Harcourt Brace and Company, the American publishing house founded in 1919 as Harcourt, Brace and Howe, adopted a distinctive trademark designed by Paul Rand in 1957. The mark was included among twelve of Rand’s classic trademarks featured in his 1960 book The Trademarks of Paul Rand, a limited-edition volume that spotlighted the designer’s most significant corporate identity work.[1]
Design and History
The Harcourt Brace and Company mark was created during a period of significant corporate activity for the publisher. In 1960, the firm merged with World Book Company and changed its name to Harcourt, Brace & World.[2] A decade later, in 1970, the company was renamed Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. after William Jovanovich, who had become chairman that year.[3]
Rand’s 1957 trademark for Harcourt Brace and Company is documented in the official Paul Rand archive, which lists the mark alongside other well-known Rand identities such as Westinghouse Electric Corporation (1960), International Business Machines Corporation (1956), and El Producto Cigar Company (1952).[1] The mark also appeared in a 1988 Mohawk Graphics Collection print series, where it was identified as “Illustration, Harcourt Brace [1957].”[4]
Some sources date the mark to 1961 rather than 1957, but the Paul Rand archive and the Mohawk Graphics Collection both consistently identify 1957 as the year of creation.[1][4]
Meaning and Symbolism
In The Trademarks of Paul Rand, Rand wrote that “the trademark becomes doubly meaningful when it is used both as an identifying device and an illustration, each working hand in hand to enhance and dramatize the effect of the whole.”[1] This principle is reflected in the Harcourt Brace mark, which functions as both a corporate identifier and a visual reference to the company’s publishing business. The mark is described in logo reference materials as a square-format design that uses negative space to form its imagery.[5]
While the specific visual elements of the mark, including any book-related imagery, are not described in detail by the primary sources, Rand’s inclusion of the Harcourt Brace trademark in his curated selection of twelve marks indicates he considered it among his most significant corporate identity works.[1]
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