Himes is a logo created by American designer Lanny Sommese for Himes Printing, a United States printing company. The mark appears in Sommese’s design portfolio and is catalogued among his corporate identity work.
Design and History
Lanny Sommese (1943–2022) was a graphic designer, educator and poster artist who headed Penn State University’s graphic design program for more than 45 years and designed the annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts poster for 48 years.[1] He maintained his own design office, Lanny Sommese Design & Illustration, which was renamed Sommese Design in 1988 when his wife Kristin joined the firm. The studio specialized in corporate, print, packaging and poster design for clients on and off campus.[2]
The Himes logo is documented as a printing-industry brand created by Sommese.[3] Sommese’s papers, held at Penn State University Libraries, include logos and corporate identities he created throughout his career.[4] His work was also collected in the 2010 monograph Lanny Sommese: X-Ray Vision, a 252-page celebration of his posters and logos published by Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press.[5]
Meaning and Symbolism
No official documentation describing the specific symbolism, color palette or typography of the Himes mark has been located. Sommese described his general design philosophy as one where “at the heart of each project should be an idea that is fueled by the unique aspects of the problem at hand,” with non-essential elements eliminated so that “form appears to flow effortlessly from content.”[6] However, the specific visual features of the Himes logo itself remain undocumented in available sources.
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