Missouri State Archives Presentation Videos

 

[ Transcript for: The Meaning of the Mark: Advertising Symbols from the Missouri State Archives ]

The Meaning of the Mark: Advertising Symbols from the Missouri State Archives Video Transcript

Presentation

(Applause.)

Introduction

 

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; This is an amazing collection that is open to the public and anyone who is of, you know, stalwart heart and ready for some good digging.; It’s a huge and beautiful collection that you can avail yourself to.; I think it’s unusual that we can go and handle these artifacts with no gloves, no anything.; And, they’re lovely.; The reproductions really don’t do them justice, so.

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Missouri State Archives Trademark Collection

 

A little bit about our collection; why do we have this collection?; I don’t -- we have this collection because, as you can see above, this is actually an excerpt from one of the many Trademark applications, which I also think, are fascinating.

The Trademark Collection starts in 1893.; And, it comes -- it comes to be part of the archive collection because the Missouri General Assembly passed an act protecting trademarks and copyrights, as you see above, counterfeiting.; The goal was to protect -- protect goods and services from being copied.; So, that starts the collection and it’s current up until today.; If you file for a trademark in the state of Missouri it is continuous and so the collection is -- is huge and has tens of thousands of icons and words copyrighted.

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This is the first one in the collection -- the first visual trademark.; This is actually No. 2.; And, it was the first little treat in here.; It’s a union -- a cigar makers union tag for a cigar maker -- in the -- I thought that the type on it was very interesting.; Know, that when you have this cigar it was -- is not made by rat-shop Coolie or Filthy Tenement-House Workmanship.; This is good workmanship.; And, it’s, you know, what a nice auspicious start to the collection.; That’s what we’re against here.

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Trademarks v. Copyrights and Trademarks v. Patents

So, for clarification I want to talk for a minute about the difference between trademarks and copyrights, and trademarks and patents.

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A copyright -- short, in the short form, it protects creative works.; Writing, art, music, dramatic.; A trademark -- the purpose of a trademark is to protect -- protect words, names, taglines, symbols related to the selling of goods.; Like a copyright, a trademark is indefinite.; It does not end -- it doesn’t have a period of time.; So, they are all current.; And, those are all different from patents.; Patents are -- are protection for inventions and they do have -- the new patent law is 20 years -- a 20-year patent.; So, -- so that’s what we’re dealing with is trademarks.; Trademarks, they are words and symbols that you can trademark.; We’re going to be primarily looking at symbols because that’s -- that’s graphic design.

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How Did These Companies Want to be Seen?

 

So, when we’re looking at these slides from the design point of view, here are a few of the things that we’re going to be looking at.; Okay.; Why did the companies choose the visuals that they have chosen?; And, they like those trademarks well enough to go through the process of applying to safeguard them.; When a company makes a trademark it’s -- it’s doing it for a couple of reasons.; A symbol -- a symbol is going to be shorthand for that product.; It makes the product distinct from other products like it.; It -- and it tells us a little -- it’s a little snapshot into the beliefs and thoughts of the company, so for visual connotation, look and feel of a logo.; The look and feel of a logo might tell you whether or not this logo is for steel or bathroom tissue, right?; And, it’s in -- well are the letters curly and soft and feather light or are they huge and bulking and going to protect you from damage or breakage, right?

Appropriateness again that’s -- can you go back?; Appropriateness again -- does it sell the product in a way that’s -- that’s correct for that -- that product.; And, we’ll see some where appropriateness they aren’t really appropriate and they’re, kind of, interesting because they are not really appropriate.

There’s a psychology behind trademarks.; How am I going to make myself distinctive from other people with my trademark?; My water is wetter than everyone else’s water.; My soda is fizzier.; My -- my steel is stronger.

And, lastly the other thing a trademark has to do -- a good trademark, is it has to be visually appealing and visually distinctive. So that if you’re walking down a line in your supermarket of cure-alls, you’re going to choose my cure-alls over my friend’s cure-all because my label just grabs ya, you know, you see it more than any of the other ones.; So, those are some things -- those are some games that are being played with these icons.

