Emhart Corporation was a multinational manufacturer headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut, whose domestic roots trace to the American Hardware Company, founded in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1902. The company’s products included machinery for manufacturing glass bottles and shoes, packaging machinery, security systems, electronics, and chemical products, with brand names such as True Temper hardware and Price Pfister plumbing fixtures. In 1989, Emhart merged with Black & Decker. [1]
Design and History
The visual identity of Emhart Corporation is documented in the Lester Beall papers held at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Beall, a pioneering American graphic designer known for corporate identity programs, maintained files for Emhart Corporation covering design projects from 1957 to 1965. [2] The archive also contains photographs of Emhart Corporation and Emhart Manufacturing Company work, dated between 1925 and 1970. [3] [4]
The corporate name itself evolved over time. The Hartford-Empire Corporation, a glass machinery maker, changed its name to Emhart Corporation in 1951. [5] The American Hardware Company adopted the Emhart Corporation name as an alias in 1964. [6] In 1976, the company merged with United Shoe Machinery Corporation and formed the Emhart Corporation. [7]
An early logo trademark was filed by Emhart Inc. with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 16, 1951. [8] Later, a trademark registration from 1986 describes a mark consisting of a stylized capital letter “E” with three outlined arrow designs directly to the right of each line of the letter. [9]
Meaning and Symbolism
Documented symbolism for the Emhart mark is limited. The most concrete description comes from the U.S. trademark registration for the stylized “E” with arrow designs, which describes the mark’s visual elements without assigning specific meaning. [9] The arrow motifs appear in the mark, but no primary source documents what those arrows were intended to represent for the corporation.
Typography and Design
No primary source documentation has been found that specifies the typeface used in the Emhart Corporation wordmark or the exact construction method of the logo. The Lester Beall papers at RIT confirm that Beall worked on Emhart design projects during 1957 to 1965, but the archival finding aid does not describe the specific visual characteristics of the resulting mark. [2]
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