VOLUME 0 ISSUE 01 the influence issue
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ta ble of con te nts
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stefan sagmeister
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paul rand
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jessica walsh
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henri de toulouse
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alexander rodchenko
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shepard fairey
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ranganath krishnamani
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david carson
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el lissitzky
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tuesday bassen
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paula scher
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bradbury thompson
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massimo vignelli
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edward fella
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milton glaser 3
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STE fa n sag mei ster 4
stefan sagmeister
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tefan Sagmeister is an Austrian designer who has challenged the boundaries of graphic design throughout his life. He is known for his elaborate, and sometimes odd, typographic designs, and for ‘bringing type to life.’ His work strives to evoke human emotion and bring an odd sense of discomfort to the viewer. The Rolling Stones, HBO, and Jay Z are just a few of the big names Sagmeister has designed for. In 2012, he partnered with Jessica Walsh, and
renamed his firm Sagmeister & Walsh, and they successfully continue to create content today. Sagmeister was born on August 6th, 1982 in Bregenz, Austria. As a kid, he was always interested in design. As early as 1977, he began his career at age fifteen working for an Austrian magazine titled Alphorn, a small company that produced several left-wing articles. After working there for some time, Sagmeister discovered he enjoyed the layout of the magazine rather than the writing. This was what caused him to fully
“Having guts
always works out for me.
immerse himself in the design world. At age 19 he applied to the Vienna University of Applied Arts only to be rejected by the school because of his weak drawing skills. However, this didn’t cause him to give up; he applied again, and in 1985 he graduated from the with an M.F.A. and went on to study at Pratt Institute in New York after being rewarded with a Fulbright scholarship. During his time as a student, he met musician Alexander Goebel, who quickly recognized Sagmeister’s talent and eye for design. Goeble then intro-
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duced him to the Schausipelhaus Theatre group, where they were seeking someone to design posters for the Gruppe Gut collective. Although these posters didn’t completely portray Sagmeister’s odd style and often vulgar humor, they acquainted him with a larger design audience. During this time, he also designed his famous dollar greeting cards, which ironically only cost a dollar as they were printed on one dohis education.
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jessica walsh
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essica Walsh was born in New York into a time of advancing technology and buzz like never seen before. She grew up in Connecticut with her two parents and sister, none of which were in the arts. Both parents being entrepreneurs, they were very business oriented and noticed that Jessica was in her element most when she was drawing or painting. As a result of this, her mom spoiled her with art supplies and the materials necessary for Jessica to really dive into her hobby When we were five years old, we created this business; we hot glued moss on top of rocks, wrapped them in cellophane, and created labels – we called it “Magic Rock Moss”. We sold them to our classmates for their lunch money.” Jessica’s innate ability to market and brand herself and work with zest was evident and soon flourished into expertise at a young age. She talks about in Print magazine how “she was always
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making things, I was obsessed with arts and crafts in school… I remember when I was 8, my aspiration was to make really elaborate beadwork on the side of the street, and my parents were like, ‘Maybe you should aim a bit higher.’ It wasn’t until I was 11 and I started doing a little bit of logo work for my parents’ company and doing web design that I realized this is what I wanted to do for a career.” She took on many other projects throughout her high school career as well, like designing websites for school clubs and local businesses. To her and her parents surprise, when she was just a senior in high school she was offered a job at a web design company that would pay her $200,000 per year. She wrote them back flattered, but declined because she was not old enough. posing nude with this artistic icon. Their partnership ensued speculation from all around with critics knocking them for incorporating commercial art into the fine art world. However, this never swayed Jessica’s dream and persistence in making bold designs. One of her most notable works is a set of digitally retouched photographs of dancers, portraying mantras.
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l e x ander Rodchenko was a designer, painter, photographer, and sculptor fromRussia. He worked from around 1915 until his death in 1956. Alexander Rodchenkobegan his art career while studying drawing, painting, and art history at the StroganovInstitute in Moscow. In 1921, Rodchenko decided he wanted to break away from the avant-garde styleof art and begin a more futur-
alexander rodchenko
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istic style. The first of his futuristic designs includedadvertisements and book covers. He collaborated with a Russian poet on anadvertisement project that would not only introduce modern art and design to Russiabut also sell the values of the revolution in Russia and the products being promoted inthe advertisement. Rodchenko was inspired by his work for the work he serviced to thestate. He believed that art had to match the revolutionary transformations taking placein the Russian politics and society at the time. Because of this belief, Rodchenko didmany more works of art that would influence the revolution in Russia. Rodchenko also liked to create art through the sculpture media. In his sculptures,Rodchenko liked to show off every component of art, including line, form, space, color,surface, texture, and the works of physical support. Alexander Rodchenko was also a bigfan of the photogra-
phy media of art. Through photography, Rodchenko learned aboutinteresting angles, compositions, contrast, and photomontage.
