The Roman Empire started this idea that you can have design elements, which could be propagated anywhere, and that you could reproduce the ideology of Rome all through the provinces. The Roman Empire literally made branding manuals for cities, for instance — how they should be organized, how they should be designed, how the insignia should look on them — and perpetuated that throughout the empire. And so that idea of creating ideology of design, which had specific elements that could be reproduced anywhere, was an idea that the church took up as it became the dominant ideology in Rome.
In this fascinating interview, part of Debbie Millman’s Design Matters Summer Series, celebrated designer Michael Rock – author of the excellent Multiple Signatures: On Designers, Authors, Readers and Users – on how the Vatican perfected the cross-platform branding campaign, and other curious insights from his long and accomplished career in design.
Complement with Christ to Coke: How Image Became Icon.