“Seven masters of mid-century modern design�
Vol. 1 November 2013
You’re a designer. You dig the design wizards of yesteryear. But long-winded textbooks are for squares, right? Get razzed. This magazine is for cats who like the pictures.
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Welcome to the 50s. Discover a revolution of form and function. Design is sophisticated, witty, and lean. Meet modernism you can live with.
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Meet the seven style notes of modern design. Introduce yourself to the seven men who put the “fun” in “function”. Cheesy but true. These cats swore by the “serious fun” mantra.
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Table of Contents Beall
(10-19)
Steinweiss
(20-27)
Sutnar
(28-35)
Frutiger
(36-43)
Brownjohn
(44-51)
Thompson
(52-61)
Nitsche
(62-69)
1 Bold, solid colors.
Looking for strong graphic style and
back-to-basics primary colors? Beall
is your guy. You can recognize his style from a mile off, a handy detail when your jive is American advertising.
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(Beall)
ICONIC AMERICA “Beall’s bold style became the visual language of American poster art” A man with a very technology oriented background, Beall grew up playing with Ham radios and creating his own wireless sets. He graduated with a Ph.D in the History of Fine Art and the years following his graduation found him expressing an interest in modern art movements such as Surrealism, Constructivism and Dadaism.
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His work as an advertiser and graphic designer quickly gained international recognition and the most productive years of his career, during the 1930s and 40s, saw many successes in both fields. His clear and concise use of typography was highly praised both in the United States and abroad. Throughout his career he used bold primary colors and illustrative arrows and lines in a graphic style that became easily recognizable as his own. He eventually moved to rural New York and set up an office at a premises that he and his family called “Dumbarton Farm�. He remained at the farm until his death in 1969.
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Both this poster and the one featured on the previous page were created for the Rural Electrification Administration in 1937. The arrows and graphic lines soon became iconic of Beall’s style.
This book cover and the photo series on the right exemplify Beall’s use of photography mixed with typography and other graphic elements.
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(Samples of Beall’s work from left to right) A spot advertisements for the Chicago Tribune, “Modern Pioneers in Peoria”, a cover illustrations for Fortune Magazine, and another spot advertisement for the Chicago Tribune.
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2 Jazzy album art.
Before Steinweiess, vinyl came in bland brown paper. But the 23-year-old Brooklyn boy figured buying new tunes should be less of a drag. So he started free styling. And guess what? Everyone loved it.
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(Steinweiss)
ADVENT OF ALBUM ART “Steinweiss added a little spice to the music industry. � Alex Steinweiss has a massive body of design work that spans several different media. Some of his clients have included the U.S. Navy, PRINT, Fortune and Columbia Records. However, he is most recognized for inventing the modern album cover and much of his work lies in the poster-like images that he created while he was an art director at Columbia records.
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Before Steinweiss the only album covers that existed were brown paper wrappers that served to protect the album you had just purchased. His idea to create artwork to entice the buyer to purchase the album was an instant success. From 1939 to 1945 he designed record covers for Columbia, during which time he turned out hundreds of distinct designs. After 1945 he began working for other clients including several other record companies and in 1974 he retired to Florida to paint and work on occasional commissioned pieces.
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Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” album cover feels so much more exciting then a brown paper envelope, right?
(From left to right) Steinweiss’ iconic color block style can be seen in these album covers designed for “Rhapsody in Blue”, “Le Conga”, and “Firebird Suite”.
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3 Simple information. Thank Sutnar for those slim, sexy infographics that get straight to the point. This guy waded through huge amounts of information and boiled it down so we don’t have to hit the books. And he liked naked women.
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(Sutnar)
SEXY INFOGRAPHICS “Sutnar read all the boring stuff so we wouldn’t have to.” Sutnar, a Czech designer born in 1897, was one of the first designers to actively practice the field of information design. The general viewer rooted his work in rationality and the process of displaying massive amounts of information in a clear and organized manner for easy consumption. He placed a heavy emphasis on typography
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Whether a naked beauty from his “Venus� series (top) or an infographic for tires (below), Sutnar could simplify any kind of information and make it look good.
and primarily used a limited color palette. While he often used punctuation symbols to help organize information one of his signature creations was the idea to place parentheses around the area codes in telephone books. For nearly 20 years he served as the art director for Sweet’s catalog services where he created information graphics and catalog layouts for a wide range of manufactured items. Before working for Sweet’s he taught at the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague. He was heavily inf luenced by the ideas of Modernism and his work was so well structured that he had no problems communicating information clearly to an American audience, even though English was not his primary language.
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This page from “Blueprints for Destruction” illustrates Sutnar’s uncanny ability to organize otherwise stale information.
Here’s another sexy infographic from “Blueprints for Destruction” (left) paired with a minimalist naked female from his “Venus” series. Work hard, play hard, right?
