Mair, Francis M., 1916-1991 (commercial artist) Search this
Extent:
68 Cubic feet (198 boxes, 4 map folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Audiovisual materials
Business letters
Business records
Personal papers
Videotapes
Interviews
Oral history
Date:
circa 1862-2002, undated
Summary:
Collection consists of the business records and original art documenting the work of Walter Landor and his design firm Landor Associates located in San Francisco, California.
Scope and Contents:
Collection documents the career of designer Walter Landor and the significant body of commercial imagery and packaging produced by Landor Associates design firm. Contains corporate and business records of Landor Associates, Landor's personal papers, oral history interviews, films, videotapes, and other audiovisual resources.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1: Landor Associates Business Records, 1862-1993, undated
Subseries 1.1: Historical Background and Project Administration Files, 1941-1993, undated
Subseries 5.2: Educational and Training Acquired by Landor Associates, 1944-1975,
undated
Subseries 5.3: Promotional Films Acquired by Landor Associates, 1958-1977, undated
Subseries 5.4: Television Commercials, Advertising and Public Service Announcements,
1964-1975, undated
Subseries 5.5: Miscellaneous Films Acquired by Landor Associates, 1967-1970,
undated
Series 6: Video Cassette Tapes, 1980-1993, undated
Series 7: Audio Cassette Tapes, 1971-1991, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Walter Landor (1913-1995), son of Jewish Bauhaus architect Fritz Landauer, came to the United States in 1938 with the design team for the British Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. He emigrated to the United States in 1941, launching a small design firm in San Francisco. Landor started out doing package design for a largely local and regional clientele (including many West Coast wineries and breweries), although he soon developed a client list that included some of the world's largest and most prestigious corporations. Corporate identity projects were an important specialization. In addition to his own considerable design abilities, Landor had a gift for inspiring and organizing the creativity of a group of associates, and for developing lasting and productive relationships with his clients. The firm developed particular strength in its portfolio of airlines, financial institutions and consumer goods, and prided itself on a network of international clients. From the beginning, Landor linked design to research in consumer behavior, developing increasingly sophisticated methods for evaluating the effectiveness of his designs. This collection documents Walter Landor's remarkable career, the significant body of corporate identity, packaging and other commercial imagery produced by Landor Associates, and the interplay between industrial design and American consumer culture.
German Historical Institute
Walter Landor in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present.
The collaborative research project Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present sheds new light on the entrepreneurial and economic capacity of immigrants by investigating the German-American example in the United States. It traces the lives, careers and business ventures of eminent German-American business people of roughly the last two hundred and ninety years, integrating the history of German-American immigration into the larger narrative of U.S. economic and business history.
Related Materials:
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Francis M. Mair Papers NMAH.AC.0548
NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records NMAH.AC.0059
Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated Records NMAH.AC.0395
Emmett McBain Afro American Advertising Poster Collection NMAH.AC.0192
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana NMAH.AC.0060
Marilyn E. Jacklar Memorial Collection of Tobacco Advertisements NMAH.AC.1224
Marlboro Oral History and Documentation Project NMAH.AC.0198
Division of Work and Industry, National Museum of American History
The division holds artifacts related to the Walter Landor and his advertising work. See accession 1993.0393.
Provenance:
Personal papers donated to Archives Center in 1993 by Josephine Landor, widow of Walter Landor; business records donated to Archives Center in 1993 by Landor Associates.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Documents the products and services created by Landor for clients. Materials are arranged in alphabetical order by client or brand name. Many of the items and files are undated.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
The Landor Archives Project team assembled this group of more than 300 client files by adding materials from various storage locations to a group of files kept by Walter Landor. Many folders initially listed in this sub-series were not shipped to the Archives Center and are omitted from this finding aid. Many of these files contain one or a few items, mostly examples of Landor Associates' work, for example, logos, letterheads, and labels. Other, larger, files may include illustrated color promotional case histories with client background information and problem and solution statements. Other materials that may occur in these files include reprints, clippings, advertisements, corporate identity manuals, information sheets, and occasional correspondence. The series is arranged into two subseries: Subseries 1.16.1: Companies A-Z, 1936-1992, undated and Subseries 1.16.2: Montedison Group S.p.A., 1971-1980, undated. Montedison was one of, if not the largest, client of Walter Landor.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection documents World's Fairs from 1876 to 1993.
Scope and Contents:
The collection is a compilation of gifts from numerous donors, of printed materials and ephemera relating to World's Fairs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series chronologically by fair.
Provenance:
Collected from numerous donors by the Division of Community Life (now called the Division of Home and Community Life.) A number of items in the collection were also collected for the National Museum of American History by the Division. Donors include Viola E. Willcuts, Peter M. Warner, Edith B. Meggars, Elizabeth R. Lindsay, C.W. Holt, Walter Grossman, Margaret Frick, Peter M. Warner, Esther Pauline Annis, Roy Krause, Ameriflora, Expo '92, Expo '93, Colombo, O. Morton Hallwig and Elizabeth Ann Hallwig, Mary C. Shafer, Robert Vogel, John Coppola, Stella M. Carmody, Walter and Josephine Landor, and Stephen Sheppard.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
1 Motion picture film (709 feet, 16mm color composite optical track print)
Container:
Item AC0500-OF0024
Item RV Tape 4
Type:
Archival materials
Motion picture films
Date:
circa 1968
Scope and Contents:
Production Company: Communications Film
Sponsor: Falstaff
Content Description: Animation interspersed with live action film about the importance of packaging. Shows the process Landor Associates used to develop a new design for Falstaff beer. The history of Falstaff is traced. There are scenes in supermarkets, of product testing, Walter Landor talking about the design process and using a woman's face to illustrate his point, the various size bottles and an outdoor home pool.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Landor Design Collection, circa 1862-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