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Cottage Industry Trademarks

 

What’s really interesting about this collection is graphic design really came about with -- with the Industrial Revolution.; It came about with mass production.; But the collection starts in 1893, and, for Missouri, that’s a few seconds before the Industrial Revolution.; So, at the beginning of the collection, distinctly, you’re seeing people applying for trademarks and -- for their cottage industry, lots and lots of cottage industry.; And, what’s interesting about that is some of these trademarks are hand drawn.; They’re beautiful little works of art.; Some of them are painted. And, these are a few of the different ones.; It’s very carefully; very nicely done little hand drawn inked drawings.

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Place and Patriotism a State Pride

 

So, I divided this into a number of different categories.; First is place.; What’s distinctive about the Missouri State Trademark Collection -- every state has a trademark collection as soon as they pass laws about copyright; they also have collections.; So, the Illinois State Archives starts in 1891, for instance.

So, what’s interesting to look at in our collection is how -- how do these icons reflect life in Missouri?; So, they have -- they have a very interesting relationship with place.; Patriotism is a great part.

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How do they talk about home?

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So, what we see in the beginning is icons that are not about this place, actually.; We’re seeing icons often made by immigrants that almost -- they relate more to their homeland than they do necessarily to here.; That famous Dutch Remedy is an excellent example of one where their -- their strength of product is based on the fact that the recipe came from the old land, right?

The Pilot logo does not look like Missouri.; It does not look like the Mississippi River. And, the same with the Japan Tea that was packaged in Missouri and looks, you know, it doesn’t have anything to do with here.

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That’s also partly -- people who are wanting to dream about places other than Missouri.; At the top you had the Scottish woodsmen and below is this Arabian Chief Coffee.; These are, you know, how can you escape with your brand -- escape this place -- this -- this life with your cup of coffee?

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And, then later in the collection you also see them quoting places that are in the states.; The mountains or this mountainscape, on the right, for the country sorghum; this is not Missouri.; Not any part of Missouri I’ve seen.

On the right, this New Orleans brand molasses is quite clearly from St. Joe.

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But, that does not continue.; As you get farther into the collection you do see the manufacturers and also society beginning to fall in love with Missouri and the landscapes change and they begin to look more and more like Missouri.; The fields on the left, notice -- I don’t know if you can see, but the snow-white cotton logo on the right does feature a Missouri mule in the corner.; The Sunbeam Coal logo begins to look much more like the Mississippi River and down.

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And, this one is a wonderful logo of -- of Missouri.; My favorite part of this is, “from the Land of a Million Smiles.”; Isn’t that what it’s like to live in Missouri?

 

FEMALE SPEAKER:; Yes, it is.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; That is.; That is.

 

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And, notice Ozark brands, this begins to play more and more.; A couple -- we get even more specific about this place -- this place we’re proud to be from with the Old St. Louis Beer and the paddleboats on the left and the statue of St. Louis on the right.; If I’m not mistaken, the one on the right actually does come from right around the World’s Fair.; So, it’s not surprising that St. Louis is beginning to have more cache and show up in the icons.

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I found a lovely little World’s Fair box.; I want you to notice that Myberg’s Mucilage is very proud to say that it was getting the gold medal at the Paris Exposition at the World’s Fair.; And, on the right, this seems like, you know, okay how does that have to do with St. Louis? Although, the thing is, if I’m not mistaken, that French influence is actually a quotation from the fair.; It is right around that fair period.; And, the typography also tends to reflect sort of French typography.; You can begin to see a little change in the graphic design after the fair.

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As we go through the wars, these are later; we start to have a very strong feeling about patriotism.; It’s no longer as interesting for -- for brands to be from Europe and other parts of the world.; It’s, you know, you really want your brands to be from America and some of these are very, very patriotic.

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And, incidentally, what exactly does red, white, and blue have to do with headache powders?; That’s what’s interesting.; They’re selling patriotism with things that are not necessarily appropriate to the product, but it’s that powerful of a, you know, a feeling that it works.

Social roles are another thing that you see very clearly sort of played out visually in these labels.

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This one, there’s a very, you know, you -- it’s very easy to see that these reflect a specific social period where -- this is a time when leisure is not only fancy lamps and nice -- nice palms, you know, tropical plants, but it’s also very important to have a slave in the background.

