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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How James Bond, Star Wars and other iconic franchises got their logos
Joe Caroff, designer of the James bond logo, has died at the age of 103. Let's look back at the work of some of the greatest movie logo designers ever. The cinema world is currently mourning one of its most iconic designers: Joe Caroff. Caroff, who has died at the age of 103, was responsible for crafting one of the greatest movie logos of all time: the 007 logo for the James Bond franchise. The simple design, incorporating Bond's famous gun, is recognisable all over the world. It's an exceptional feat of design. Caroff remained a largely anonymous figure outside of Hollywood circles, as is often the case for the people behind such unsung achievements. So now feels like a great time to shine a light on those figures and look at the stories behind some of the most famous movie logos in history, including Jurassic Park and Harry Potter. Let's explore some behind-the-scenes design stories, starting of course with Ian Fleming and the movie world's most famous spy... James Bond Caroff, who had made a splash with his poster art for West Side Story in the early 1960s was initially commissioned to design a logo for use on publicity letterheads around the James Bond film series. He was paid a flat fee of $300 (£222) — the going rate for this work at the time. In a 2021 interview with James Bond in the Making, he suggested that the process of designing the now iconic 007 logo was actually a very simple one. He said: "I knew [Bond's] designation was 007, and when I wrote the stem of the seven, I thought: 'That looks like the handle of a gun to me'. It was very spontaneous, no effort, it was an instant piece of creativity. It just happened naturally, you might say." Read more: Who will be the next James Bond in Bond 26? (Yahoo Entertainment, 14 min read) Caroff acknowledged that the logo became something of "a publicity piece" for him, allowing him to bring in a lot more work in the years following Bond's enormous success. Unfortunately, he never got any residuals or cash other than that initial fee. If he had done, he would've been be an incredibly rich man. Star Wars Suzy Rice was in her early 20s when the Los Angeles design agency where she worked was approached to create a logo for a new sci-fi movie. That logo was initially designed to be used on some promotional materials within the industry, but it was eventually chosen over the logo put together by seasoned Hollywood designer Dan Perri, who was working on the opening crawl. Read more: When Star Wars made its Comic-Con debut, nobody cared (Yahoo Entertainment, 5 min read) George Lucas tasked Rice with creating something "very fascist" in design, so Rice consulted German typefaces and Nazi propaganda. She elongated parts of the end letters and joined together the S and T of "star" as well as the R and S of "wars". After some minor adjustments, Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz decided to use this logo on screen instead of the one designed by Perri. Rice, sadly, is not credited in the finished film. Rice went on to work extensively in the entertainment business, creating other movie logos as well as art for use on album covers. Harry Potter The logo for the Harry Potter movie franchise, with its kinetic typeface and the lightning bolt within the P, has now been a part of popular culture for more than 20 years. Mary GrandPré created the logo when she was hired to illustrate the American editions of the books in the 1990s. It was never intended to be used as an identifier for the whole media franchise, but it was soon picked up by Warner Bros for the movie adaptations. Read more: Here are the new UK Harry Potter covers you won't be able to buy (Entertainment Weekly) "The lightning bolt just worked on that P. Right there in the middle. I don't even remember thinking about trying it anywhere else," GrandPré explained to Entertainment Weekly. "We weren't even thinking of it as a logo at the time, but now it's one of the few I can think of that was so successful on a book; the movies used it too," Scholastic creative director David Saylor added. As is common for the stories we're telling in this article, GrandPré didn't become as wealthy as you might think off the back of her work's enormous success. "I'm not rich after Harry Potter – I didn't get royalties – I'm working like everybody else," she told We Love DC in 2009. Jurassic Park A huge amount of popular knowledge around dinosaurs is driven by one image: the T-Rex on the Jurassic Park logo. Chip Kidd was a young designer in the early days of his career when he was tasked with creating an image for the cover of Michael Crichton's book. After a lot of research, he went to the Museum of Natural History with his sketchbook and became enamoured with the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. "It's backlit, and either subconsciously or consciously, you realise you're not just looking at a dinosaur skeleton. You're looking at a silhouette of a dinosaur skeleton. And that changes it," Kidd explained to Spark and Fire. "I've always loved silhouettes because of what they both hide and reveal at the same time. A lot of the details are obscured, and it fuses into one solid image, but it's got all of these bits of light coming through it as well. So it brings to mind somewhere in between the remains of the animal and the animal itself." Read more: LEGO launches huge Jurassic Park dinosaur set that's over 1 metre long (Digital Spy, 3 min read) The film's concept artist Sandy Collora circled Kidd's logo and added the title to it. Unlike some of the other logos on this list, the finished Jurassic Park logo was incorporated directly into the movie — appearing as the park's logo. Again, Kidd isn't credited in the movie. He said he's "enormously proud" of the work his reach has had and added, "I'm sure somebody said if we credit him, he's going to come after us for money. And I guess that's why they didn't. So that's a shame." Batman The Batman logo had already been through dozens of iterations