For our class on Monday, September 29th, we attended to a School of Visual Arts Exhibit: The Master Series: Tom Geismar at the School of Visual Arts Gallery. Tom Geismar is a living legend. He’s created more than 100 identity systems for clients such as Mobile, Xerox and Chase Bank, just to name a few. He’s a founding member of the influential Geismar & Chermayeff & Haviv. More important, is the first retrospective of the designer’s work to feature groundbreaking logos, graphics and exhibition designs as well as personal works, books and student projects from his own collection.

            The Master Series: Tom Geismar

I always see the Chase logo as the octagon symbol. Also, I see the logo as four rectangles with missing parts but now I see it in a philosophical way. In other words, after looking the logo again I just though in pathfinder, adobe illustrator, photoshop, adobe indesign, color and size. The octagon is a design comprised of parallel lines and solid blue. Created by the design firm Chermayeff & Geismar associates, the Chase logo introduced on november 21, 1960 still the centerpiece today of the JP Morgan chase brand structure and introduced to coincide with the completion of one chase Manhattan plaza. Thus, this non representational geometric form was thought to be the best because at the time there was not abstract and representational symbol of modern banking. As one can see, the chase logo still simple, attractive, and timeless.

Moreover, my first impression of the Robotic? poster 1983 for the Simpson paper company was seeing it as a simple drawing robot. However, after looking closely I was able to see letters, shapes, and a question mark that together are the robot. In other words, the word “ROBOTIC?” compose by square serif font form the classic toy robot.

In addition, the Seatrain Lines logo 1966 was a simple “S” to me. However, two arrows going in opposite directions form the visual presentation of an “S”. Seatrain Lines was a leader in developing container shipping. Thus, the Seatrain Lines logo can be tricked.

Seatrain Shipbuilding