Heavy metal.
Anthony Oliver’s Common Knowledge piece about tractor badges from Eye 71
Above: tractor badge, 1967; top: badge, 1950-59
And I was always aware of these solid metal tractor badges. The older ones were probably created in-house by engineering designers, and many, like the one for Hart Parr, would have been cast as an integral part of the machine.
Above: tractor badge, late 1950s-early 60s; below: badge, 1924.
The Fordson Major tractor made a huge contribution to agricultural productivity in postwar Britain, and the image in its oval badge (below) is an optimistic symbiosis of man, machine and nature. This is a logo that lives up to its product – or should that be the other way round?
More words and pictures in Eye 71, Spring 2009, now available to buy online as a single issue from the new Eye shop. Eye 72 out very soon.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:53 pm | by Heavy metal. « History of Graphic Design
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