by the time Tim Burton's film version came about in 1989. Jerry Robinson's original, minimalistic logo hit the pages of DC Comics in 1939 and it wasn't until 1964 that the yellow background came about. Shortly after that, the wings became curved. Anton Furst took up the design mantle for Burton's film version, utilising a gold background as opposed to the stark yellow of the comics and the Adam West TV series. The logo was the only thing included on the original poster and, as The Dissolve wrote in 2013, there was some ambiguity. "Not everyone who saw the poster could tell right away what the image was supposed to represent. To some, it looked like a mouth with just a few teeth, or like a cave, with symmetrical stalactites and stalagmites." Read more: Michael Keaton: It took guts for Tim Burton to defend Batman casting amid uproar (PA Media, 5 min read) Furst took an already famous design and gave it a smattering of late-80s cool, helping to carry the Caped Crusader into a new era. Quite rightly, Furst won the Oscar for Best Art Direction for Batman. Sadly, he took his own life in 1991 — prior to the release of Burton's sequel, Batman Returns. Alien Sometimes, simplicity is key when it comes to movie logos. In the case of 1970s sci-fi/horror Alien, that certainly proved to be the case. At one stage, Ridley Scott's film was set to have a much more elaborate logo, with Michael Doret utilising elements of HR Giger's design for the xenomorph to produce something ornate and organic. "Perhaps we went too far with this piece? I'll probably never know what really happened," Doret wrote on his blog in 2011. Read more: Behind the scenes secrets from the original Alien movie (Yahoo Entertainment, 9 min read) In the end, Ridley Scott and the team at 20th Century Studios opted for something else entirely. "The titles came from the idea of something unsettling," designer Richard Greenberg told Art of the Title. He added: "[The font is] probably a slight variation on Futura, but it wasn't custom. It was incredibly simple, but it struck a chord. Maybe because it was attached to one of the most frightening movies ever made." That stark, simple typeface has been a part of the alien franchise ever since, covering more than 40 years of movie history. That's what "iconic" really means.
Times
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Joe Caroff obituary: Graphic designer behind 007 James Bond logo
Sitting in his New York studio in 1962, Joe Caroff was hit with a moment of inspiration. He had been paid $300 to come up with a letterhead logo for a low-budget, mildly anticipated spy film called Dr No. Unimpressed by the hero's stocky Walther PPK, he instead sketched a daintier weapon and the James Bond insignia was born. 'That was a totally spontaneous piece of creativity. I simply sat at my desk and wrote 007 on a piece of paper,' he remembered. 'The minute I wrote the seven, especially on the downstroke, I just somehow immediately saw that as the handle of a gun. Adding the barrel and the trigger was virtually nothing.' More than half a century later, the symbol remains synonymous with Britain's most thrilling cultural export, but Caroff, who sold the design without retaining any rights, never saw the dividends. He was not credited in the film and, until recently, little known. Though the designer was unshaken by his near-miss with fame and his company thrived, his wife was stirred by his uncredited success: 'We would have been rich,' she lamented. Joseph Caroff was born in Linden, New Jersey, in 1921 to Fanny (née Sack) and Julius Caroff, Jewish immigrants from Babruysk, modern-day Belarus. His father was a painter and his mother took care of Joe and his five siblings. Aged four, he began to show creative flair when he used a friend's watercolour set to redecorate his white summer suit. Caroff attended the Newark Public School of Fine and Industrial Arts and later majored in advertising design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Caroff also became the right-hand man of Jean Carlu, a French designer who had lost an arm in a Parisian trolley accident, for his Second World War propaganda posters. He graduated in 1942 but, five days after marrying his girlfriend Phyllis (née Friedman), he was drafted into the army air force and sent to RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. There Caroff painted pin-up girls onto B-17 bombers and helped drop the very posters he had designed onto occupied Europe. After a brief stint in north Africa he was honorably discharged and joined a New York design firm but soon left to freelance book jackets. His break came in 1948 when Norman Mailer recruited him to design his debut novel The Naked and the Dead. The black and red cover was the only piece Caroff signed and it landed him the Bond contract. Caroff ended up working on more than 300 film campaigns. His first was West Side Story (1961): he used the rugged title font as a terrace wall and drew Maria and Tony dancing on the fire escape. His lack of self-promotion, however, meant Saul Bass was often mistakenly credited for the piece. He founded the agency J Caroff Associates in Manhattan in 1965. His most notable pieces of that period included the posters for Cabaret (1972), Rollerball (1975) and Death of a Salesman (1985). He dabbled especially in creative fonts — The Great Train Robbery (1978) was spelt out in the shape of the locomotive, the letters of Manhattan (1979) depicted the New York skyline and Last Tango in Paris (1972) had an entire typeface designed in homage. Some designs he regretted. At the urging of a producer, the poster for the erotic thriller Tattoo (1981) featured a naked woman tied at the ankles. The film did not merit much critical acclaim — The Times lambasted it for 'creeping morbidity' — and outraged protesters ripped his art from billboards. Different film-makers wanted different things. Woody Allen would walk in, look at six options, point at one and leave without saying a word, Caroff said. One time his team mocked up a joke flyer that declared: 'Prunes, the most moving picture since Bananas'. Allen did not even smirk. Martin Scorsese, on the other hand, was full of ideas for the promotion of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). 