Dean Guitars is a manufacturer of musical instruments, primarily known for their electric guitars. Dean Guitars was created in 1977 by luthier Dean Zelinsky who began building guitars at an early age. Zelinsky thought that rock guitar design had stagnated and decided to do what he could to change things. The first Dean guitars were released in the mid-1970s and featured designs including "pointy" guitar bodies and large V-shaped headstocks. These designs quickly gained popularity because of their radical look.
Dean's marketing campaign, which featured models holding the guitars in alluring poses, was widely copied by other guitar manufacturers until the onset of the grunge rock movement in the 1990s. Dean has since revived this practice.
In 1986, Zelinsky decided he did not want to continue making guitars and sold the company to make furniture. In the late 1990s, Elliott Rubinson (CEO of Dean Guitars) revived the brand name, later bringing Zelinsky back aboard as an executive and creative consultant. Since then, Dean Guitars has grown in to one of the leading guitar companies in the world.
