This chapter focused on the idea that businesses needed to create stellar logos for themselves in order to be recognized in a rapidly growing design world. They needed to unify their businesses through a solid identity system, and this began in the 50's. CBS (Colombia's Broadcasting System) was one of the first businesses to realize the importance of an identity system. William Golden was the designer who created the CBS Television trademark. Most people even today can recognize the logo as the 'eye'. It hasn't changed much since it's creation, which is awesome. George Olden was one of the first designers to work with imagery for on-air graphics. Another notable person from this style is Paul Rand, who is known for his creation of IMB, ABC and Westinghouse logos. His creations are considered elementary, timeless, unique and simple. A few terms that I can relate to are- open and closed identity systems. An open system is where the logo changes with time due to the changes in design styles and important e events. A closed system is just the opposite; the identity systems generally don't change but remain constant throughout it's life. A good example for a closed system is the Chase Bank logo, which is also one of the first recognizable abstract logos.
I think it's crazy that some businesses keep the same, overall concept of their trademark after years and years in the business. Most of them tweek it slightly to fit within the modern day era, but it's generally nothing drastic. I find this interesting because graphic design has changed tremendously within just a few years, let along 50+ years. I would have expected companies to change their logos to go parallel with a changing society, but that really isn't the case. It goes to show that new isn't always better.
The 1968 Olympics in Mexico was explained in this chapter because the designers wanted a universal system that can be recognized by people worldwide. This seems quite obvious, but I'm curious to know if previous Olympics didn't consider the fact that the entire viewing population wouldn't be able to understand the signs and labels.
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