Walter Landor

Walter Joseph Landor
Walter Landor in 1982
Born	Walter Landauer (1913-07-09)July 9, 1913 Munich, Germany
Died	June 9, 1995(1995-06-09) (aged 81) Tiburon, California
Occupation	designer
Years active	1935–1989
Notable work	logos and designs for Sapporo (1959), Alitalia (1967), Bank of America (1969), Levi Strauss & Co. (1969), Cotton Incorporated (1971), Miller Lite (1972, packaging) Frito-Lay (1979), Coca-Cola (1985), World Wildlife Fund (1986)
Spouse(s)	Josephine (neé Martinelli), m. 1940–1995, his death
Children	2 daughteres

Walter Joseph Landor (born Walter Landauer, July 9, 1913 – June 9, 1995) was a brand designer and the founder of Landor Associates. He was an acclaimed designer and a pioneer of branding and consumer research techniques widely used to this day. Landor Associates, the company he founded in 1941, has offices around the world.

"Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind," Walter Landor memorably stated. He had a particular gift for creating designs with broad popular appeal, such as the Coca-Cola script. Brands as diverse as General Electric, Japan Airlines, Levi Strauss, and Shell Oil all benefited from his vision and commitment.

Landor was born to Fritz and Elsie Landauer, a Jewish family, in Munich in 1913. Fritz Landauer was a prominent architect, and Landor grew up drawing in his father's studio; he realized he wanted to study industrial design instead of architecture early on. In early life Landor's aesthetic sense was influenced by the Bauhaus and Werkbund design movements. Landor left Munich for London in 1931, studying at London University's Goldsmith College School of Art and changing his surname from Landauer to Landor. He interned at W. S. Crawford, Ltd in London in 1932, and decided to that he wanted to live in Britain. Following his studies at London University, Landor would help to found Industrial Design Partnership with Misha Black and Milner Gray in 1935, and one year later, the 23-year-old Landor became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In 1939 Landor traveled to the United States as part of the design team for the British Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. After the Fair, he continued west to San Francisco and quickly decided to settle there. "For me it was a city that looked out on the whole world, a city built on the cultural traditions of east and west," he later said. "How could I live anywhere else?"

Landor became associate professor of industrial design and interior architecture at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1940. In June, Landor married the former Josephine Martinelli.

In 1941, Landor and his wife, Josephine, launched a design firm in their small flat, working from the living room table. Passionate about his work, he succeeded in attracting clients from a wide variety of fields, adding staff and relocating to larger offices as the need grew. In a move characteristic of his ebullient personality and original business style, Landor bought a retired ferryboat, the Klamath, in 1964 and turned it into his company's corporate headquarters, renting space to six other companies; Klamath had operated from 1924 to 1956, retiring after the opening of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge. The firm moved from Klamath to their present headquarters at 1001 Front Street in the late 1980s, but retains the Klamath as their corporate symbol, although the boat itself was purchased by Duraflame and was moved to Stockton.