Bell System Vehicle Graphics Manual (1973)

I get it. These companies of the past, they were titans of industry. They left their ruins behind everywhere like a lost civilization. An Ozymandias statue a thousand fold.

Among the dead in Mt Zion Cemetery is the body of a colossus. A thing so profoundly bigger than you that you don't even realize you are standing on it. But, if you look down from above at the cemetery you'll see it. A peculiar row of headstones that cuts across in a thin row diagonal to all the other headstones. This thin strip of oddly facing plots were dug exactly along the space where railroad tracks used to cut through the cemetery.

RIP NY & Flushing RR, you were bigger than us all.

"I'm a bit of geek about AT&T history and often annoy my friends by pointing out the Bell symbol ..."

https://twitter.com/rsyncnet/status/1435981763864584201

... just scroll down ...

Then I'm sure you've seen Saul Bass' original proposal for the logo redesign. It's a 30 minute movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI

And this is the same Saul Bass that designed other iconic logos (he name drops a bunch at 7m30s) and well as doing credit sequences for directors like Hitchcock and Scorcese:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

> I suppose there were so many that it made no sense to make one seem "preeminent" over others.

Also, a good way to prevent leaks, even if inadvertent. Vendors working on something for "Alpha Bell" have no idea what it is. Granted, leaks in the 1960s weren't what they are today

Also, there was a video version of the pitch you referred to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI

This design system was designed by Saul Bass

Not sure if it's related, but this being 1973, the song "American Pie" ("drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry") had just hit #1 on the charts not long before.

"the single was the number-one US hit for four weeks in 1972 starting January 15" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pie_%28song%29)

English is not my first language and I never lived in the us. Chevy is very pervasive and also rarely used mixed with Chevrolet. It's also mostly used for more common cars, whereas corvette is very known, at least internationally as chevrolet corvette, and never chevy corvette. So it seems that not only using Chevy is very common, but it's so ingrained that people seemed to never mention Chevrolet is the same context for me.

At some point, I remember thinking that that weird I've never heard of must be a surname to an existing brand, like Chevrolet, and having done a quick check, but I didn't realized it must not have been that conclusive at that time, and I never clarified the situation in my head before reading your comment.

I don't think it ever appears on the nameplate or badges, but it's in common use as a synonym, even by the company.