soulsight®

In 2012 there will be more ways to take a photo and show it to friends and loved ones than ever before. Remember a time before digital alternatives when there was only one way to catch a candid photo and share it on the spot. Polaroid made a truly social breakthrough when it introduced this notion of instant gratification, setting the tone for a new age. Check out the brain behind the branding with some insight from Polaroid designer Paul Giambarba's blog & Aisle One.

In 1958, Polaroid hired graphic designer Paul Giambarba to help them develop a new visual brand that would separate them from Kodak. What Paul designed was a simple, beautiful and unique visual language. At its core was a color bar system and sans-serif typeface that is still recognizable today. The typeface used in the branding is News Gothic, by Morris Fuller Benton. The color stripes then became the product identity of this specific family of Polaroid products of hardware and film. Other designs identified other specific families of products such as SX-70, Polavision, et al.

The color bars even stirred up some controversy when a small computer company in Cupertino, California calling itself Apple came up with a similar corporate mark.

Acording to Giambarba in 1980, Polaroid management decided to forego further attempts at product identity, in order to keep the work in house as an economy measure, and rely on an overall one size-fits-all corporate ID approach.