The old small silver font decals simply didn’t show up clearly on the black and white TV sets of the time. Remember that CBS also had a significant stake in television broadcasting. Most graphic designers here would probably prefer the old decals. The new Fender strat headstock used a bit more wood, and made the whole guitar less-balanced looking for many. The decals especially, were not as conventionally “balanced” looking as the old design. But if the Stratocaster design was so good, why did they change it? These changes happened gradually, as old supplies and stocks got depleted and as more meddling was done to the design. A “bullet” truss rod adjustment later completed the now far less minimalist design. The thin “Stratocaster” model name became much bolder and in-your-face. The logo was now a bolder black instead of silver with black details. Less obvious - but more critical - would be larger fonts on the decals. This unproven benefit nonetheless was advertised by Fender from the late 60’s through the 70’s. Some theorize the resulting increase in mass or surface area helped the instruments “sustain” notes longer, though this is still debated. A few notable changes were made to specific parts of the Stratocaster design, the most obvious of which was the headstock.įunctionally, the new Fender strat headstocks were the same. The biggest difference was the larger size – around 10% larger than the previous ones, and the funkier shape. This era is generally agreed to have been the worst for quality control, but also produced interesting developments.ĬBS instituted a wide number of changes to Fender’s corporate structure and processes. In January 5, 1965, the CBS corporation – a broadcasting company, bought out Fender. The first few models had headstocks (the part of the instrument that holds the string tuning pegs) like this: Paints for Fender strats were also either only sunbursts, or whatever the Ditzler or DuPont catalog had at the time – which is why many early instruments had the exact same colors as whatever cars were coming out of Detroit’s once dominant automobile industry.īut perhaps one of the Stratocaster’s most interesting design features was one it originally never had, and one most laymen never really think about - the controversial “big headstock”. These included the mass-produced slab bodies and bolted on necks, where other guitars had arched or carved bodies carefully crafted by artisans and had painstakingly glued neck joints. You can now get guitars with essentially the same design for anywhere from $100 all the way to the low millions.įunny enough, a number of its features, as with its predecessor the Telecaster, were born out of the desire to keep costs down. Tremolo device for stringed instruments US 2741146 A They are such a fact of life that you hardly notice that they were designed in an era just 10 years after WW2, using technology that was basically around since the 1930’s.
This particular guitar has made a huge dent on popular culture, with strats and their variants the most common and most sold electric guitars in the world today. Wayne’s World (1993) NBC Films via Paramount Pictures The previously unheard-of ergonomics (officially referred to in Fender literature as the “Comfort Contour Body”), versatile range of sounds that could cover anything from disco funk, to psychedelia, to dreamscape 50’s pop to death metal, and its pioneering bridge design which allowed a previously unattainable range types of expression also contributed to its long-term popularity.
Here’s a short intro to this model’s early history. While it wasn’t the first electric guitar by any means, it introduced a number of groundbreaking design features that took the music world by storm. The perennially futuristic-looking Stratocaster, or “Strat” as many guitar players call it, was first sold over 60 years ago. Sometimes, it can even make sense.Īsk any random layman on the street to draw an electric guitar, and chances are the iconic Fender Stratocaster shape will be the one they make. “Make the logo bigger” can affect more than just visual design.
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