Pan Am History, Design & Identity

Pan Am History Design & Identity, Matthias C. Hühne, 2016, ISBN 978-3-9816550-6-3, 427 pp.

Pan Am History Design & Identity by Matthias C. Hühne

Hühne has done it again—written a marvelous book rich in imagery, historical knowledge and the Pan Am brand. His Airline Visual Identity:1945–1975, reviewed here, revolutionized understandings of most readers teaching as well as illustrating the emergence of branding as not only a science but for the strategy that often is.

His experience in art as well as business is more than equal to the task of comprehensively—yet conversationally—meeting the challenge of the title. There is the history. There is the imagery, with photographic and poster. There is the original illustration of aircraft and maps produced for Hühne’s work.

This book belongs next to biographies of Juan Trippe as well as those of his flying clipper ships. It is authoritative in ways beyond most reference books since it not only catalogues the pertinent facts but gives insight to the historical figures—telling a complex tale expertly and easily in Hühne’s unique way.