Abstract
Lustig and Rand set the stage for book-designers to explore the possibilities of marrying type with illustrative elements reduced to essential, purified forms. If references to the philosophical grounding and potential social impact of modernism became less frequent by the 1960s, designers including George Giusti, Fred Troller, Rudolf de Harak and the team of Chermayeff and Geismar continued to push modernism’s austere formality to new frontiers. At the same time, others were beginning to look for thoughtful alternatives to modernism’s severity, embracing techniques that had been set aside by earlier progressive designers. Seymour Chwast, Vincent Ceci, and Milton Glaser, all working at Push Pin Studio, advocated a more pluralistic and eclectic approach to design. The Push Pin group embraced traditional illustration and historical typefaces, and they were willing to create mélanges of styles that would have been virtually unthinkable to their modernist colleagues.
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Chapter 3-Modernism and Beyond: Historical Foundations for Constructing the Future
R. Roger Remington, “Remembering George Giusti,” Graphis, May/June 1993, 96–101.
Giusti was quite respected for his posters-in 1950 he was identified by Charles Coiner, art director at N. W. Ayer and Sons, NY as one of fifteen designers pushing the limits of the medium of poster design. Charles T. Coiner, “Pictures for Sales,” Fortune, August 1950, 90.
See “Principles of Experimental Design,” Famous Artists Course In Commercial Art, Illustration and Design (Westport, Conn.: Famous Artists Schools, 1967), Sect. 18, 16–8.
Quoted in Steven Heller, “Rudolph de Harak: A Humanist’s Modernist,” Annual of the American Institute of Graphic Arts 14 (1993): 14; 15.
Milton Glaser, Ivan Chermayeff, and Rudolph de Harak. “Some Thoughts on Modernism: Past Present and Future,” in Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, ed. Steven Heller and Marie Finamore (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 137.
Their austerity could inspire design historian Steven Heller to call them “paradigms of purist visual communication,” yet they could also earn the designer the label of “humanist.” Heller, “Rudolph de Harak: A Humanist’s Modernist,” 20.
Steven Heller and Karen Pomeroy, “McGraw-Hill Paperback Covers: Rudolph de Harak,” Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design (New York: Allworth Press, 1997), 167–9.
For descriptions of other de Harak environmental projects see Joel C. Cahn, “The Graphic Designer as Architect, as Landscape Architect, as Interior Designer,” Print, November/December 1970, 52–5.
Mark Owens, “Soft Modernist: Discovering the Book Jackets of Fred Troller,” Dot Dot Dot 6 (2002): 70–8; Steven Heller, “Fred Troller, 71, Champion of Bold Graphic Style,” New York Times, 24 October 2002, B8.
Jessica Hefland, “Paul Rand: The Modern Designer,” Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001), 145.
Chermayeff worked for Lustig in New York in the summer of 1954 and his father, Serge, was president of the New Bauhaus in Chicago and taught architecture at Harvard and Yale. See Lustig correspondence May 1954, Archives of American Art. Glaser, Chermayeff, and de Harak. “Some Thoughts on Modernism: Past Present and Future,” 134–5.
Quoted by de Harak in his presentation of the 1979 AIGA medal to Chermayeff and Geismar. “AIGA Medallists, 1979: Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar,” Annual of the American Institute of Graphic Arts 1 (1980) 15.
“AIGA Medallists, 1979: Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar,” 16.
Quoted in “Overview of Modern Book Design Given by Reichl in Heritage Talk,” Printing News, 14 February 1970, 12.
Interview with Steven Heller, “Milton Glaser,” Eye, Summer 1997, 12.
Glaser, Chermayeff, and de Harak. “Some Thoughts on Modernism: Past Present and Future,” 132.
Steven Heller, “Cheapskates in History,” Critique, Winter 2000, 26; 29.
William Golden at CBS recognized the marriage of “humanistic” and graphic impact in Shahn’s style, using his drawings in advertisements for late 1950s documentaries about social issues. Maud Lavin, “Design in the Service of Commerce,” in Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History, ed. Mildred Friedman (New York: Harry Abrams, 1989), 137–8.
Steven Heller, “The AIGA Medallist 1985: Seymour Chwast,” Graphic Design USA 7 (1986): 14.
Marshall Arisman, “Toward a Holistic Profession: An Interview with Milton Glaser,” AIGA Journal of Graphic Design 18,1 (2000): 16.
Jerome Snyder, “Milton Glaser: The New Imagery,” Print, January/February 1969, 97.
See for instance Eugene M. Ettenberg, “Bradbury Thompson, Designer in the American Tradition,” American Artist, April 1955, 52–7.
Quoted in Jean Progner, “Art Deco: Anatomy of a Revival,” Print, January/February, 1971, 32.
Jerome Snyder in The Push Pin Style (Palo Alto: Communication Arts Magazine, 1970), n.p. Glaser left Push Pin in 1974, starting his own studio which did both graphic and interior design.
Heller, “Milton Glaser,” 12.
Snyder, “Milton Glaser: The New Imagery,” 97.
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Drew, N., Sternberger, P. (2005). Modernism and Beyond. In: By its Cover. Princeton Archit.Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-56898-633-5_4
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