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She pard fa i rey
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ur ing President Obama’s presidential campaign, “Hope” was a huge work of art that became very popular. It was a campaign poster made by an artist named Shepard Fairey. Most people recognize him for this piece of art because it was so widely known across the art world and politics. He is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist, illustrator and founder of OBEY Clothing. He gained orig-
shepard fairey inal popularity when he made, “Andre the Giant Has a Posse.” He created a sticker campaign along with it while attending Rhode Island School of Design. He said that the project was an experiment in phenomology. He later created a brand and created a piece where he included the word OBEY on it. His inspiration started when he began to use his drawings in T-shirts and skateboards. He was a so-called ‘skateboard-obsessed are student.’ While he was in school, he held a part-time job in a skateboarding shop. After he
was putting his homemade skateboard stickers everywhere, he discovered his love for street art culture and graffiti. He soon began to have his own brand, OBEY which now consists of clothing for men and women. Shepard Fairey is currently 47 years old and is still creating art. The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston called him one of the best known and most influential street artists and he has multiple work included in big name museums. He currently has a wife and two kids and he is currently living in Los Angeles. He
also spends his time as a DJ at clubs under the names DJ Diabetic and Emcee Insulin because of his diabetes. His name becoming known doesn’t all come from having attractive art. Shepard likes to use his art to be involved in politics. In the famous “Hope” poster. He distributed 300,000 stickers and 500,000 posters during the campaign and it was called, “the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’”. keep any of it.
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I’ve never really considered myself just a street artist. I consider myself a populist. 9
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david carson
avid Carson (born September 8, 1955 is an American graphic designer, art director and surfer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called “grunge typography� era.
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da vid car son
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tu esd ay bas sen 12
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uesday Bassen grew up in Lincoln, NE surrounded by the arts. Her mom owns the paint-your-ownpottery shop, Paint Yourself Silly, that is a staple in Lincoln. Despite this, Bassen says, “I didn’t realize that it (art) was something I could make into a career.” So, instead, she explored foreign diplomacy as a career because linguistics is a creative field. She attended Lincoln High and became captain of the debate team, participated in mock trials, and studied abroad in Russia. While in Russia, Bassen stayed in an impoverished city and realized that’s not what she wanted to do with her life. When she returned, she enrolled in the Arts and Humanities Focus Program through Lincoln Public Schools and began exploring her options. Bassen enrolled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and graduated in 2011 with a BFA in Illustration. She received a job offer as a senior that would keep her in Minneapolis after graduation, but Bassen decided it was time for her to move onto bigger and better things in New York. Bassen arrived in New York and tried a variety of things. She tried freelancing for editorial companies and ad agencies. She tried
tuesday bassen
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only freelancing. She tried focusing on illustration and developing an app called Homes with Tinybop. Though the animation she learned while working on the app helped her to understand what she wanted to do, she didn’t know how New York fit into her life. She felt claustrophobic in the city. She felt trapped on the island, even when in her own apartment. She drove around New York instead of using the subway because she enjoyed the freedom. On a whim, she went to LA for a musical festival. Bassen immediately realized this is what she had been missing. When she returned to the city, she finished up her lease and began prepping for the cross-country move. As soon as Bassen got to LA, she jumped at every opportunity she got. She immediately organized gallery shows and tried to open a pop-up shop once a month. A popup shop, or pop-up retail, is the “temporary use of physical space to create a long term, lasting impression with potential customers.” She started out by selling hand-painted ceramics, which eventually became a ceramics collaboration with Urban Outfitters, as well as her first stickers that sold out almost immediately. Bassen took advantage of the manufacturing options LA offered and expanded her shops to include patches, enamel pins, and clothing. 13
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aula Scher is a graphic designer known best for her use of typography in her designs. She works in New York for design firm Pentagram as the first female principle. She was born in 1948 in Virginia, but grew up in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Growing up, Scher didn’t know what design was. She drew and painted, and dreamed of
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paula scher attending art school. She created posters for various high school events, which she regarded as the most significant part of her high school career. Scher was the only artist in her family. Her parents found her love of art strange and discouraged the idea of going to art school. Her father especially disliked the idea, thinking being an artist was impractical. A tour of the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, which Scher attend-
ed for art school, didn’t help his perception. He found students drawing nude models in class disgusting. Scher’s mother forced her to get a teaching certificate to have something to fall back on if her art career didn’t work out. Scher attended the Tyler School of Art despite her parents’ objections. went for art and painting, but took a wide variety of courses that introduced her to different media. A course on graphic design
helped introduce her to the concept. She fell in love with the class and decided to make it her major. One of her instructors, Stanislaw Zagorsky, became the biggest influence on her life and design choices. The Tyler School of Art trained students in Swiss Modernism, which Scher found to be too steril and conformist. It reminded her of advertising agencies of corporate America.
