Mark Twain once said something along the lines of, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A government logo who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” And over the years since our countrymen first started drawing circles with eagles inside of them, many logos–along with their organizing bodies–did die. […]
Mark Twain once said something along the lines of, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A government logo who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” And over the years since our countrymen first started drawing circles with eagles inside of them, many logos–along with their organizing bodies–did die. Plucked from university digital library troves, Google Books, Wikipedia, the National Archives, obscure depths of government websites, creepy personal blogs, and other dusty corners of the internet we do not recommend visiting, these are some of the retired, dormant, or long-dead federal agency logos we found the most interesting (both visually and existentially). Cropped, edited, enhanced, and sometimes reproduced entirely, they are presented below in no particular order: National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), 1961-1996 Dwight Eisenhower created the NPIC in the final days of his presidency in 1961. A scrappy agency under the leadership of the CIA at the time, it would probably have been most occupied by matters involving the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The seal reveals the defining moment our national symbol the bald eagle, became an omniscient and self aware photographic analysis expert, entangling itself in an old film strip of random vacation photos. The eagle was trained to interpret images as it saw fit in the name of national security. National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) official seal enhanced and inverted, via scan of public historical document on cia.gov archives. National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) official seal in color, via nga.mil archives. United States Information Agency (USIA), 1953-1999 The USIA was a very large public relations agency–the largest in the world at the time–whose primary target audience was everyone alive. Established by Eisenhower in 1953, the boutique experiential creative studio would spread cheer, good vibes, and decidedly anti-Soviet propaganda
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