Sam Born, Just Born and a pair of names.

Mike and Ike comes from Just Born, a candy company that began in New York and settled in Pennsylvania. English Wikipedia says Sam Born, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, came to the United States in December 1909 and later opened a small retail store in Brooklyn, where he displayed daily-made candy in the window under a sign that read “Just Born” to advertise its freshness. Just Born’s own history tells the same story, saying the sign marketed the freshness of the candy and that Born’s brothers-in-law, Irv and Jack Shaffer, joined the business soon after the shop opened.

The company moved in the Depression. Wikipedia says Born started his own manufacturing company in New York City in 1923 and that in 1932 he and the Shaffers relocated operations to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, buying a building from a bankrupt printing company. Just Born’s website gives the same 1932 move into an empty printing factory, and dates the company itself to 1923; it describes Just Born as a family-owned candy maker headquartered in Bethlehem.

Mike and Ike arrived eight years after the move. Wikipedia says the Bethlehem company created Mike and Ike in 1940, and Just Born’s own timeline says its Mike and Ike Original Fruits, chewy assorted fruit-flavoured candies, were introduced that year. Wikipedia describes them as oblong, fruit-flavoured chewy candies in several colours and varieties, among them cherry, strawberry, orange, lemon and lime.

The name has more than one story. Wikipedia says the origin of the Mike and Ike name is obscure even to the company, and that Just Born has at different times said it came from a vaudeville song, an internal naming contest or the names of the inventors. Other explanations Wikipedia records point to the Rube Goldberg comic strip Mike and Ike (They Look Alike) and to Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose nickname was Ike.

Rodda, Hot Tamales and a family firm.

Just Born grew by buying other candy makers. Its own timeline describes the purchase of the Maillard Corporation in 1935 as an important acquisition, calling Maillard a maker of hand-decorated chocolates, crystallised fruits and mints. Wikipedia and the company both record the purchase of the Rodda Candy Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1953. Wikipedia says Rodda’s experience with jelly beans helped Just Born produce new Mike and Ike flavours, and Rodda also brought the marshmallow chicks that became Peeps.

A sister brand followed the chew. Wikipedia says Mike and Ike is similar to Hot Tamales, a cinnamon candy the same company introduced in 1950, though Mike and Ike is not spicy. Just Born’s timeline gives the same 1950 date. In 2003, Wikipedia says, Just Born bought the Goldenberg Candy Company and its Peanut Chews, keeping the Philadelphia factory, so the company now sells Mike and Ike alongside Hot Tamales, Peeps and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews.

The business has stayed with the founding families. Just Born’s website says Ross Born, of the third generation, and David Shaffer, of the second, joined the company in 1978 and became co-presidents in 1992. Wikipedia says Sam Born’s son Bob Born joined the company in the 1940s and later served as its president. The company describes itself as family-owned and gives its headquarters as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Just Born has owned Mike and Ike since the candy’s introduction in 1940.

The range has widened over the years. Wikipedia says flavours such as cotton candy came after the Rodda purchase and that root beer followed in the 1960s. It lists assortments including Tropical Typhoon, Berry Blast and Jolly Joes, and limited editions such as Lem and Mel, Cherri and Bubb, and Strawberries n’ Cream, several of which have been reissued. Seasonal Easter packs shape the flavours as jelly beans, Wikipedia says.

Design and documentation.

American candy usually reaches people as a wrapper or a box, and the pack is seen before the sweet inside is ever tasted. A sweet that sits on a cinema counter, a petrol-station rack or a supermarket checkout has only a moment to be picked out, so the pack has to carry the name, the flavour and a sense of the brand at a glance. Colour does much of that work, along with lettering that can be read from a distance and a shape that stays the same from one decade to the next.

Many of these names have changed hands over the years, passing between family firms, larger confectionery groups and food conglomerates, and production has sometimes moved far from the town where a candy began. The box or wrapper is often the part that stays recognisable through those changes.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — the founding story, the owners over time, where the candy is made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A campaign written on the box itself.

A notable chapter in Mike and Ike’s design history happened on the pack. English Wikipedia says that in April 2012 the company ran an advertising campaign built on the premise that Mike and Ike were “breaking up” because of “creative differences”, and that the packaging showed one name or the other scratched out. Wikipedia says the campaign was intended to catch the interest of younger buyers.

Just Born tells the same episode in its own timeline. The company says that in the spring of 2012 the two characters decided to go their separate ways, with Mike leaving to pursue music and Ike leaving to pursue art, and that Just Born kept making the candy in their absence. The pair, the company says, reunited a year later.

The reunion came with new packs. Wikipedia says that in 2013 the company announced Mike and Ike would reunite, introducing re-designed packaging alongside a juicier candy, and released a trailer for a mock film titled The Return of Mike and Ike.

Anniversaries have also reached the shelf. Just Born’s timeline says that for the company’s 75th anniversary it reissued two limited-edition Mike and Ike products from earlier years, Cool Kids spearmint candies and Root T Toot root-beer candies. It also says that when Mike and Ike marked its own 75th anniversary, and Hot Tamales its 65th, both brands appeared on shelves in vintage packaging as a throwback to their earlier boxes.

The brand’s current website describes the candy as fruity and chewy and uses the word “Fruchewy” as a tagline. It also promotes an esports partnership.

For a design guide, Mike and Ike shows how a pair of first names on a box can become the campaign itself, scratched out in 2012 and restored in 2013. Compare it with Starburst, another American fruit chew, and Good & Plenty, another Pennsylvania-born candy in a bright box. For this guide we use cherry red and deep cherry with lemon yellow and lime green and a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Mike and Ike’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.