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Represent The White Dot Something?


lazard

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In another post, by accident, was brought up this issue.

 

My interpretation is certainly a simple opinion I never thought to publish but, by accident, here it is for those who enjoy the SheafferS fountain pen and read letters and graphic simbols.

 

Designing a good logo is not a simple task and requires a lot of involvement from the marketing team and the design agency (if outsourced). It requires clear idea about the concept and values of the brand as well as understanding of the consumer or target group as marketers call. Broad step in logo design process would be formulating concept, doing initial sketch, finalizing the logo concept, deciding the theme colors and format.

 

Premises.

-It is generally accepted symbolism in logos, at least since the late nineteenth century.

 

-One example: "The logo is a promise. The logo is not a brand in itself: it is a form of expression of the same or more condensed image. (...) The brand has to offer what the logo promises". Jörg Zintzmeyer in his book "Logo Design".

 

-In all Universities of Art and Design of the world, including Chicago and New York, they taught logo creation, its meaning and its rules. Nowhere advise, and less taught, left it to random.

 

-In the main page of first Sheaffer´S catalog (PCA Library), or one of the first, displays a dartboard with a fountain pen, like an arrow, embedded just in its center and the legend: BULL'S EYE OF PERFECTION.

 

-"Bull´s eye" have literal sense and have meaning too as "the small center circle on a target" or "A direct hit on it".

 

-The center of the dartboard was white and, in any case, clearest that the next ring.

 

-The white color complements the black and towered over any other color used in the fountain pen in 1924.

 

-A Black Dot would not make sense since it would not highlight in black fountain pen existed.

 

-We know by his Memoirs that Mr. Sheaffer was a proponent of the management of the psychological aspects that influence the purchase decision process and that remained the same marketing strategies, at least from 1905 to 1939.

 

-We also have evidence that Mr. Sheaffer strongly maintained the watchword "offering the customer the best that he can buy with your money."

 

-There is no evidence to indicate that is the result of random or irrationality.

 

 

Someone would infer:

 

-The pen inserted into the center of the target represents perfection, unbeatable, perhaps, "the best you can buy with money."

 

-That if, and only if, this idea was originally real, Mr. Sheaffer, who remained in the sales psychology from 1905 until at least 1939, may well keep this idea less time, from 1913 to 1924.

 

-That if, and only if, that idea origin in Catalog was real , the White Dot could be a dartboard as extracted image represents everything logo.

 

How would be presented the White Dot to Sheaffer's Board of Directors and shareholders?

 

Serve this so that anyone else who may be interested in these respects deepened in this or another line.

 

 

Footnote. There are more than 7 million of SheafferS web pages so no one should be offended by offering only one or two with this issue.

Edited by lazard
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Nice speculation but not very convincing. There is no reason for a Logo to represent any other object. The White Dot was not the Sheaffer logo but just the marking on their upscale line.

 

A White Dot is easily recognized and so can stand alone as the identifying mark of their upscale products.

 

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I did not know Mr. Sheaffer but from all accounts he was a level headed guy. So much so that one could speculate he initially instructed his designers to mark the lifetime pens with a white square. Due to the difficulty involved in drilling the square hole in the cap to hold the white 'lifetime' square, the engineering shop came up with a clever way of installing the square peg in the round hole with the unfortunate result of the square appearing as a round white dot.

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

My PM box is usually full. Just email me: my last name at the google mail address.

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Of course this has had a fair bit of debate in another topic, the view that the WD represents a bulls eye/target is speculation and most likely will remain as such as the supporting documentation either hasn't survived, remains undiscovered or never existed. As I said in the other topic the "ideology" behind the WD is not known yet it would have been been well thought through to deliver a "mark" that would be easily identifiable,easy advertised and long lasting. To that end the WD has been a spectacular success !! Probably the only other "pen" symbol that's been as successful is that used by Montblanc. To my way of thinking I can see how a "bulls eye" would have been an appealing idea initially but one that would have soon become "tacky", maybe the "bulls eye" created the initial "idea", maybe not !!

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Exceptionally... .Fascinatin'... .

Square peg in a Round hole... .

Round Two... .

 

Fred

It's apple sauce ~ Hoppy..aka..Hopalong Cassidy ~

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lazard;

 

Look lad, it was a nice original concept but, it just doesn't hold water. The white dot was not likely developed from a target, bullseye or dartboard (I notice we are up to three things the white dot came from and you keep adding more). That Sheaffer held this idea undaunted from 1913 until 1924 though which he went through a lawsuit that almost lost him the company and gained him the Kraker works is remarkable as he fails to mention it anywhere. Hundreds of pages of testimony during the Barrett case and the bullseye didn't come up once and the case is right in the relevant period for it to have been mentioned! Give it a rest, my boy, you've got nothing.

