On November 10, 1951 Sir Hugh Beaver went hunting. At one point an argument broke out in the hunting party over which bird was “the fastest European game bird”. This was the 1950s, long before the Internet, and Sir Hugh, the managing director of the Guinness beer empire, realized that similar arguments must break out in pubs all the time.
Back at the office, Beaver mentioned the idea of making a “world records book” to his staff. A co-worker named Christopher Chataway recommended his college friends, the twins Norris & Ross McWhirter, who had just started a fact-finding agency in London. And so: Guinness hired them to make a massive fact book.
A couple thousand copies were printed and given away free to pub owners. The idea was the book would sit behind the bar at the pub and decide random arguments. However, many of those publicans soon called the company to ask for a replacement: customers were stealing them in huge numbers. Guinness realized they were on to something, and decided to “take it public”. Thus, the Guinness Book of World Records became a thing.
When I was a kid, it was common for the “Guinness” name on the cover to use the same “stencil font” as the beer:
NOT-SO-FUN FACT: Ross McWhirter was very anti-Irish, belonged to some sketchy right-wing political groups and may have worked with British intelligence in trying to infiltrate the IRA. For this reason, he was assassinated by the Provisional IRA in 1975.