The book is a much more comprehensive and lavish edition to a previous Chermayeff and Geismar title, also called Identity, that came out in 2011. The marks in the book were created between 1957 and 2018 and some of them must have entered the public consciousness by now: NBC (the peacock) PBS; Chase Manhattan; Mobil; Pan Am; Xerox (before the current one) National Geographic.
In my review of the previous book, which applies to this latest edition, I said it was rather disappointing because it's not much more than a portfolio of C&G work rather than a visual account of how each design was created. There is some text on several of these marks which do in fact sum up the thinking behind the visual but I was expecting to see various roughs and scribbled ideas that created the final design.
Of course, the majority of these designs are very clever and clearly work to identify the company. I found only two that didn't quite work, The Jewish Conversation uses a rather thin condensed type in capitals and when it's reduced it becomes unreadable, each mark throughout the book is reduced to about a quarter of an inch and placed on the bottom left and right of the relevant pages. The other mark is for the Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority, just a cap T in a circle, which looks more like a sign for a telephone. Several marks get an expanded treatment. Mobil has its alphabet and twelve posters for the cultural activities the company sponsored. Pan Am also has its logo and posters.
The publishers have certainly produced a beautiful book with all the marks a reasonable size, centered on the page. Perhaps the text about each mark turned sideways on each page isn't the best way to make the book readable.