 

Roger W.

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lazard;

 

Look lad, it was a nice original concept but, it just doesn't hold water. The white dot was not likely developed from a target, bullseye or dartboard (I notice we are up to three things the white dot came from and you keep adding more). That Sheaffer held this idea undaunted from 1913 until 1924 though which he went through a lawsuit that almost lost him the company and gained him the Kraker works is remarkable as he fails to mention it anywhere. Hundreds of pages of testimony during the Barrett case and the bullseye didn't come up once and the case is right in the relevant period for it to have been mentioned! Give it a rest, my boy, you've got nothing.

 

Roger W.

Yes, please give it a rest... Please.

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http://www.whitedot.co.nz/Images/WhiteDot_front.png

"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."

~ Benjamin Franklin

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O no! There's a little black dot in the middle of the big white dot. Did the middle of the big white dot get stained by ink?

 

What is font in that first line? It hurts my eyes just because of the h, having that start of the ascender angled the wrong way, relative to calligraphy with an italic pen.

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"How did the White Dot come into being and what does it mean?... " Jim Mamoulides 3/31/02

 

This is meaningless and starts to show your lack of seriousness! Jim asked the question ten years ago and let's further the quote and not be a child about it.

 

"The second milestone became so identified with Sheaffer that it stands as part of its company logo today: the White Dot. The White Dot first appeared on the top of the cap of the new plastic Senior pens. The original "dot" is actually a round white inlay countersunk flush into the plastic at the center of the top of the cap on the pen. On the first plastic desk pens, the White Dot was found at the tail end of the barrel, below the lever and on the ladies' ring-top pens, it was found on the side of the cap near the top. The White Dot's original purpose was to indicate that the pen had a Lifetime guarantee. Early Sheaffer advertisements, beginning in 1924, point out that Lifetime pens, so marked by the White Dot were "unconditionally guaranteed for a lifetime." The ads included a logo that represented the top of the pen, a colored circle with a white dot in the center, and the words "Identify the Lifetime pen by this white dot.""

 

I don't see where he mentions target/dartboard/bullseye do you? Perhaps this is why you didn't bother quoting the answer to his own question.

 

Roger W.

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fpn_1356855189__250px-bullseye5.jpg

 

BULLSEYE

... is a fictional character, a super villain in the Marvel Comics universe. A psychopathic assassin, Bullseye uses the opportunities afforded by his line of work to exercise his homicidal tendencies and to work out his own personal vendetta against Daredevil.

 

Although he possesses no superpowers, Bullseye is able to use almost any object as a lethal projectile, be it weapons like shuriken and sai or seemingly harmless objects like playing cards and pencils. His aim is uncanny, at a nearly preternatural level, but he has been known to miss moving targets (from Wikipedia).

 

Nah, I don't think this is the origin of Sheaffer's White Dot. On the other hand, if I keep repeating it ad infinitum, people might believe me!

fpn_1434850097__cocursive.jpg

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Gee we're all pretty set in our ways!! Really to dismiss "speculation" out of hand without any thought isn't that "smart" either( noting there seems no definitive material to the history of the WD). It's not that hard to see "the top of the pen, a colored circle with a white dot in the center" ( as quoted above) as looking just a tad like a target !! That, of course, doesn't mean the "idea" behind the WD was born from a target but it had to come from somewhere, some thought process that eventually decided this was to be THE symbol of quality. I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the "target" theory as a possible starting point in the evolution of the WD, remember that the seeds of the "idea" are just that, a starting point from which to progress to the end result and may have little noticeable affect ,as such, on the end result. Suffice to say the WD was actually a brilliant concept ( where ever it came from...) that's longevity, meaning and simplicity remains even today a model of marketing ingenuity and success.

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Plus: a white dot ist a mark that many companies use - it's not restricted to Sheaffer's. Even our local library uses the white dot; simply because a white dot looks good on any background, surface, curved or flat... I doubt that Sheaffer's even invented the white dot.

You shouldn't think too much of it.

Greetings,

Michael

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I have a black No-Nonsense. It's a black-dot pen. We just don't know exactly where the dot is.

 

If we speculate that the black dot was really a trademark that was simply never advertised or documented anywhere, and that it was meant to represent a black bullseye, it would be smart to consider the theory rather than dismiss it out of hand, right?

 

BTW, that is some great thread-jumping picture comeback.

 

Now I want to see some green dot pens.