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Modern typography. Frutiger has been cooking up swanky typefaces since before you were born. Ever heard of Univers, Frutiger, Egyptienne, Serifa or Avenir? They all belong to this cat. He’s the type master of the 20th and 21st century.
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FUTURE OF TYPE “Frutiger just wouldn’t settle for mediocre type. So he started over.”
Adrian Frutiger has created some of the most used typefaces of the 20th and 21st century. Athough interested in many fields including woodcut and paper sillhouettes, Frutiger has been passionate about typography for his entire life. Spending most of his career working for Deberny & Peignot updating typefaces and
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S KOR P IO N E S KOR P IO N E S KO R P I O N E S KO R P I O N E S KOR P IO N E S KO R P I O N E SKO R P I O NE S KO R P I O N E S KOR P IO N E S KO R P I O N E S KO R P I O N E S KOR P IO N E S KOR P IO N E Frutiger liked repeating the same word over and over again to show off the wide weight range of his typeface, Univers.
preparing them for photo-typesetting, as well as designing typefaces of his own accord, he has created almost 30 typefaces. Some of his most famous typefaces include Univers, Frutiger (created for the Charles de Gaulle airport), Egyptienne, Serifa and Avenir. Frutiger is one of only a few typographers whose career spans across hot metal, photographic and digital typesetting. He has also been instrumental in refining his own typefaces to include more weights and true italics, some examples are Frutiger Next and Avenir Next.
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Here are more illustrations and type gymnastics to show off the incredibly varied nature of Univers.
And again, even more illustrations and type gymnastics to show off the incredibly varied nature of Univers. Also, a sign from the Charles de Gaulle Airport which features the typeface Frutiger.
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Pop culture & type. Well remembered for his uber sexy James Bond opening credits that magically danced across a belly dancer’s body, Brownjohn made it cool to combine formal design and pop culture.
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(Brownjohn)
SHAKIN’ UP THE TYPE SCENE “Brownjown took typography to a whole new level of 60’s cool. ”
Brownjohn was born to British parents in New Jersey and had a successful career in both America and Great Britain during the 1950s and 60s. He immediately showed promise as a young design student at the Institute of Design in Chicago, previously The New Bauhaus, where he studied closely with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. His career ramped
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up to an early start when he formed the design firm BCG with Ivan Chermayeff and Thomas Geismar. However, that career came to an early end in 1959 with Brownjohn heading to London, the firm became Chermayeff & Geismar. His career in London proved as successful as his early career in the US with his most notable contributions coming in the film industry. He also worked within several other industries, creating moving graphics for Pirelli and Midland bank and created the cover for the Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed. A 240 page catalogue by Emily King that was produced for an exhibition detailing Brownjohn’s career entitled “Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography” held at the Design Museum in London was also published as a book of the same name. Sex and Typography details the adventures of Brownjohn through detailed information provided by friends and family as well as chronicling his career and the work that he produced.
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Brownjohn could manipulate type like no other. Just take a look at the opening credits for the James Bond movie, “From Russia, With Love” (previous page and top image) or layouts from his book “Watching Words Move”. Stunning.
Brownjohn had a real knack for combining formal type elements with pop culture. The “Let It Bleed� album cover for the Rolling Stones is a stellar example of his skill.
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6 Printing pioneer.
Considered to be a “jack of all trades”, Beall excelled at everything to do with the printed page. Photography, typography, and color– he mastered them all and revolutionized the role of a modern art director.
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(Thompson)
PRINTING POWERHOUSE “Thompson was a one-man, art-directing army. � Bradbury Thompson was truly a master of almost every aspect of the design profession. He studied printing production, was an art director for Mademoiselle magazine, designed books, pushed the boundaries of conventional typography and taught design at Yale University. He designed 60+ issues of Westvaco Inspirations for the Westvaco Paper Corporation. His designs reached
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thousands of designers, printers and typographers. Born in 1911 in Topeka, Kansas and educated at Washburn University Thompson kept in touch with the university throughout his career. From 1969-1979, Thompson worked together with Washburn to create the Washburn Bible. The book was the most significant development in Bible typography since Gutenberg first published his masterpiece in 1455. Another significant point in his career, in the field of typography, was his publication of Alphabet 26, which was labeled a monoalphabet. It contained only 26 unique characters, case was established by size only instead of entirely new characters (i.e. r/R, e/E, a/A). Thompson’s work garnered him the highest award of every major design organization including AIGA, the Art Directors Club and the Type Directors Club. He died in 1995.
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Even documents as bland as an annual financial report received a face lift with Thompson in charge.
Beall uses experimental printing techniques to treat a historic topic with a more modern twist. These Liberty Bells feel anything but out-of-date.