massimo vignelli
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assimo Vig nelli the It a l i an desig ner who worked in designing multiple works under different categories such like designing furniture, houseware and Graphic design. Vignelli who died in 2014 left a vast horizon of accomplishments which he still being remembered for. The change that Vignelli had done by the works that he
accomplished, left a featured mark on the lives of people of the world and particularly in the United States. No one can imagine the subway of New york City without that colorful, good looking map that Vignelli designed. In short, Vignelli is an exceptional designer that made unforgettable legacy, So
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a light should be shed on his life and accomplishments. In the first, Vignelli born in Milan in 1931 and studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and after that at the Universita di Architettura in venice. He spent the years from 1957 to 1960 visiting America on a fellowship. It seems that life
in the United states suited Vignelli who was so ambitious and hardworking, so he returned in 1966 to establish a branch in New York for his new company (Unimark International) by joining Bob Noorda and Jay Doblin. That company quickly became one of the most famous design firms worldwide. In the period of that company, he designed some of the well-known world’s brands such like American Airlines logo.
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mil ton gla ser
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ilton Glas e r was born o n June 26, 1929 in the Bronx, New York City, New York to his parents Eugene and Eleanor Glaser, who were Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Glaser’s education consisted of his attendance to the High School of Music and Art, graduation from the Cooper Union in New York via a Fulbright Scholarship, and attendance of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy
milton glaser where he studied graphic design (“Milton Glaser.” Wikipedia.) After graduating from the Cooper Union, Glaser co-founded Push Pin Studios with his fellow Cooper Union graduates: Edward Sorel, Seymour Chwast, and Reynold Ruffins. Glaser didn’t join them until he returned from Italy. Together with Seymour Chwast, Glaser directed the organization. The studio “redefined and expanded the imprimatur of the designer, illustrator, and visual culture at large.” (“Milton Glaser.” Wikipedia.). In 1966, Glaser designed
a poster for Bob Dylan’s “Greatest Hits” LP. It was Glaser’s first poster design. His inspiration was Marcel Duchamp’s Self Portrait and Art Nouveau (“Milton Glaser.” Wikipedia.). In 1968, Glaser and Clay Felker founded the New York Magazine. It was while working at the New York Magazine that Glaser reinvented service journalism. Service journalism is about being on the reader’s side and “it was about what was happening in New York City at the time.” An example of this is one his articles called “The
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Underground Gourmet”, which is about cheap restaurants in New York. Glaser was president and design director for the New York Magazine, until his departure in 1977. In the mid 1970s, New York City’s crime rate was up and the city was perceived as dangerous and on the verge of bankruptcy. The city hired the design agency Wells Rich Greene and glaser to design a logo to boost morale and increase tourism. And it was then that the I Heart New York logo was born.
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aul Rand was a highly influential graphic designer during the American Modernist era. He helped change the branding industry by incorporating importance to the field of design. “Good design is good business”, is an influential quote by Rand that well describes his work during his lifetime. Paul Rand, born as Peretz
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paul rand Rosenbaum, started his life in Brooklyn, New York. Design had always been his passion, although it had not been formally introduced to him. As a young boy, Rand designed posters for his father’s grocery store and school events. After coming into terms with the fact that he wanted to design in his future, his father enrolled him in Manhattan’s Harren High School, believing that Rand would not be able to make a liv-
ing with art. Throughout this time in his life, he also attended the Pratt Institute. After high school and attending Pratt, he attended a large number of art schools. These institutions included The New School for Design, the Art Students League, and Yale University in Conneticut. It is safe to say that he was very well educated in the fields of art and design. Rand was a self-taught designer; whose career began small. He started off
with a syndicate, completing small assignments and stock images for them. With these tasks and college projects, Paul Rand was able to develop and grow a significant portfolio. His style grew from reading European magazines and discovering the works of Casandre and László Moholy-Nagy. He was inspired by the German “sachplakat” (object poster) style, with bold lettering and flat colors.