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Gee we're all pretty set in our ways!! Really to dismiss "speculation" out of hand without any thought isn't that "smart" either( noting there seems no definitive material to the history of the WD). It's not that hard to see "the top of the pen, a colored circle with a white dot in the center" ( as quoted above) as looking just a tad like a target !! That, of course, doesn't mean the "idea" behind the WD was born from a target but it had to come from somewhere, some thought process that eventually decided this was to be THE symbol of quality. I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the "target" theory as a possible starting point in the evolution of the WD, remember that the seeds of the "idea" are just that, a starting point from which to progress to the end result and may have little noticeable affect ,as such, on the end result. Suffice to say the WD was actually a brilliant concept ( where ever it came from...) that's longevity, meaning and simplicity remains even today a model of marketing ingenuity and success.

 

I'm happy to explore any question as long as it has convincing evidence. The "white dot was a target" has no supporting evidence. A short lived bullseye campaign that is a decade apart from the use of the white dot fails to convince and is being tortured to do so. If it were a year apart and the one failed to mention the other I'd allow that it was still a shade of grey - no such doubt in this case. The bullseye campaign is very obscure and there is little evidence of its existence at all - I've searched it a lot over the years as I liked it. It was never a major campaign and its efforts living on for a decade to establish the white dot is ludicrous.

 

Roger W.

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lazard:

 

Let's look at the evidence, none of which is in dispute, as far as I can tell:

 

- In 1913, apparently for just a few months, Sheaffer briefly used the image of an archery target (not a "dartboard") and a slogan, "The Bull's Eye of Perfection", for their company's products.

- In the only color advertisement I know if, the center of the bullseye is dark, and the surrounding ring is red, with alternating light/red rings around that

- For about ten years, Sheaffer makes no reference whatsoever to a bullseye or target in any known materials, either pictorially or with verbiage

- Sheaffer's trademark filing is only for the white dot. It is not for a white dot with a surrounding black (or dark) circle.

- Sheaffer's trademark filing for the White Dot specifically mentions that it -- the dot alone -- may be applied to the barrel of a pen or pencil.

- Sheaffer's trademark filing makes no mention of a target or bullseye.

- Sheaffer's White Dot trademark is not classified as representing a target.

- Sheaffer names its new Lifetime logo the "White Dot". It is not named in any way that states or implies it is supposed to represent a target or bullseye.

- Sheaffer's earliest ads that show and describe the White Dot have no imagery or wording that describe the new logo as representing a target or bullseye. On the contrary, ads say, for example, "Spot it by the dot in its field of jade." A dot in a field of jade reasonably is not a description of a bullseye.

- Black ribbon-lined hard rubber Lifetime pens that are advertised after the White Dot logo was first used do not have the White Dot, according to dated advertisements.

- The first color of celluloid used for pens by Sheaffer was jade green. This is stated in Sheaffer's autobiography.

- The first ad for a celluloid Sheaffer calls the new material Jadite, indicating celluloid pens were only available in green. Black celluloid pens were not yet being advertised.

- That same first ad for a celluloid pen also contains the first appearance of the White Dot logo, which appears against a Jade background. There is no mention or reference to a target or bullseye.

- From the above, we can conclude that the Jade pen was the first to have the White Dot, as black hard rubber pens advertised after the logo was first used are shown without it, and as black celluloid pens were not yet being offered.

- Therefore, the first application of the White Dot to a product had the dot on a Jade green background.

- The specimen in the trademark file shows the dot on a Jade background.

- The traditional color of an archery bullseye is not white. It is gold.

- The traditional color of the next ring in an archery target is not black (or green). It is red.

 

Again, none of the facts listed above seems to be in dispute. Therefore, it is beyond generous to label your claim that the White Dot logo represents a bullseye as "speculation".

 

I would be very interested in any specific, evidence-based challenges you have to the above facts. Absent such challenges, it can be reasonably concluded that you concede these points, and it then follows that "speculation" is an appropriate label for your position.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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The archery-target image was part of an advertising campaign based on the theme of a shooting sport. Sheaffer used a similar idea in the 1960s to sell cartridge pens. Magazine ads claimed the pen "Loads like a rifle."

 

How Sheaffer advertises the white dot does not necessarily reflect the original intention of the design. The meaning of the dot is a symbology topic. The reason for the dot is a marketing decision. Whether the two overlap we may never know.

 

I think bulls-eye theories are too narrow. The circle is the most universal of signs and is found in all cultures. Its power transcends any single theme. Sheaffer's designers understood the appeal of circular forms in the 1920s when they created the white dot. And it has certainly stood the test of time, regardless of the original intent.

Edited by ashbridg

Carpe Stilo

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Designing a good logo is not a simple task and requires a lot of involvement from the marketing team and the design agency (if outsourced). It requires clear idea about the concept and values of the brand as well as understanding of the consumer or target group as marketers call. Broad step in logo design process would be formulating concept, doing initial sketch, finalizing the logo concept, deciding the theme colors and format.

Don't forget to put passages like this in quotation marks and to cite the original source. Otherwise, it could give the impression that you are the author of these words.

 

--Daniel

Edited by kirchh

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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