Watchtower icon

[The Librarian]

I saw this photo today from Indonesia (at an assembly) and it made me think about our Watchtower symbol.

The old Watchtower Icon vs. the New (newer c. 1990) Watchtower icon shown above.

 

And the one I was most familiar with:

I notice that it is still used among us but not really promoted. JW.org has really taken center stage.

Yet I do notice that the icon has become less "warlike" over time and now the "Watchtower" at Patterson (c.1990) is more like a lookout than part of a fortified military castle.

Although it does remind me of the Watchtowers on the demilitarized zone in South Korea (DMZ) (at least the ones I have seen on TV)

Anyways... just something of interest I just thought I would pass down.

Oh.. and here is where we almost got rid of the logo completely... and just went with the outline:

[The Librarian]

@JW Insider You probably know more about the inside dialogue about this progression when you were in the art department in the 70's. I think I remember quite a number of changes during that period to the logo. Did they ever say anything about the subtle change publicly?

[JW Insider]

7 hours ago, The Librarian said:

@JW Insider You probably know more about the inside dialogue about this progression when you were in the art department in the 70's. I think I remember quite a number of changes during that period to the logo. Did they ever say anything about the subtle change publicly?

 

No, nothing was said publicly as far as I can remember. The branches responsible for their own language mastheads had to be informed, and I don't recall any discussion or reasons given in those communications either. These changes weren't even well publicized within the headquarters.

Suggestions for changes began when phototypesetting became available -- and a new masthead became easy. Artists pushed for more room on the front cover for artwork, now that art could become much more detailed, and there was talk of getting a complete press changeover to "offset" which would make it much easier to make the changes in record time. The new "Photoplate Department" was started over in the 8th floor of factory #1 (117 Adams) to fit into this new process. That department was located just below the Computer Department.

(The computer department was also set adjacent to the new MEPS typesetting equipment which had a feed built right down into the darkroom area of Photoplate..Note however that MEPS had nothing to do with the masthead changes; it was only a new part of a new defined process where changes were to be made more quickly. For a few years it just created an expectation of a faster process. It took a while to get fully implemented.)

Still, the ease of changing the masthead was in place, and it could be changed almost as easily as artists could order specialty fonts (headline fonts) for article titles. You'll notice that in the late 1970's we started using dozens of different fonts for the first time that weren't hand-drawn. (A few hand-drawn titles kept being made into the 80's.)  The process was not as easy as using a computer, since every font was actually a set of characters set onto a negative filmstrip on a long "stick". The "stick" was positioned in a machine over a light source and a couple lenses so that it shined the light directly through the character, and onto a piece of "stat camera" film. The light exposed the shape of the letter, and that portion of the film turned black, and then the next letter was found on the stick and positioned onto the film. The font size was made by repositioning the light. "Kerning" -- the space between letters -- was all done manually, so that we could overlap letters if we wished. We could play with the exposure and switch between negatives and positives on the stat cameras to create outline fonts, or manipluate the letters into the artwork. Artists from the home art department would go over to the factory and play with this equipment when it was new, but soon started letting Photoplate personnel do all the work when the novelty wore off.

But back to the masthead changes. A couple of the early customizations were driven by an artist. When it seemed easy (it wasn't) it drove a more official "branding change" to look more modern, we were told internally. But that turned out to be a big problem for other branches and languages. (In the 70's the Spanish magazine came out a few weeks after the English, but other languages were sometimes a few months behind. So their masthead changes were sometimes a version or two behind, or they just ignored the change.) So it was decided (one more time) to make a "final" masthead decision from the top down with more consensus. Naturally, not everyone liked it even after voting for it. So it changed again. I forget how many  changes there were from 1975 to 1980, but there were several obvious ones and a couple more subtle ones. 

[JaniceM]

Thanks, that is very interesting, the designs.