'I listened to him and listened to him, and he didn't have the visual gift of seeing it differently,' Caroff said. He instead used a thicket of thorns silhouetted on a blood-red background. Scorsese loved it so much he incorporated it into the film's opening. During his long career, he also worked on the logo for Olympic coverage by ABC News, the poster for the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964) and the Orion Pictures title sequence. He only retired in his eighties. Caroff always viewed himself as a creative mercenary and he never kept his designs although decades on, many of his originals would have been sold for many times the commission fee. Caroff had two sons, Peter and Michael. He spent the twilight of his career on fine art and philanthropy. A portion of his art sales went to a children's medical research hospital and he set up a scholarship for social care students at Hunter College, where his wife was an emeritus professor. She died in February, aged 100, after 81 years of marriage. Only at the end of his career did his impact on mid-century art begin to be recognised. On his 100th birthday he was sent a 007-engraved Omega watch by the Bond producers and in 2022 the documentary By Design: The Joe Caroff Story was televised. Doubtless he would have been recognised far sooner had he imitated his spy muse and signed his work: 'The name's Caroff. Joe Caroff'. Joe Caroff, designer and artist, was born on August 18, 1921. He died on August 17, 2025, aged 103
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Joe Caroff, designer of James Bond 007 logo and countless iconic film posters, dies aged 103
The graphic designer responsible for the 007 gun logo as well as countless classic film posters has died, aged 103. Joe Caroff, whose work can be seen on the posters for films including West Side Story, A Hard Day's Night, Last Tango in Paris, Cabaret, Manhattan and The Last Temptation of Christ, died on Sunday. His sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, told the New York Times he been under hospice care at his home in Manhattan, one day short of his 104th birthday. Caroff worked on more than 300 campaigns during his career, but his first two commissions turned out to be among his most enduring – and lucrative. First, United Artists executive David Chasman hired him to design the poster for West Side Story (1961). The better to suggest rough brickwork, Caroff scuffed the lettering, then added fire escapes and perching balletic dancers. Adapting the font to suit the material became a trademark. Other key examples include his poster for Manhattan (1979), one of more than a dozen collaborations with Woody Allen. In that image, Caroff assembled silhouettes of recognisable New York skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building, Chrysler building and the twin towers to spell out the word 'Manhattan'. The second task assigned to Caroff by Chasman was to design a letterhead for the publicity release for the first Bond film, Dr No, in 1962. 'He said, 'I need a little decorative thing on top,'' Caroff recalled in 2021. 'I knew [Bond's] designation was 007, and when I wrote the stem of the seven, I thought, 'That looks like the handle of a gun to me.' It was very spontaneous, no effort, it was an instant piece of creativity.' Taking inspiration from Ian Fleming's favourite gun, a Walther PPK, Caroff extended the image with a barrel and trigger and was paid $300 – a fee never increased by any residuals or royalties. As with much of his work, the logo was also uncredited, and Caroff never received the public acclaim or name recognition of his close contemporary, Saul Bass. Other key posters included Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), as well as Last Tango in Paris (1972), Rollerball (1975), An Unmarried Woman (1978) and Gandhi (1982). As well as working on graphics and posters, Caroff created a number of opening title sequences, including those for Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977), Volker Schlöndorff's Death of a Salesman (1985), and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He sought above all else 'effervescence' in his work, he said in the 2022 TCM documentary By Design: The Joe Caroff Story. 'I want it to have a life, it doesn't want to lie there flat.'
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Joe Caroff, Who Gave James Bond His Signature 007 Logo, Dies at 103
Joe Caroff, a prolific but overlooked graphic designer who created the 007 James Bond logo, the book jacket for Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead,' and posters for hundreds of movies including 'West Side Story,' 'A Hard Day's Night,' 'Last Tango in Paris,' 'Manhattan' and 'Cabaret,' died on Sunday in Manhattan. He would have been 104 on Monday. Mr. Caroff died in home hospice care, his sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, said. His designs were familiar but his name was not. Mr. Caroff did not sign much of his work and largely avoided self-promotion. He was not included among 60-plus celebrated designers like Saul Bass, Leo Lionni and Paul Rand in the 2017 book 'The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design,' cowritten by Steven Heller and Greg D'Onofrio. 'That he was unknown is shocking,' Mr. Heller, co-chairman emeritus of the Master of Fine Arts Design program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, said in a recent interview. Still, Mr. Caroff's abundant output became widely recognizable for an interpretive style that could be bold, elegant, theatrical, whimsical, sensual and deceptively simple in promoting a book or movie and conveying its essence with a single image. For the first Bond movie, 'Dr. No' (1962), Mr. Caroff was hired to create a logo for the letterhead of a publicity release. He began working with the idea that as a secret agent, the Bond character had a license to kill, but Mr. Caroff did not find Bond's compact Walther PPK pistol to be visually appealing. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
