Discourse 1- article 1

The Final Days of ATT

from "9 Short Essays on Design"
by Michael Bierut

• American Telephone & Telegraph was founded in 1885 as a subsidiary of Alexander Graham Bell's Bell Telephone Company to create a long-distance network for Bell's local operating companies
• In 1915, AT&T opened transcontinental telephone service
• there had been a perfect synconicity between the inventor's name and the sound his product made
• unlike so many other brand names, it was a word that could be represented with a simple picture
• In 1968, Saul Bass was hired to bring order to the system, and created a classic modern identity program.
• AT&T agreed to divest itself of its local telephone operations, and seven independent "baby Bells" came into place. This was a "gold rush" for identity designers.
• logo would be nothing but a sphere, a circle crossed with lines modulated in width to create the illusion of dimensionality.
• Despite Bass's logo, after 1984, nothing was stable again in the telecom business.
• And now, after 20 years of telecom chaos, SBC Communications, Inc., a descendent of Southwestern Bell, is taking over its former parent company and wanted to create a logo that was the symbol is innovation and technology
• "Graphic design, unlike architecture , leaves no footprint. When one of the best known logos in the world disappears overnight, the only hole created is in our collective consciousness. By New Year's Eve, Saul Bass's sphere will be no more. Will anyone mourn — or protest — its passing? "

The images below show the AT&T logos over the years. The first logo being the actual bell showing the "bell system" seems to follow the history of the company since the founder was Alexander Bell. The later logo (#2) is the Saul Bass logo of 1968. Bass is known for using spheres such as the logos for Continental Airlines and Minolta...and the same was true for his design for AT&T. I really prefer the last logo and most current one by SBC Communications because not only is it dimensional making it much more dynamic and modern, but the sphere also gives the impression of a global communication...something that can be shared by everyone and is accessible to everyone. And that is perfectly isync with the philosophy of the company which says that they can communicate everyone and are a global network.

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