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Here are several more illustrations from Beall’s publication “Inspiration for Printers” that show-case his skill in the realm of experimental printing and heavy use of pure CMYK colors.
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7 Clearly geometric. Nitsche brought a little Swiss organization to the Modernist scene. Noticed for his organized design layouts, geometric foundations, and tasteful typography, this guy made functionality stylish.
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(Nitsche)
STRIKING SIMPLICITY “Nitsche brought the Bauhaus style to New York�
Erik Nitsche left an unmistakable mark on the world of design in his approx i m ately 60 -yea r career. Leaving almost no field untouched, he worked as an art director, book designer, illustrator, typographer, advertiser, and packaging designer. His graphic design work included magazine covers, flyers, signage, film, exhibitions, posters and
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many other advertising mediums. Before immigrating to the United States in 1934 Nitsche studied at the Collège Classique in Switzerland and the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. His work has a distinctly modernist aesthetic and although he never had the opportunity to attend the Bauhaus Laszlo Moholy-Nagy has been quoted as saying, “Who is this guy that is doing the Bauhaus in New York?” He designed promotional and advertising campaigns for a host of different clients including department stores, feature films, record companies and the New York Transit Authority. Nitsche greatly inf luenced the you n g generation of designers in America in the mid-twentieth century including the legendary designers Walter Bernard and Seymour Chwast.
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Nitsche brought a clean, more “swiss-like� aesthetic to the world of advertising with the creation of these posters for General Dynamics (previous page and above).
Here are a few more samples of Nitsche’s simplified, geometric style used in the General Dynamics posters.
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Credits
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(Churdar)
(Keller)
Head Editor, Layout Designer, Copy Writer & Typesetter, Cover Layout & Steinweiss Layout Designer
Managing Editor, Layout & Jacket Designer , Half-tone Dot Illustrator, Sutnar & Nitsche Layout Designer
(Roberts)
(Cady)
Layout Designer, Vector Icon Illustrator, Logo Designer, Frutiger & Brownjohn Layout Designer
Layout Designer, Sources & Credits Organizer, Beall & Thompson Layout Designer
Sources (Image on pages 23, 25, 26, 27) http://www.alexsteinweiss.com/ as_index.html (Image on page 37) https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ Qzfm4LYEyx7CDBQOl-VZaQ (Image on pages 53, 57) http://library.rit.edu/gda/designer/ bradbury-thompson (Image on pages 15, 17, 18, 19) Remington, Roger. Lester Beall: Trailblazer of American Graphic Design. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1996. Print. (Image on pages 55, 60, 61) Thompson, Bradbury. The Art of Graphic Design. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. Print. (Image on page 53) http://www3.uclaextension.edu/ mastersofdesign/designers/bradbury_ thompson.cfm (Image on pages 25) http://bookcrossings.blogspot. com/2011_05_01_archive.html (Image on pages 23) http://shellackophile.blogspot. com/2010/12/shostakovich-first-pianoconcerto.html (Image on page 13) http://www.lesterbeall.com/
(All text) http://www.designishistory.com/ (Image on page 47) http://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/en/9/9a/Goldfinger_-_UK_ cinema_poster.jpg (Image on page 49) http://www.honeywenttonorway. com/2013/03/rewatching-bond-3goldfinger/ (Image on page 49) http://imgfave.com/view/3880040 (Image on page 47) http://www.alostfilm.com/2011/06/ frenzy.html (Image on page 49) http://theincrediblesuit.blogspot. com/2011/02/blogalongabond-2-fromrussia-with-love.html (Image on pages 50, 51) http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_ out/2013/09/12/let-them-eat-deliascake-or-robert-brownjohns-let-it-bleed (Image on page 23) http://www.burningsettlerscabin. com/?tag=alex-steinweiss (Image on pages 26, 27) http://wordsandeggs.tumblr.com/ post/1246457324/alex-steinweissalbum-cover-more-on-my-blog-here
(Image on page 49) http://www.designersjournal.net/ jottings/designheroes/heroes-robertbrownjohn (Image on page 49) http://www.logodesignlove.com/ watching-words-move (Image on page 45) http://www.aiga.org/medalist-robertbrownjohn/ (Image on page 26) http://4.bp.blogspot. com/-vuJzsC3YYpM/Tp74218IjWI/ AAAAAAAAI8U/oGXOMxO7E4g/ s320/art9.jpg (Image on page 23) http://www.monoscope.com/ wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ ASRodgerAndHart.jpg (Image on page 23) http://aestheticperspectives.com/ wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ Alex-Steinweiss-post-8.jpg (Image on page 29) http://architoys.blogspot.com/2010/03/ um-estranho-caso-de-serendipity.html (Image on page 21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_ Steinweiss (Image on page 11) http://art4561blog.wordpress.com/ lester-beall-bio-2/
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