Biography Seymour Chwast, Nationality is American at the age of 81, he was born in Bronx, New York on 18 August 1931. He is an American Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Type Designer who is known to be the left-handed designer. He is shy, soft-spoken, sympathetic to children, unassuming and has a sense of wit that made his style of art to be humor that were either dry; ironic; rarely sardonic. To describe him, he is just a humorist, witty, meanness and rich in sophistication. He was greatly influenced by Walt Disney and early newspaper comics. Once he thought of being an animator but his decision changed after attending ‘Graphic Design’ at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Eventually, he graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts at Copper Union in 1951.
Career Formed the Pushpin studios in 1954 together with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel as they work as freelancer. Reynold Ruffins; Paul Davis; Jim McMullan; John Alcorn; Jim Lewis; Barry Zilid; Isadore Seltzer; Richard Mantel joined the Pushpin Studio later. In 1975, Seymour Chwast became the sole remaining partner at Pushpin Studio. After around 7 years, in 1982, he joined force with Alan Peckolick and Pushpin Studio was renamed to Pushpin Lubalin Peckolick Incorporate. Seymour Chwast’s commissions were earned from The New Yorker; New York Times; Vanity Fair; MacDonald’s Happy Meal Series. His artworks were used in advertising (Forbes Magazine), animated films, television graphics, record album covers, trade and children’s book, package designs (Erlanger beer; Happy Meal Box; 1979), posters, magazines and silk screens. Various people had influenced Seymour Chwast’s life. Firstly, Leon Friend, an European émigré has instilled typography and poster design to him and also motivates him to succeed. Nicholas Marsicano and Sidney Delevante were his friends in Copper Union and were added to his friend’s foundation. George Krikorian was his boss in New York Times, which has, encourages and inspired his graphic designs and illustrations. His works has graced the cover of Time; Life; The New York Times Magazine; Forbes; New York and The Alantic. He moved to the theater world for a short period where he created images for the projection onto the screen for the overall stage sets. To summarise his career, the positions he was being appointed before were editor, publisher, artist, art director, children book’s author, vice-president at American Institute of Graphic Arts and Lecturer at Copper Union and other Arts Schools. Paula Scher is his wife and also a designer, which helped him along, they once divorced but have remarried.
Happy Meal Box; 1979
Advertising Forbes Magazine
Get Dressed!; Children’s book
When the ‘Zs You Get Aren’t Yours The New York Times; 2005
Seymour Chwast’s Designs
His Design Philosophy
“
As for my own work, I spilt into two parts. My advertising art has to show how wonderful everything can be, what a good life you can have if you buy a certain product. On the other hand, generally in editorial work, I am asked to expose the truer and less pretty side of ourselves. Does advertising lies? I don’t know, but in a way it shows our weaknesses as well. In any event, while I consider myself a capitalist tool, along with a well-known business magazine, I share the hope of my colleagues that somehow humanity will be served. Furthermore, he added, What I like to do is amuse myself with visual tricks, conundrums, parodies and the unpredictable. We often don’t realize that being able to reproduce our work in newspapers and magazines millions of times – is magic! , I think the stuff we put on these pages should be magic too.
”
Achievements
Louvre Museum France; Paris
Gutenberg Museum Mainz; West Germany
Philadelphia Museum of Art South America
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
LincoLn Ceentre for Performing Arts New York
The number of exhibitions has proved his achievements of as a designer. The major exhibitions or gallery shows were the following; Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Switzerland, Galerie Delpire in Paris, Kunstegwerbe Museum in Zürich, Gutenberg Museum in Mainz; West Germany, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He has also exhibited at various places like Louvre Museum in 1970 for two months long, America Institute Of Graphic Arts, The Art Director Club of Chicago, New York’s Lincoln Centre for Performing Arts, Europe, South America, Far East and more. A special feature by IDEA; Japan’s leading graphic arts magazine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Magazine. Additionally, he had won various awards, which were Augustus St. Gauden’s Medal (Copper Union 1972), Art Directors Hall Of Fame (1983), American Institute Of Graphic Arts; Gold Medalist (1985), Parson’s School Of Design; Honorary Doctorate (1992) and School Of Visual Arts; Masters Series (1997).
Type Designs Weedy Beasties NF
Loose Caboose NF
Seymour Chwast Chwast Buffalo
Why Seymour Chwast has a connection with me.. The way he used a totally different view to express something, for example using honk to represent snore in one of his work for The New York Times is special. More to say, he did not make the thing he want to express as negative instead the other way round. I do admire his creative mind-set to create ideas and it has a twist. I find his style of using outline that has a weight similar to a blobbed pen easily approachable, it is friendly which is applicable to children’s book which flat and bright colours has a nicer composition to me. Most of his works are done with a more hand drawn look that made things not so digital instead, just like reminding people nowadays that not everything are done by digital and computer, we still must not lose the basic of drawing by hand. When things are more humanise, it is easier to get the message of the overall image. One thing to note that hand drawn are not perfect so are humans, otherwise, digital and computer does not really allow mistakes to happen as mistakes could turn into something beautiful as we continue to edit on with our imaginations and coordination of our hands and mind. I like to draw using hand and finding digital works are sometimes too safe as there are some restrictions within it. It is more expressive to design by hand and I do like cartoon images that he shows. He also easily engages audience’s attention due to the way he use two contradicting items together to convey a message and it does not look weird or wrong at all, it succeeded very well and I guess that is the way he attract attention from the viewers. As Walt Disney influenced him, I feel like a similar connection because I also love Walt Disney and their characters, just like I like Mickey Mouse, which I find it cute. They made a mouse into a character that could behave like humans, in fact designing it similar to human body and even some behaviours like eating and playing, they even wear clothing which made it have more human touch. I would not find these kind of images or designs odd and i would understand it, I would take time to understand if I does not and figure it out, I do appreciate these interesting works, where Seymour Chwast is the most famous for making a humorous and playful artwork that has fully caught my attention.
Biliography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Chwast http://www.fastcodesign.com/1306921/see-more-seymour-chwasts-obsessive-images http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/29/get-dressed-seymour-chwast/ http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/1983/?id=250 http://sikuledesign.blogspot.sg/2009/11/seymour-chwast-rough-draft.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_Pin_Studios http://www.flickr.com/photos/designfacts/4780884759/ http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/8632253 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/fashion/thursdaystyles/20snore.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://containerlist.glaserarchives.org/index.php?id=216 http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=176535 http://www.npenn.org/Page/7754 http://www.aiga.org http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Germany/West/Rheinland-Pfalz/Mainz/photo764511.htm http://www.detail.de/architektur/news/hybride-loesung-stedelijk-museum-feiert-wiedereroeffnung-019715.html