Friday Reads - Marks of Excellence

Happy Friday! We hope that it's treating you well as we begin the final sprint to finals! Today, Library Director Adam Pellman tells us about one of his recent reads: Marks of Excellence: The History and Taxonomy of Trademarks by Per Mollerup.

Were it not for my Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge (where my goal is to read one book from each of the 100 divisions of the Dewey Decimal Classification system), a book about trademarks would almost certainly never have been on my radar. Which is a shame, because I’m so glad I found this book in our collection here at Seton Hill. Not only has it been illuminating to read about the history and different types of trademarks, along with key design principles and some foundational communication theory, but the book is a feast for the eyes, too. Much of it is composed of pictures, so it’s a fun book to just leaf through. The author is a working graphic designer who, in a bit of sly self-promotion, has included several of his own designs as examples.

One of the most interesting things to learn about was the way in which design elements from medieval heraldry continue to show up in modern logos and other trademarks (think the shield in the BP logo, or the Porsche coat of arms). The author also discusses earmarks on cattle and sheep, which I never would have thought of as a form of trademark, even though we use the term “branding” to describe another common practice for marking livestock. It’s also been interesting to learn about the histories of specific companies. For example, the company 3M, perhaps best known for making office supplies like Post-it Notes and Scotch Tape, started out as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, hence the three Ms. In this case, as in many others, simplicity is best.