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Social Role Portrayal in Trademarks

 

We see this -- we see similar shifts in roles -- the way women are portrayed.; On the -- it’s very interesting that the women from these turn of the century labels are either a society woman which -- who is almost a decoration for the label, almost a flower, wealth being, one of the one -- one of the ways in which wealth is sort of measured is even by how beautiful their dresses are; and how -- how gentle and delicate they are.; It is sort of china doll women.; But, then the other role for women is this mother role that you see in the upper right corner.; Mama’s -- Mama’s Pies.

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And, then for our lower class women they really -- this is really about, you know, service.; It’s a service role.; And, these are not so different from the way minorities are portrayed.

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We see several of these -- I find that one on the left particularly chilling.; The thing of the past is that now that these gears are self-oiling, not only -- this guy is basically out of a job, he’s -- he’s -- he’s done.; The Porters Favorite trademark, the Arabian Coffee icon and the Indian trademark, not seen so much today.

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One last thing with the -- women are very interesting when you move into the Art Nouveau period, which these icons do.; Women -- women become very objectified and they become -- they are treated as ideas more than specific women at a certain point.; They become personifications of nature.; Personifications of beauty, of victory, of -- of truth.; And, these Art Nouveau logos sort of do that.; They all sell products through their -- their high standards and morals.

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This -- this one is very different.; I love this Mountain Pearl lady.; She’s the spunky side of feminism.

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And, then one from the 50’s.; This is sort of a later period.; People continue – the she becomes, starts to become, part of that genre of women on cars as part of -- of part of the new lifestyle. But, she’s so fun I had to put her in there.

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German Immigrant Influence

 

I saw a lot of -- of icons that specifically gave me a hint into how very German the immigrants to Missouri were.; I found lots of ones like that.

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Notice that this baking -- lots of the baking powder -- specifically the baking powder labels are in both English and German for a long period of time.; We’re going to talk about the German black letter as well.; That’s the typeface that you see down there.; I love this baking powder logo because we talk -- we’ve been talking about appropriateness.; Doesn’t this one look like your bread is going to rise?; You know, it’s the goodness of -- of chemicals coming through.

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And, this -- notice this -- this Easter egg, the very Victorian label with eggs and bunnies advertises that its directions are in both German and English.

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More examples of the baking powder labels.

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And, then one of the other things we see in logos other than just translations is this German black letter.; A famous designer, Zuzana Licko, said once its -- “That we read best what we read most.”; So, what she means by that is with typography -- the typography that is most readable is – it’s very cultural.; In the United States, right now, most people would say that they read a Sans Serif typeface fast, whereas if you travel in Europe they feel that a Sans Serif typeface is very unreadable and that it’s -- you need a type -- I’ve got them confused -- Serif type.; And, then, so at the original -- the original language for -- the original typography for Germany was actually all black letter and it was much more readable to them.; And, it was -- was sort of a naturals.; And, you see these in the icons early on.; You also see some sort of Germanic dolls and imps in some of these icons that kind of come through some of their folklore.; That kind of black letter in Germany, at least, goes away completely after World War II, because it’s a nationalistic language typeface.; And, so it is not used at all.; And, in this country you see black lettering and it doesn’t -- in Germany it means Nazism.; In this country, it doesn’t.; It means old, where ironically now, it means gangs, which is very strange, you know, but -- but it’s kind of shocking to see much of it in those early -- early logos for a graphic designer.; So, you don’t see it now.

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Trademarks by Industry

Trademarks by industry, some of the things that were very interesting about these trademark collections is that it really does map out what industries are building at what period.; Cigars, remember that the first icon on the lower left was a cigar maker’s icon.; And, they’re very proudly talking about --

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The fact that they are Cuban cigars, which is also kind of interesting now.; Cuban cigars that are made in Missouri --

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Beware of imitations.; Also, the garment industry is built in -- in Missouri, specifically; I know there is a lot in St. Louis.

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And, so we see lots of icons for the garment industry.; This is a page were I really could feel that these -- these icons are trying to suggest to you that these are for fabric items with the swooshes, and the thicks and thins. They want you to feel like these are graceful, beautiful clothing’s, the soft side.; Soft products.; And, I just am in love with that little character; “Get under one of Ben Miller’s Hats.”; Is that right?; So, that you can “be up- to-date.”; Very strange.

