preliminary work for Chase Bank logo, 1961

Logo created for the merger of Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company merged to form the Chase Manhattan Bank

• the abstract mark was inspired by a traditional Chinese coin

• the square enclosed in an octagon suggests a bank vault (and by extension the notion of security and trust

• the 45-degree angles give the mark motion and dynamism, even a hint of three-dimensionality, yet it remains quite simple.

From Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv website:

"Chase Bank, the largest bank in the United States, has been identified by the blue octagon designed by our firm since 1961. The symbol was first introduced when the Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company merged to form the Chase Manhattan Bank, then the largest commercial bank in New York and the second largest in the United States.

At the time, few American corporations used abstract symbols for their identification, but we were convinced that the bank would benefit from a simple symbol that could not only unite the two newly merged corporate cultures but also come to stand in for the company’s unwieldy name. Chase Manhattan had tremendous advertising resources that could quickly establish an abstract symbol in the public mind."