 |
 |
|
|
In 1959, a writer for Advertising Age described the corporation as being
"just as subject to neuroses and inner searchings and optimism and depression...as any single person." Popular theories of psychotherapy flourished in the 50s, when the analyst Erik Erikson coined the term "identity crisis," and the corporation emerged as a new type of troubled individual for whom designers and public relations experts could provide diagnoses and cures. Paul Rand employed geometric icons and clean typography to generate coherent visual codes for IBM, Westinghouse, and other large companies. Design consultancies such as Lippincott & Margulies, whose clients in the 50s included Johnson's Wax and Betty Crocker, brought modernism to the grocery shelf.
The annual report, another tool of corporate identity, burgeoned in the 1950s and 1960s beyond its minimal legal obligation to announce profits and losses into a lavishly produced vehicle for corporate image. By 1980, large companies were putting significant amounts of money into producing these publications. Today, American businesses spend around $4 billion a year producing annual reports. Indeed, their role in conveying financial data has become secondary to their task of expressing corporate identity.
|
 |
Westinghouse
Betty Crocker |
