When I was younger, I had a sheet of US Bicentennial stamps and I always loved the red, white, and blue star. Little did I know then that I would become a graphic designer.

The symbol, designed by Bruce Blackburn at Chermayeff & Geismar is a multilayered stylized five-pointed star. It folds like bunting. Its rounded corners evoke both a flower and a pinwheel at the same time. And finally, the negative space reveals a classic, pointed star.

A few years ago, Standards Manual reproduced the guidelines and I managed to grab a copy. Here’s a spread featuring storyboards for a motion graphics spot. I love it.

In Blackburn’s foreword to the reproduction, he wrote:

My deliberations led to the following conclusions: to begin with, of all the revolutionary “American” symbols I considered as possible elements in a solution, the only one that passed the historical reference test and, at the same time, could be utilized in a contemporary or “modern” way was the five-pointed star from the Betsy Ross flag. But the star is an aggressive and militaristic form, and the event needed something friendlier, more accessible. Why not wrap the star in stripes of red, white and blue “bunting”, rounding the sharp edges of the star and producing a second star surrounding the original? The two stars also refer to the two American centuries being celebrated.

Also little-known fact—Blackburn’s version was not the winner of the competition. Richard Baird, writing for his great Logo Histories newsletter two years ago, tells the story:

The symbol designed by Bruce Blackburn while working at Chermayeff & Geismar Associates is well-known and celebrated as a fine achievement in marque-making. The symbol would go on to be used on the side of the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building, on the Viking Mars lander and used across stamps, patches and all kinds of promotional materials, which accounts for its widespread recognition in the US. However, few know that Blackburn’s design was not the winning entry, that honour went to Lance Wyman.

Honestly, I don’t like Wyman’s version as much. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with the Blackburn symbol. The 7 and 6 are too abstracted to be visible, even to a trained designer like me.

Happy 249th birthday, America.

Oh, and Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv is working on the 250th anniversary branding for next year.

I’ve been seeing this new ad from Coinbase these past few days and love it. Made by independent agency Isle of Any, this spot has on-point animation, a banging track, and a great concept that plays with the Blue Screen of Death.

I found this one article about it from Little Black Book:

“Crypto is fundamentally updating the financial system,” says Toby Treyer-Evans, co-founder of Isle of Any, speaking with LBB. “So, to us it felt like an interesting place to start for the campaign, both as a film idea and as a way to play with the viewer and send a message. When you see it on TV, in the context of other advertising, it’s deliberately arresting… and blue being Coinbase’s brand colour is just one of those lovely coming togethers.”

In the 1980s and ’90s, Emigre was a prolific powerhouse. The company started out as a magazine in the mid-1980s, but quickly became a type foundry as the Mac enabled desktop publishing. As a young designer in San Francisco who started out in the ’90s, Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans were local heroes (they were based across the Bay in Berkeley). From 1990–1999 they churned out 37 typefaces for a total of 157 fonts. And in that decade, they expanded their influence by getting into music, artists book publishing, and apparel. More than any other design brand, they celebrated art and artists.

Here is a page from a just-released booklet (with a free downloadable PDF) showcasing their fonts from the Nineties.

I was visiting a customer of ours in Denver this week. They’re an HVAC contractor and we were camped out in one of their conference rooms where they teach their service technicians. On the walls, among posters of air conditioning diagrams were a couple of safety posters. At first glance they look like they’re from the 1950s and ’60s, but upon closer inspection, they’re from 2016! The only credit I can find on the internet is the copywriter, John Wrend.

Sadly, the original microsite where Grainger had these posters is gone, but I managed to track down the full set.