Why is the Indianhead no longer part of RR Donnelleys visual identity?
RR Donnelley’s distinctive Indianhead artwork — an Indian chief’s profile — is no longer part of the company’s logo or visual identity. This change was made based on customer and employee research to better understand what our stakeholders expect from our brand. The idea for RR Donnelley’s pressmark came from the exterior of one of its early plants – the Lakeside Press Building at Plymouth Court and Polk Street in Chicago. In 1897 Howard Van Doren Shaw, the building’s architect, decided to enhance the appearance of the south wall. The company commissioned Joseph C. Leyendecker, a young Chicago artist, to design an image that Shaw envisioned: the head of a Native American chief set against the Fort Dearborn blockhouse, which was originally located along the Lake Michigan shoreline, not far from RR Donnelley’s printing plant. His design was transformed into terra-cotta shields for the building and, shortly thereafter, was adopted as R.R. Donnelley’s pressmark because it associated the
