“The Strathmore Paper Company began on St. Patrick’s Day in 1892,” reads the official corporate history, “when founder, Horace Moses opened the Mittineague paper mill in West Springfield, MA. Soon after opening the first mill, Mr. Moses visited the Valley of Strathmore in Scotland. The thistle was in full bloom and the beauty of the site impressed Horace Moses so much that he started using the name and the thistle as a symbol of high-quality art and printing papers.”
The thistle trademark that appears embossed on Strathmore sheets and printed on sketchpads is among the most recognizable logos for artists. So it is no surprise that in 1990, when designer Michael Mabry was hired to create a series of promotions for Strathmore, he proposed an American trademark–themed sample booklet to show off the mill’s Americana line of text and cover grades.
Paper mills were once celebrated for a surfeit of often extravagant promos featuring their signature products. From the 1950s through the 1990s, many were conceptual tours de force, conceived by leading designers as editorially engaging and technically experimental. They were designed as ephemeral keepsakes and served to entertain, inspire and educate. For the designers lucky enough to be tapped to concoct them, there were few limits regarding printing, ink and special effects. They proved, however, to be environmentally unsustainable, and few are elaborately done today.
Mabry’s American Icons: American Trademarks Revisited featured variously colored, textured papers, alongside two essays on trademark legacy, three artists’ cultural interpretations, and a mix of renowned and retired trademarks and characters that contributed to American commerce and consumption.
Here are some of the pages from this forgotten keepsake. (Please note that “the opinions and statements expressed by Philip Meggs and Steven Heller are their own and do not necessarily reflect opinions and statements of Strathmore Paper Company.”)
The post The Daily Heller: A Country is Only as Good as Its Trademarks appeared first on PRINT Magazine.