랜도의 월터 랜도

금호와 GS CI에서 표절을 해낸 랜도사가 궁금해졌다. 과연 처음 랜도사를 시작한 월터 랜도(walter Landor)는 성공시대에 나올만한 사람이고, 그가 만든 회사는 많이 거대해진 모양이다. 회사 홈 페이지(www.landor.com)에 나와 있는 월터 랜도에 대한 이야기를 읽어 보면 그렇다. (누가 회사 설립자를 깎아내릴 것인가?)

1913. 7. 9일 독일 뮤니히 출생.
1931년 18살에 영국으로 유학.
1939년 미국 횡단여행후 샌프란시스코에 정착
1941년 부인과 회사 설립
1964년 페리보트로 회사를 옮김 (흠... 회사가 보트에 있다고? 상담 고객에게는 멀미약을 주었다는 일화가 있음)
1980년대 후론트 스트리트로 회사 옮김
1995년 사망..

A creative visionary who pioneered the use of design and visual imagery as strategic marketing and business tools, Walter Landor helped create and develop some of the world's most recognized brands and corporate identities, including Coca-Cola, Levi's, Cotton Inc., Kellogg's, GE, Fuji Film, Saturn, Miller Lite, Alitalia, 20th Century Fox, Philip Morris, Singapore Airlines, 3M, the World Wildlife Fund, Pacific Telesis, Wells Fargo Bank, Dole Foods, Del Monte, Safeway Stores and Bank of America.

Born in Munich on July 9, 1913, Walter as a youth was influenced by the Bauhaus and Werkbund design movements. At 18, he decided to focus his career on designing for the mass audience so that the greatest number of people could benefit and "become more alive to what is enriching and enjoyable in our everyday world."

Walter left Munich to complete his studies at London University's Goldsmith College School of Art in 1931. At 22, he became a founding partner with Misha Black and Milner Gray in England's first industrial design consultancy, Industrial Design Partnership (IDP).

In 1939, Walter travelled to the United States as part of the design team for the British Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. Following the World's Fair, he crossed the U.S. to San Francisco, where he immediately decided to settle. "For me, it was a city that looked out on the whole world, a city built on the cultural traditions of East and West.... how could I live anywhere else?"

In 1941, Walter established Walter Landor & Associates in his small Russian Hill flat, with his wife Josephine as his first "associate." As his company grew, Walter became one of the first to use consumer research in packaging design, and is widely credited with establishing the economic value of design and effective visual communications in business. Over the next few decades, groundbreaking creativity backed by strategic thinking saw Landor Associates become the world's preeminent design firm, working with some of the world's best-known companies.

In 1964, Walter moved his firm to the ferryboat Klamath, anchored at San Francisco's Pier 5. The move to the Klamath greatly enhanced the company's reputation for innovation and creativity, and it also provided more space to expand the firm's design and consulting capabilities. Although Landor Associates eventually outgrew the ferryboat in the late 1980s and moved to its present headquarters at 1001 Front Street, the Klamath remains the firm's corporate symbol.

In 1994, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History completed The Walter Landor Collections of Design Records and Packaging to document and permanently house the legacy of Walter Landor's, and Landor Associates', contributions to American design history in the 20th century. According to John Fleckner, Director for the Smithsonian's Center of Advertising History, "Walter Landor's pioneering work in corporate communications, marketing, and the use of symbols and visual imagery is an essential part of the broader story of American culture and society in the last half century."

Walter died on June 9, 1995, at the age of 81.