How to draw a Pontiac arrowhead.
 

My brother is a retired Chrysler engineer and lives in a suburb of Detroit. Earlier this year one of his neighbors, who was a retired designer for GM, passed away. When his kids cleaned out his house they tossed a bunch of GM manuals from the early 1960s, and my brother grabbed what he could from the dumpster before it was hauled away.

The manuals aren't the sort of thing you would expect - they mostly describe the elements of GM graphic design for logos, symbols, and text as they were to be used for signage or package labeling. They show how to lay out signs for use in GM offices or factories, and how to design boxes for parts (the familiar boxes you'd see Delco ignition parts in, for example.) Included was this diagram showing how to correctly draw the Pontiac arrowhead, and an example of the Pontiac typeface (called 'Pontiac Gothic'.) Interestingly, the manual says the letters are for "use in headings and display copy, but should never be used in text."

Wow. That's really cool!

very cool and interesting.

Jim

I like the wiggly-legged "K"

I forgot to mention these came from a manual dated 1964. If you look at the font, you can see how it was similar to some of the body and dash emblems of the time.

Very cool! Thanks for posting them.

Very cool! It's a shame when some people toss things in the trash that have a value that they just don't see. Once these items are gone they're gone forever.

Why 2 different "M"s?

Very Cool, Good pick Stuart.

Yeah, the second one doesn't seem to fit the pattern. The points are squared off. No other letter, the A, the N, the Z, the W, etc. has the points squared off like that.

I downloaded the Arrowhead. That could come in handy if you wanted to paint a giant one on your garage floor or wall.

Nice to have the official Arrowhead dimensions.
Very cool note: "All dimensions are in units":rolleyes:

Unusual that back in the 60s GM used metric units (mm).
Normally it's imperial.

Pontiac Arror dimension probably sell for a bunch of NOS emblems.

It isn't metric. It's just relative. If you want one 36 inches high then it is 14 inches wide and 1 unit = 1 inch. If you want one 18 feet high then 7 feet wide and 1 unit = 6 inches. Drawing gives only proportions.

Like for flags, a proper one is 2 long and 1 high, whatever the dimensions those are the proportions.

Nice save, Stuart.

Can you tell me the name of the engineer that passed away? What suburb does your brother live in?

You can PM me if you are not comfortable sharing in the thread.

Thanks,

K

thanks for sharing
did you get anything else?
the graphics side of me is real interested

Don't know the name of the designer that passed away, if I remember correctly my brother said he was in his 90s so he had been retired for quite a while - I'll see if I can find out. My brother lives in Rochester.

Thanks for checking on that.

I'm within walking distance from Rochester. Let me know the next time you are in town and we can arrange a visit (...assuming you'd like that).

K

Love the arrowhead drawing, very useful for future projects. The font is cool too, though I'm sure glad the lettering on the side of my Pontiac doesn't read: G R A N D P R I X ?

Thanks for the arrowhead drawing. That would have come in handy when I had my arrowhead neon sign made last year.