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And, this wonderful hat strap icon.

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One of the interesting things you start to see in the 30’s is the change in the printing industry.; Notice we’re no longer seeing as much line work.; We start to see Photostats like this -- lion --

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And, groceries; lots and lots of groceries.

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A couple -- I’m assuming that one of the reasons we got into groceries is because we’ve got train lines going through the state.; We’ve got water -- water shipping.; And, we have lots and lots of good farmland.; So, we see a couple of farmland logos at the beginning, but then we move into groceries.

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Coffee from KC.; Ridenour Baking Company is -- seems to have been a very large Ridenour becomes a grocery later on.; We see more logos by then.

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A wonderful -- that upper Brinner’s icon is another one of these sort of amazing logos.; Notice that the baking powder is safe and he’s loading it -- he’s loading his things into what looks like a safe, but I guess it’s supposed to be an oven.; I also love this Pure Food -- Pure Food, be just with your husband.; Be honest with yourself and use Pure Food Brand.

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Another lovely little vista that really honestly looks a little bit more like Germany than Missouri.

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I was curious as to how these Oregon Salmon logos got in here.; But, if you can see in that bottom yellow strip, one of the other products of -- of Missouri is printing.; You start seeing more and more printing processes.; So, these labels were printed in Missouri.

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On the right, the Butternut Bread Boy and the Red-Top Flour by Aunt Jemima Mills.

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Candy that comes from circa right after the World’s Fair.

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Biederman Brothers is another one you see a lot of early on in the collection.

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Again, Ridenour-Baker Groceries.; Lots and lots of beautiful icons, sort of a little bit later in the collection.

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You can see that the Ridenour-Baker Grocery Company is beginning to use elements of Art Nouveau on the left and right with the decorative borders.; The typography is becoming more simplified.

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What a lovely pineapple, huh?

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Amazing, amazing baking powder labels.; I couldn’t get enough of them.; I think they’re amazing -- really beautiful type.; Soft, puffy type; like soft, puffy bread, an energy-like rising, right?; These are especially icons -- these are ones where if you saw them from across the room, with all these gold foils and stuff, you would be attracted to them merely because they’re high contrast.

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Beer and Spirits

Beer and Spirits is a huge topic in the State of Missouri.

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Star Liquor again with the -- this is one of the earlier liquor icons I found and, yes, with the black letter.

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Griesedieck Brothers, some favorites.; The beer industry as it grows in Missouri.; I have a lot of -- lot of icons from them.

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A favorite.; And, a brand that still hangs in many a dorm room today, based on the fact that it’s a beautiful visual, right?; Very arresting.; Very high contrast.; Yeah, plus Faust.; What a great -- what a great name for a beer.

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And, then this one from the 905 Liquor Stores.; Do you guys remember 905 Liquor Stores?; Dad, -- dad deserves a beer after he comes home from work, right?; Doesn’t he?

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Starkenburger.; This one distinctly -- we brought our German recipe over from the -- from the fatherland, right? That’s what they are saying with this one.

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That was a wine one, isn’t it?; I’m sorry.; I keep thinking it’s a beer one, but it’s not, it’s a wine one.; Black Pearl.; Okay, the first question one would ask is, what do black pearls have to do with wine?; It’s because wine is about escape to many beautiful lands, right?; And, so -- and most -- and a lot of the wine labels they are sending you on a trip, right?; On a wonderful trip.; On vacation, right?

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Grace Darling this one -- it works like that earlier coffee logo worked, that it’s saying that this is very classy, very high quality, high tone.

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That’s true of wine labels today if you ever walk down the wine aisle.; That they -- the labels versus the beer labels.; Beer are saying, let’s give you what you need right now, right?; Whereas, you walk down the wine aisle and it’s epicurean.; It’s for the gourmet.; It’s for the sensitive.; The one that knows about fine things.; The colors change, the contrast change, the typography change.; They’re subtler.; Notice the gold foil, definitely a price point for the printer.

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And, I do love these from the Ambrose -- Ambrose and Company.; Most of these are about escaping from Missouri.

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To Europe, to wine lands.

