Joe Caroff, creator of iconic James Bond logo, dies aged 103
The graphic designer known for creating the iconic 007 gun logo has died at the age of 103, his sons have confirmed.
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The sons of Joe Caroff - Michael and Peter - told The New York Times their father died in hospice care at his Manhattan home on Sunday, a day before his 104th birthday.
Mr Caroff also created the book jacket for Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, as well as posters for hundreds of movies including West Side Story, A Hard Day’s Night, Last Tango in Paris, Manhattan and Cabaret.
Despite his designs being familiar, his name was not as he did not sign much of his work and largely avoided self-promotion.
"That he was unknown is shocking," Steven Heller, co-chairman emeritus of the Master of Fine Arts Design program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, said in a recent interview.
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When Mr Caroff was tasked with creating the letterhead for Dr. No (1962), he didn't find the 007 agent's Walther PPK pistol to be visually appealing.
He sketched the numbers 007 and added pencilled lines above and below as a guide but soon noticed that the upper guideline looked like an elongated barrel of a gun extending from the number seven.
He soon perfected one of the most recognised symbols in cinema.
"I knew that 007 meant license to kill; that, I think, at an unconscious level, was the reason I knew the gun had to be in the logo," he said in By Design: The Joe Caroff Story in 2022.
Despite creating the legendary logo, the family were "never paid any royalties". It was said the rate for a letterhead logo was $300 at the time, without film credits or profit-sharing.
"It was like a little publicity piece for me," he said.
"My only regrets are that they never paid any royalties for any of these things that were done in those days," Mr Caroff's wife, Phyllis Caroff, added in the documentary. "We would have been rich."
Mr Caroff also revealed he never saved the original sketches and renders over the years. "Probably not a smart thing to do, but I never attached what I was doing to any greatness," he admitted.