass and Stanley Blacker… Then Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and Ralph Lauren…” followed by Tommy’s impish face pissing off every inhabitant of the Seventh Avenue schmatte business.

Billboard that ran in Times Square at the same time as the magazine ad.

“The hangman campaign focused on two key aspects of the Hilfiger brand: the importance of America and the brand's logo. The white and red fields in the central part of the logo were borrowed from the International Code of Signals' flag ‘H’ (‘Hotel’), which when hoisted alone, means that: “I have a pilot on board.” Here, of course, it is the ‘H’ for ‘Hilfiger’.” — AnOther

CNN launched with this logo in 1980 and has used it with very little variation ever since. The origin story, as told by Toni Dwyer in an article by Cody Sigel Combs:

"In the eleventh hour, it occurred to someone that they needed a logo," said Toni Dwyer of Communication Trends, Inc, and the ad firm that worked with CNN before it got off the ground in 1980. "We had about 24 or 48 hours to turn around and present a logo."

The logo was designed by the late Anthony Guy Bost, who had also been a professor at the University of Auburn. Dwyer distinctly remembered presenting the designs to the powers that be. "There were several forms of the logo they weren't exactly wild about, there was one we thought would play the best, we tried to keep it simple," said Dwyer. "It was designed with money in mind, so we tried to keep it one color."

Terry McGuirk, currently the chairman of the Atlanta Braves, was first to see the logo. "They gave us 4 or 5 different looks, and one sort of stood out, a cable running through the letters C-N-N," said McGuirk, who in 1980 was vice president of Turner Broadcasting and very involved in the startup of CNN.

CNN founder Ted Turner liked the logo, and the choice was made. It finally came time to talk money. "For the price of the logo, we wanted something like $5,000," said Dwyer of Communication Trends. "They (CNN) all threw a fit, and the final bill for the logo was $2,800 or $2,400."

Given the very close similarity to Teruoki Yagi’s Yagi Double, released around 1968, it seems likely that the font was used for the CNN mark — or was at least the inspiration.

Neon sign in action at the CNN Center.

CNN Center (headquarters) in Atlanta.

A store in July 2014

The Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Their logo has remained virtually unchanged since their founding in 1978.

An early Home Depot store

Albertsons, based in Boise, Idaho, is the second largest supermarket chain in the United States. The company's corporate name was Albertson’s until 2002, when the apostrophe was removed.

I grew up with Albertsons in Salt Lake City and was fascinated at a young age with the odd, goopy lettering in the logo. The mark is based on Art Nouveau-inspired typeface Introspect, with some minor adjustments and rounded corners. Albertsons was founded way back in 1939, but they must have adopted Introspect sometime in the early ’80s. (Here’s what an Albertson’s sign looked like in 1959 and 1978.)

Over the years — perhaps due to repeated tracing over photocopied originals — it seems that the official wordmark has gotten increasingly soft and mishapen, the letters like gummy bears left to melt in the hot sun. Maybe they should get a copy of URW’s digital version of the font and start over.

Introspect’s designer Phil Martin, had this to say about Introspect in his 2004 e-book Design for (a) Living:

Which leads me to my Introspect series, probably my second best.

I had this crazy idea, can I design a face where some of the lowercase letters touch themselves in places where they are not supposed to? A colleague said, “If you can do that you might want to name it ‘Bad Printing.’ That’s what happens in bad printing, you know.”

I stuck with my idea and released Introspect in 1971.

In some way that no one will ever be able to explain, the design said “food product” to package designers. I soon came to call it my supermarket face. I rarely walked down the isle of a supermarket without some package on one side or the other, flashing its product with the name set in my Introspect.

“Buy me and eat me,” spoke Introspect throughout the food stores of America and beyond. Fulfilling for a designer, don’t you agree?

Even today the Albertson chain of supermarkets and liquor stores carry their logo and other copy in a slightly modified version of Introspect.

In 1985, David Cooke started Blockbuster Video in Dallas, Texas. Cooke worked with Dallas-based Rominger Advertising agency and Art Director Lee Dean to design an identity. Dean chose ITC Machine as Blockbuster’s typeface. In Blockbuster’s nearly 30 year existence, ITC Machine had never been taken out of the identity. It might go down as the most famous use of Carnase and Bonder's beautifully simple typeface.

An advertisement from The Pittsburg Press using ITC Machine with Helvetica as a supporting player.

“The logotype for the cable network Showtime puts a spotlight on the SHO within the Showtime name, cleverly highlighting the network’s abbreviation. The SHO mark is then used in newspaper listings and as Showtime’s on-air bug for channel identification.” — Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv