With the slogan “you press the button, we do the rest,” George Eastman put the first simple camera into the hands of a world of consumers in 1888. In so doing, he made a cumbersome and complicated process easy to use and accessible to nearly everyone.

Since that time, the Eastman Kodak Company has led the way with an abundance of new products and processes to make Photography simpler, more useful and more enjoyable. In fact, today’s Kodak is known not only for photography, but also for images used in a variety of leisure, medical, business, entertainment and scientific applications. Its reach increasingly involves the use of technology to combine images and information–creating the potential to profoundly change how people and businesses communicate.

The current identity was designed by Ogilvy & Mather's Brand Integration Group (BIG) and soft-launched in January 2006.

1878 – George Eastman was one of the first to demonstrate the great convenience of gelatin dry plates over the cumbersome and messy wet plate photography prevalent in his day. Dry plates could be exposed and developed at the photographer’s convenience; wet plates had to be coated, exposed at once, and developed while still wet.


1879 - Eastman invented an emulsion-coating machine which enabled him to mass-produce photographic dry plates.

1880 - Eastman began commercial production of dry plates in a rented loft of a building in Rochester, N.Y.

1881 - In January, Eastman and Henry A. Strong (a family friend and buggy-whip manufacturer) formed a partnership known as the Eastman Dry Plate Company.

1886 - George Eastman became one of the first American industrialists to employ a full- research scientist to aid in the commercialization of a flexible, transparent film base.

1888 - The name “Kodak” was born and the KODAK camera was placed on the market, with the slogan, “You press the button - we do the rest.” This was the birth of snapshot photography, as millions of amateur picture-takers know it today.


1889 - The first commercial transparent roll film, was put on the market.

The availability of this flexible film made possible the development of Thomas Edison‘s motion picture camera in 1891.

1892 - The company became Eastman Kodak Company of New York.


1893 - A six-story Camera Works was built on State Street, in Rochester, to manufacture the growing line of box and folding roll-film cameras.

1895 - The Pocket KODAK Camera was announced. It used roll film and incorporated a small window through which positioning numbers for exposures could be read.

1896 - One year after the discovery of x-rays, Eastman entered into an agreement to supply plates and paper for the new process.

1900 - The first of the famous BROWNIE Cameras was introduced. It sold for $1 and used film that sold for 15 cents a roll. For the first time, the hobby of photography was within the financial reach of virtually everyone.


1917 - Kodak developed aerial cameras and trained aerial photographers for the U.S. Signal Corps during World War I.

1923 - Kodak made amateur motion pictures practical with the introduction of 16 mm reversal film on cellulose acetate (safety) base, the first 16 mm CINE-KODAK Motion Picture Camera, and the KODASCOPE Projector.

1928 - Motion pictures in color became a reality for amateur cinematographers with the introduction of 16 mm KODACOLOR Film.

1929 - The company introduced its first motion picture film designed especially for making the then new sound motion pictures.

1932 - The first 8 mm amateur motion-picture film, cameras, and projectors were introduced.

1934 - Kodak A.G. (Germany) introduced the first of its 35 mm precision KODAK RETINA Cameras.

1935 – KODACHROME Film was introduced and became the first commercially successful amateur color film.


1937 - Kodak introduced its first slide projector, the KODASLIDE Projector.

1950 - The company unveiled the first in its long-running series of KODAK COLORAMA display transparencies - 18 feet high and 60 feet wide - overlooking the main terminal floor of Grand Central Station in New York City. An estimated 650,000 commuters and tourists viewed this popular attraction every business day.




1964 - The Kodak Pavilion at the New York World's Fair was one of the ten largest buildings at the international exposition. The “Tower of Photography” featured the largest outdoor color prints ever exhibited.


1972- In its most contemporarily recognizable format – a red “K” formed by the depiction of a camera exposure over a warm yellow – the identity was designed in 1972 by Peter J. Oestreich.


1980 - Kodak celebrated its 100th anniversary.

1982 - Kodak launched “disc photography” with a line of compact, “decision-free” cameras built around a rotating disc of film.


1992 - Kodak launched a writeable CD that its first customer, MCI, used for producing telephone bills for corporate accounts.


1993 - Kodak introduced 20 new photographic products.

1994 - Kodak announced 30 new products.

1995 - Kodak introduced its website.




1999 - Kodak sold its digital printer, copier/duplicator, and roller assembly operations to Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.


2003 - The KODAK EASYSHARE printer dock 6000, a device that produces durable, borderless 4” x 6” KODAK prints, was introduced.


2004 - KODAK EASYSHARE Digital Cameras ranked highest in customer satisfaction in the $200-$399 and $400-$599 price segments in the J.D. Power and Associates 2004 Digital Camera Satisfaction Study.

Kodak
Kodak racing
Kodak Theatre

“Big Yellow”: More Curves, Less Yellow by Armin Vit for Speak Up
Colorama by Michael Bierut for Design Observer

How to Take Good Pictures, Revised Edition
Kodak Guide to 35mm Photography: Techniques for Better Pictures
KODAK Gray Cards In Four Languages: Tarjetas Gris * Cartes D'Etalonnage de Gris * Graukarten
Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years by Brian Coe
Kodak Professional Photoguide (6th edition) by Debbie Cohen
George Eastman: Founder of Kodak and the Photography Business (Business Biographies) by Carl W. Ackerman