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Ah, and then prohibition happens.; So, we start to see products that replace alcohol or not quite alcohol.; Replace ones need for alcohol.; Here’s a 50/50 label.

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That ones mixed in, okay.; More -- after prohibition what happens is we see a huge upsurge in the state of whiskey labels.; Suddenly, people are interested in very hard liquor and there’s a real sort of explosion of spirits labels after prohibition.

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Oh, and one of the things that I was -- again, -- again, with alcohol this is -- this is -- this is a high return item, right?

It doesn’t cost as much to make it as it, you know, you can charge a lot for it.; Therefore, more money is spent on the labeling.; And, you see fancier and fancier labels coming out over time.; Notice these ones at the bottom. I didn’t -- I’m pretty sure there are none in this collection that do not say they’re from Missouri.; Whereas, these labels would lead you to believe that this -- this bourbon -- this whiskey is made in Kentucky.; But some part of the processes was actually Missouri.

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I thought this 7-up bourbon whiskey, on the right, was very interesting since it seems to be using the 7-up bottling logo.; I don’t know what -- exactly what that’s about, but I’m -- I couldn’t find it in the 7-up history.; Again, they’re trying to grab your attention.; These are about quick fix.; And, you’ll notice that versus the wine labels, these -- these hard liquor labels are high contrast and they are trying to grab your attention.; You’re strong, right, like the booze.

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What do we do during prohibition?; You see more soda, because I think St. Louis specifically had a lot of bottling plants.; So, we needed to be bottling something, right?; So, we see more soda coming out of St. Louis at least.

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Here are a few of the brands.; These are -- specifically the three orange brands were also brands for the killer was Orange Crush.; Everyone was trying to defeat Orange Crush.

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Another really interesting area to look at is cure- alls.

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Cure-alls

Cure-alls are fascinating, especially early on.; I can’t get enough of them, personally.; The secret to cure- alls is that they -- that medicine and cures were not regulated in the 1890’s.; I’m not sure exactly when that changed, but in the beginning you could put whatever you wanted in those bottles and as long as you could get someone to believe that they worked, it was fine.; So, well okay how do you -- and that -- they will -- you could sell them for a lot of money; they were a high cash commodity.; So, you see a lot of cure-alls especially in -- in the early -- at the end of the last century -- into the 19th Century beginning of the 20th Century.; Another thing about them is, since there were so many; the job was to figure out how could you differentiate your brand from everyone else’s?; So, they were pretty clever.; They would try to figure out all kinds of ways to say that these are different.; Some of the techniques you see here are trying to say, like for instance, the Bromidia one.; The typography is saying this is an old family recipe.; It’s like some of those brewery labels in that you can trust that this is going to really work.; The Vigorans one works in a different way.; The logo itself is starting to feel better, right?; It in itself has energy.; Same with those invigorating bubbles for the--the antipilus–La Bordine antipilus product.; They’re fascinating.

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And, that’s all with black and white, right?; That’s with early, early printing.; And, they were just trying to figure out what could we do formally, visually, artistically to differentiate with the -- the least -- with the least of things.; Lots of beautiful typography because, of course, you know, pills aren’t that interesting to look at.; So, what else can we -- what else can we put on those labels to get people excited?; So, there’s lots of exciting typography -- lots of exciting sort of mascots or icons with the stars and the sun.

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Later on, you start to see animals on these which, you know, it would be confusing to a current, you know, pharmaceutical buyer. It’s not okay to have animals on your labels any more, but at a period, they kind of sold everything.; There was a period where having cute animals on your label, you could sell just about anything with it.; You notice -- we’re beginning to see two colors.; That’s that price point, it’s very expensive.; Dye-cutting that also adds a lot of expense.; They’re really -- they’re putting a lot of money into these labels.

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With amazing sort of, you know, one of the most important things on all these labels for -- for cure-alls is these testimonials on how they work, and how well they work.; So, tagline becomes really important with these.

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This is a fascinating -- the Hazeltines are fascinating.; Notice -- notice that they also are beginning to take on some of the post World’s Fair Art Nouveau cues.; But the Hazeltines are fascinating.; The Hazeltines do quite well.

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They make -- they make lots and lots of products.

