Hills Bros. Coffee Can
date: label: Date made
content: 1969
name: label: photographer
content: Adams, Ansel
label: maker
content: Hills Bros. Incorporated
notes: label: Description
content: In 1939, Walter Landor arrived in the United States to help install the British training pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. At twenty-six years old, Landor had left his home in Germany to study art and design in Britain, where he became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Industrial Artists. With whispers of war circulating around Europe, Landor decided to stay in the United States and travelled to the West Coast in search of design work. In 1941, Landor and his new wife Josephine Martinelli founded Walter Landor and Associates (today Landor) in their San Francisco apartment. The company specialized in packaging and label design for a number of iconic brands ranging from Marlboro cigarettes to Aunt Jemima to Sara Lee. As the company expanded, Landor’s base of operations moved from his home through several locations until it settled in 1962 on the Klamath, a docked ferryboat in the San Francisco Bay that would become an iconic part of Landor’s own brand.
label: Description
content: Hoping to stand out from competitors in the 1960s coffee market, Hills Bros. (originated in San Francisco, California in 1878) designed a series of aesthetic and reusable three-pound coffee canisters. Hills Bros. hired Landor to produce a series of graphics for the coffee line series, including this canister with an Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite (released in 1964). Hills Bros. hoped consumers would reuse the cans around the house and keep the brand in mind. To create the multifaceted household container, Landor designed a removable paper waist label so customers could identify the product on store shelves but display it in homes without the commercial label. In the first five years, the company released seven different designs in intervals to create anticipation and feed consumers’ desire for novelty.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, San Francisco
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Occupations
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Richard C. Young
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0542.01
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0542.01
label: accession number
content: 1993.0542
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Can
label: Object Name
content: coffee can
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, steel (overall material)