Pelikan Book " The Brand "

Pelikan - The Brand

How the baby bird got into the nest, and how many when.

The established, iconic Pelikan company is celebrating the 175th anniversary of its foundation. To mark the occasion a book is to be published which traces the development of the PELIKAN trademark and brand.
The elaborately designed and copiously illustrated volume is available..
New discoveries from the Pelikan archive

Previously unknown letters from the originator of the brand, Günther Wagner, to his successor Fritz Beindorff have been discovered in the company archives. Also among the discoveries was the original Wagner family coat of arms, which was probably used as an indentifying mark on honey paints for children even before 1873.

It was Günther Wagner himself who, on the basis of his family coat of arms, designed the PELIKAN pictorial trademark for his “Small Honey Paints”. Günther Wagner took the number of three chicks in the nest for the PELIKAN pictorial trademark. Honey paints were a type of watercolour, common at the time, in which honey was used as a binder. According to an 1873 price list, small round pans of honey paint were offered in tin boxes containing 12, 18 or 24 different colours, the paint pans being glued to the metal of the box. In designing the trademark, Günther Wagner abandoned what he called the “oval” shape of the shield on which the pelican was displayed in his family coat of arms.