Paul Rand's Unused Ford Logo from 1966

http://imjustcreative.com/paul-rands-unused-ford-logo-from-1966/2010/12/23/

by imjustcreative • 16 years ago

86 32 16 years ago

jberryman• 16 years ago

Wow, it's really evocative of a speeding car, yet really closely mirrors the classic logo.

angstrom• 16 years ago

The minimalist in me would prefer 1 or 2 more iterations. Maybe without the strange dot off the 'd' and the superfluous flair on the 'F'.

sudont2• 16 years ago

Unfortunately Rand would have browbeaten you into oblivion.

He was a legendary curmudgeon, and would often try to defeat the client's meddling by saying something like: "you pay me for a solution. I'll make it, then you can decide whether you want to implement it."

some1else3• 16 years ago

I'm not sure, but I think Rand himself indeed says that he did it quite fast in a documentary/interview.

dmazin• 16 years ago

I don't really see it. Maybe, if you use your imagination, a speeding baby carriage.

softbuilder• 16 years ago

Looks a lot like the Durex logo. http://popsop.ru/wp-content/uploads/durex_logo_old.jpg

foleyfoley• 16 years ago

Do you know when the Durex logo was done? I can't find the date. I am wondering who influenced who.

mikecane2• 16 years ago

I can see why it was unused. Looks like it says "Foid."

lkrubner• 16 years ago

Lots of corporate logos give up on being readable and instead go for something stylistic, and only vaguely based on letters. Look at the LG logo in the top left of this page:

http://www.lg.com/us/index.jsp

Ford could have gone down that route as well, if it wanted to.

some1else3• 16 years ago

LG used to be Goldstar I think, until they screwed up their brand name by building lousy quality products. It sort of makes sense why they'd want a cryptic smileyface instead :-D

mikecane2• 16 years ago

This was Microsoft's second logo: http://www.solarnavigator.net/sponsorship/sponsorship_images...

It was changed to what we see now because focus groups thought it read "Micr Soft." Design can bite you when you're not looking.

lwhi• 16 years ago

I think this article is more interesting: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/the-ford-logo-tha...

some1else3• 16 years ago

More images please :-/

zachrose• 16 years ago

Beautiful!

acangiano• 16 years ago

Am I the only one seeing an F having sexual intercourse with a bent over person, who is performing oral sex on the d ahead?

phlux• 16 years ago

That was the first thing I saw as well.

lallysingh• 16 years ago

Great, now I can't stop seeing that.

MikeCapone• 16 years ago

Good thing it never became the official logo then!

ditojim• 16 years ago

this was probably what someone said at the board meeting when it was rejected. it's right there in plain sight.

JabavuAdams• 16 years ago

No, no you are not. That's the first thing I saw.

Reminds me of the Oozinator.

cubicle672• 16 years ago

or the London Olympics logo (think Lisa Simpson)

cubicle672• 16 years ago

first thing I saw was a tron light cycle

SingAlong• 16 years ago

damn! reading your comment altered my view of the logo :D

At first, the logo looked like a car. F like the front with the steering and the "d" as the back seat. Now it looks like logo-porn.

dkarl• 16 years ago

Beautiful! Looks influenced by an Indian script or maybe Thai. I wish I knew enough to be more specific.

Edit: After much googling, it looks like maybe it was inspired by Kannada script? http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-kannada.html

brc• 16 years ago

Ford is one of those companies where a logo redesign would be crazy. As a company it has followers so rusted on it's not uncommon to see 'Ford' tattoos.

While Toyota, Mazda and others have fiddled with their designs over the years, I think a long-lasting company like Ford should leave things as is. It's true, the current blue oval doesn't go right back to the start of the company, but the styling of the font is well linked to the original logos.

bpm140• 16 years ago

For a second I was like "Rand Paul used to design logos?"

Then I was all "That's silly, he would have been like three years old when he did that logo."

akamaka• 16 years ago

Seeing this makes me suspect that Rand had pretty strict mandate to not stray too far from the original Ford logo, which could explain the ugliness of this design when compared to the simple elegance of some of his other work.

Paul Rand's Unused Ford Logo from 1966

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