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And, one of -- they were advertising -- I love this one.; They were advertising that they’re from the Ozarks.; They continue to advertise that they are from Missouri in the Ozarks.; Once they moved to New York, they still want people to know that this brand is from Missouri, from the Missouri Ozarks.

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Taglines

Notice that Grip and Cold, get it grip and cold?; Some of these products work visually.; Some of these products were from having really catchy taglines.; And, here’s a small collection of taglines that I just couldn’t resist.; And, it “makes kids husky.”; This is a sale -- a line that worked great in the 1900’s, but would not work today.

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And, I love this one actually.; Okay.

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The Power of Design: Case Histories

I -- I sketched out for you a few case histories.; A couple of favorites.

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Number one is Busch.; And, whereas, you probably know the, you know, in a world of limited time, I figured that you knew a lot of the Anheuser Busch logos that are still current today.; But what if that were really interesting were the prohibition Busch brands.

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Here are a couple of -- Busch -- Busch was starting to do quite well right before prohibition.; And, when prohibition came along Augustus Busch needed to find, wait a minute, Adolphus Busch, sorry, needed -- needed to find ways to make the company survive the -- the prohibition period.; So, we have Buschtee and Budweiser Sirup.

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And, then Bevo brand.; These are three -- which refers to the Bevo Mill and the Bevo products that -- that Busch makes which is like a malted beverage.; It’s a malt candy syrup feed.; Okay, anything that you can feed to livestock is not something I would want to be have made into candy.; And, basically, if you -- if you take the brewery tour in St. Louis, they say it was disgusting.; That’s what everyone said.

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Here is Dry Budweiser the soft drink version for holding you over.; Fascinating.

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This is -- the Caffo is a caffeine product.; As we have Bevo packing liver sausage.; They really -- they were -- they were stretching.; And, then on the right, the two pieces are labels for bottled table water.; It was made specifically for the Bevo Mill in St. Louis.; And, notice that one does sort of have that sort of German grotto concept going on, that escape.; That one has a lovely label, ah, tagline, too.

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And, then this lovely Kicko brand by Augustus Busch, featuring a Missouri mule.; This -- this sort of has kick.; That’s a little collection from the Busch.

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One that I hadn’t heard of was Simmons Hardware.; Do you all know about Simmons Hardware?; I knew you do.

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I had not heard of them back in 1893, when I started going through this icon.; But, I started to see lots and lots of Simmons Hardware logos.; This was the first one I found.; This lovely dog with the ratchet mouth, again, animals will sell anything in the 1890’s.

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And, I started to see more and more Simmons -- Simmons Hardware logos.; This is Simmons in the upper left corner.; He revolutionized the way that hardware was sold.; And, he did it using graphic design.; He would design all the -- the pieces that would go with this.; And, lots of different brands and it -- it -- it changed the way hardware is sold in this country.; The one at the bottom, the Longwear, there’s lots of very simple ones like this in the collection, but they’re -- I -- they’re not as visually accessible so I don’t have very many of those.; But this is his partner Shapleigh’s brand, Longwear.; Shapleigh Hardware joined with Simmons.

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So, here you can see Simmons is really famous for the KK brands, the Keen-Kut brands.; And, he uses this KK mnemonic on many, many -- my understanding is thousands of products.; I heard an account say if you were to build a Simmons Hardware museum; it would not fit in a single household because there are so many products.; Lots and lots of cast iron products.; And, they feature this triangle shape, this typography.; See below we see a sign for a hardware store with the Keen-Kut logo.; So, he’s making a graphic design package for hardware stores.; He’s starting to set up displays.; And, this is new.; This is very new.; The Simmons Hardware spans from 1860 to about 1960.; So, -- so he is really one of the first people to start creating these packages and sending the hardware out to franchise stores.

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Truly Strange and Wonderful Finds

And, these are a few of my favorites that are just very, very odd.; Any time you -- you start, you know, early and move to the end of the collection you always find a few, you know, just delightfully unusual logos.

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Do you want me to say anything?; I mean it’s so weird.; And, these logos all come with a real specific description of what their trademark uses.; Man with no head, holding mace.

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This Comet Monkey Pile.; I love this.; This one is late 1900’s getting ready for the Haley’s Comet, right?

