Kilmer House

James Wood Johnson

Most people, unless they read this blog, have probably never heard of James Wood Johnson, one of the three brothers who founded Johnson & Johnson in 1886.  But more than a billion people around the world are familiar with his handwriting.  Why?  Because the Johnson & Johnson logo is based on it.

James Wood Johnson’s signature

Johnson & Johnson logo circa 1920s

This familiar logo has been a part of Johnson & Johnson since the beginning.  It’s not a typeface, but is based on handwriting…one particular person’s handwriting.  You can see the similarities between the shape of the “J,” the loop on the “h” and in the “s” in James’s handwriting and in the logo.  You’ll also notice above that James Wood Johnson connected the “W” in his middle initial to the “J” in Johnson.  When James wrote the name Johnson & Johnson, he did the same thing: he connected the ampersand to the second “J.” 

Company name written by James Wood Johnson on a check in 1886.  Note the connection of the ampersand and the second “J”

As I mentioned in a previous post, James Wood Johnson and his brother Edward Mead Johnson are the Johnsons in “Johnson & Johnson.”  Their older brother Robert joined the Company several months later, once he was free of his obligations to his previous business, Seabury & Johnson.   (It’s a measure of the founders’ foresight that they didn’t change the Company name to “Johnson & Johnson & Johnson” when this happened.)

One of the Company’s earliest products.  The logo looks even more like a signature here.

The new company wanted a visual identity that would set it apart from its competitors in the medical products field.  The Johnsons’ new business was indeed different – it sold the first commercial mass-produced sterile surgical dressings, as well as sterile sutures, and it improved the manufacturing and the efficacy of the popular medicated plasters it sold.  So the Johnson brothers wanted a distinctive way to represent their new business’s name.

If anyone has ever wondered about how companies come up with their logos (okay, maybe ONE person out there has ever wondered about that), it’s probably assumed that they hire design firms who submit designs that are tested and re-tested and then one is chosen…which is how you would come up with a logo today.  But we’ve had the same logo for well over a century.  So what did companies do in the 1800s?

In the 1800s, most companies just set their names in type…like the Lambert Pharmacal Company, which was formed to manufacture LISTERINE® Antiseptic.  Or Seabury & Johnson.  Or P&G.

A few companies, like the Coca-Cola Company (also founded in 1886) had distinctive logos that gave people immediate visual recognition and a set of expectations, based on their products.  (In modern times, we would call that branding.)  From its earliest days, Johnson & Johnson used what we call our corporate signature as the distinctive way of representing the Company. 

Here’s the logo on some of our earliest products:     

It’s not only the Johnson & Johnson logo that’s based on James Wood Johnson’s handwriting, but also the JOHNSON’S® brand name logo too.  Here’s an example…in which it’s easy to see how both logos evolved from James Wood Johnson’s signature.

JOHNSON’S® Baby Cream, 1920s 

Interestingly enough, the signatures of Robert Wood Johnson the first and his brother James Wood Johnson are kind of similar, especially in the way they signed their last name.  So although the logo is based on James’ signature, it also looks like Robert’s too.

 The signatures of James Wood Johnson (top) and Robert Wood Johnson (bottom) 

The fact that Johnson & Johnson based the look of its name on one of the founder’s handwriting shows how personally the Johnson brothers were connected to their company, their products and their mission of improving health care for people…personally enough for one of them to put his signature on it.

What do General Robert Wood Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen and Toni Morrison all have in common?  They are among the first group of inductees into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Yesterday (May 4th) General Robert Wood Johnson was among the first group of New Jersey citizens inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, sharing the occasion with other notable New Jerseyans Harriet Tubman, Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Einstein, Clara Barton, Frank Sinatra, Buzz Aldrin, Yogi Berra, Malcolm Forbes, Vince Lombardi, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Toni Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep and Bill Bradley.

General Johnson was recognized for visionary leadership and for building Johnson & Johnson into the global company it is today, as well as for his philanthropy.  The General’s grandson Robert Wood (Woody) Johnson accepted the award.

General Robert Wood Johnson (1893 — 1968) was the son of Company founder Robert Wood Johnson, and was born and grew up in New Brunswick.  He spent his formative years around Johnson & Johnson, often accompanying his father to business meetings and events and, when he was old enough, he worked summers at his family’s company just a few blocks away from his house.   The death of his father in 1910 accelerated his plans to join his family’s business, and he did so instead of attending college after he graduated from Rutgers Prep.   

Robert Wood Johnson had a long tradition of public service and philanthropy, which was influenced by the lessons he learned as a child from his father, one of the three brothers who founded Johnson & Johnson.  Some of Robert Wood Johnson’s notable accomplishments:

He served as Mayor of Highland Park when he was 26. 

He wrote Our Credo in 1943, which 65 years later, continues to guide the Company and outline the responsibilities of Johnson & Johnson to, in the following order, doctors, nurses, patients and all those who use our products and services; employees; the communities in which we live and work; and last, our shareowners.  (When Robert Wood Johnson wrote that, he was the largest shareowner, and he put himself last.)  Johnson felt that, if we do the first three things correctly, then the last item would take care of itself.

He was the architect of the Company’s policy of decentralization and of our global growth and expansion from a small family-owned business into a worldwide family of companies. 

Starting with donating its first typewriter in 1918, Johnson supported Middlesex Hospital (Now known as Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital) and St. Peter’s University Hospital, and contributed to the education and training of nurses and the field of hospital management countrywide.  It was Johnson’s idea that hospitals should be organized by medical specialty, something that was rare when he suggested it and is common practice today.

Robert Wood Johnson (lower center) and Employees

Johnson was a thinker and writer about business, and was the author of a number of widely read books and articles.  Many of his ideas went squarely across the grain, such as his thoughts about the ethical responsibilities of business, or his repeated calls during the Great Depression for higher wages for workers.  In the 1930s, in a pamphlet called “Try Reality,” he wrote:  “…industry only has the right to succeed where it performs a real economic service and is a true social asset.” 

General Robert Wood Johnson in Uniform, 1940s

Johnson was named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to head the Smaller War Plants Corporation in Washington during World War II, and was appointed to the rank of Brigadier General.  He served for only about two months before he left, frustrated with the bureaucracy, but the title stuck with him. 

General Robert Wood Johnson left the bulk of his fortune to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  

Johnson embraced his reputation as a maverick, as illustrated by one of his favorite sayings: “Why be difficult when with a little more effort you can be impossible.” 

[Saying quoted from "General Johnson Said…," by Philip B. Hofmann, 1971, Leury, Marks & Strasser, Inc., North Brunswick, NJ, p. 54]