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Yeah.; Talk to Albrecht Shoe.; That’s -- very -- very sort of European in flavor.; Bottom left, this is for a tailor named Cats.; And, so it’s Cats Pants.; And, then I just, you know, in contemporary icons one of the logo making -- one of the things that they try to do is make them as simple as possible so they’re readable from a distance.; This is not the case in the earlier time.; So, I love this really intense delicate hand illustration for the -- for this other line.

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These two -- we were talking about appropriateness.; Okay, these are soap brands.; Both of these.; What does soap have to with monkeys and locks?; But they’re very safe.; They are very safe soap bars.; It is so strange, very strange.; The one on the right also has a little bit of the flavor of German -- German decorations, German typography.

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This is -- this is my father’s favorite.; Whereas, selling cures for poultry seems fairly obvious what you would potentially put on a label.; What do you do when you’re selling cures for pigs and chickens?; You put them together, right?; Right, don’t you?

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Unfortunately, you know, the birth of graphic design makes these things more unusual.; You don’t see too many joined pigs and chickens any more.; It’s unfortunate.; And, these are just very strange brands.; Lovely little illustration -- this very happy honor.; The hub -- that’s a wagon hub.; Did you know what that was?; I didn’t know what it was when I first saw it.; And, this is sort of a 4-H group on the lower left.; The four F’s are for the four German feelings of energy and the sports that are played below -- around it.

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This wonderful Gladiator Axle Grease -- just unusual.

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And, this very strange exploded bedding for -- to show how elastic the cotton is for the sleep maker.

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And, this -- this amazing -- this -- this box of cough drops cost five coppers.; Notice -- a couple of things that I really love is these wonderful portraits of -- of the coppers.; And, then also notice their belt buckles all have a different part of the message on them.; Just amazing.

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And, my all-time favorite.; This is where we live.; We live in the land where bread can be that big, you know, that’s my house right there.

Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.

 

Questions & Answers

If anyone has any questions.

Yes.

MALE SPEAKER:; Well, here in Jeff City we have the October Fest over on the south side.; And, there was a gentleman there that made signs and stuff with the use of a computer.; And, he said I always like to find something maybe in the neighborhood or wherever I was sitting that I’m in that kind of, you know, people might be interested in.; And, I said something about the breweries here in Jefferson City.; Now, the question I guess I have is, the breweries have been out of business for 60 years, so if he would find some of the old advertising or something and reprint it, would there be any repercussions or anything like that?

MS. JENNINFER McKNIGHT:; I’m not an expert on that.; But my understanding is that trademark violation is less of a problem for companies that are out of business.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; Correct.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; Okay.

MALE SPEAKER:; The Capital Brewery went out of business about 60 years ago and started Coca Cola.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; Oh, that’s interesting.

MALE SPEAKER:; Yeah.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; There are trademarks in the archives thing from Jeff City’s breweries and from shoe companies.

MALE SPEAKER:; Great.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; That, you know, that they had here.; So, there is some.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; And, they are all accessible to the public and the copyright -- copying is --

FEMALE SPEAKER:; No, because they’re out of business.; They haven’t been sold.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; Oh.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; Like we have -- we have one from Aunt Jemima Syrup was founded here in Missouri.; But that’s not open to the public because it was bought by General Mills.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; Oh.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; And, is still being used today by the company.; So, it depends on whether they’re out of business, if they’ve been sold.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; If they’re owned by a living company, in other words.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; Right.

MALE SPEAKER:; Well, this company it was a commercial Brewery and when prohibition came in, I think, a little bit before they kind of saw the handwriting on the wall and they bought a Coca Cola franchise.; And, started bottling Coke during the depression.; Then after prohibition, they started back brewing.; And, the brewery went out in ’47, I think.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; You saw the one brewery she had of her Dad’s Root Beer.

MALE SPEAKER:; Um-huh.

FEMALE SPEAKER:; Have a beer for him when he comes home.; Well, during prohibition that changed -- that company started Dad’s Root Beer.; So, it was the same thing, but during prohibition they, of course, it is still sold today but that’s how that went about.

MS. JENNIFER McKNIGHT:; That was great.; Stand right here.

Anything -- anyone else?

Well, I thank you so much for coming.; It was lovely to have you.