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henri de toulouse
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enri De T o u louseLautrecMonfa French painter, printmaker, drawer and illustrator Focused on the theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century His work captured a lot of life in people from elegant images to provocative o Best known painters of the post-impressionist period along with Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin
He was born on November 24th 1864 in Albi, Tarn, France in Hotel de Bosc o He was the first born child to Count Alphonse Charles de Toulouse- Lautrec-Monfa and his wife Adele Zoe Tapie de Celeyran. His last name meant thate was a descendent of Counts of Toulouse, Odet de Foix, Viscount de Lautrec He was a French Military leader Viscounts of Montfa o He had a younger brother who was born in 1867
but died in 1868 o After the death of his brother his parents split up and they arranged for a Nanny to take care of him o When he was eight Henri when to go live with his mother in Paris where he sketched and drew caricatures during school. His family then realized he had a talent in painting and drawing He was briefly tutored by a friend of his father’s Rene Princeteau who gave him informal drawing lessons. Rene had a
specialization in horses Henri’s earlier paintings were those of horses which he later revisited to use in his circus paintings o He eventually returned to Albi because his mother was worried about his health He took thermal baths to try to improve on his bone growth while is mother tried to find other ways of treatment
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lou ise fi li
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louise fili
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ouise Fili was an Italian-American graphic designer who was born on April 12 of 1951 in New Jersey. Louise Fili’s mother was from Calabria and her father from Sicily. At an early age of 16 she found calligraphy and typefaces to be a beautiful work of art, She slowly began teaching herself calligraphy with an Osmiroid pen and a book of type samples. After she graduated high school she enrolled at Skidmore College to study studio art. During
her final semester she decided to go to New York and study at the School of Visual Arts and complete her education. Her first big design project was during her senior year of college when she designed a hand-lettered Italian cookbook. After she graduated college with a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art she began interning at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While interning at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City she began working as a freelance designer and calligrapher. Louise Fili first worked for
a small ad agency, then moved on to work for B. Martin Pederson. B. Martin Pederson is now an owner publisher and creative director of Graphis. She was known for her impeccable craftsmanship and elegant typography that she perfected while working for Knopf making picture books. While working as a freelance artist she discovered her love for creating book covers and designing books. Her fluid and beautiful designs ended up catching the attention of Herb Lubalin. Herb Lubalin was an American graphic design-
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er who worked mainly in the Avant Garde style of art work. When Louise Fili was 25 Herb Lubalin hired Louise Fili as a senior designer in his studio . Louise Fili worked with Herb Lubalin in his studio as a senior designer from 1976 to 1978. After leaving Herb Lubalin’s studio Louise Fili began working for Pantheon Books. Pantheon books is an American book publishing company founded in 1942 in New York City.
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ranganath krishnamani
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ang anat h Krishnamani is a graphic designer and illustrator who grew up in Malleshwaram, India. He grew up constantly seeing push carts loaded with fruit, trinkets, and other foods moving quickly through the city. As he grew older, Krishnamani found that these carts were less and less prominent in his everyday life. Fast forward to Ranganath Krishnamani, 2016. Currently, Ranga is working on a project that involves creating those pushcarts that he so fondly remembers, but as simply as possible. When he sees a pushcart in the street now (which is rare), he immediately goes to the vendor and strikes up conversation. In India today, push cart vendors are
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seen as second-class citizens scrounging their way to a tiny profit. To Krishnamani, they each have their own story. He finds that the simplicity of his project leads to an easier recollection of the carts he saw in his youth. According to Shailaja Tripathi of thehindu.com, the carts that Ranga illustrates “need to connect with him through memory, colours and form. . .” This makes the few carts that he recreates digitally extremely special due to the connection with his childhood. Ranganath went to school for graphic design and then received a Masters in Fine Art. He has worked for many companies over his career including Adobe and Oracle. He spent his time at Oracle in California and then returned to India to work for Adobe. I would consider Ranganath more
of an illustrator than a designer but his recent work would definitely be considered purely design. He has done book covers for many Penguin Books and his process is extremely interesting. Ranga will draw his designs fully-realized in black pen before he does any work in the computer. Not only does this allow him to visualize the shapes much more than color, it gives him an extremely detailed skeleton once he puts it into Illustrator.
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el lissitzky
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l Lissitzky was born on November 23, 1890 in Pochinok, Russia. While Lissitzky was growing up, he always had a niche for drawing. By the time he was thirteen, he worked alongside and received lessons from Yehudi Pen, who was a local Jewish artist. Within two years he had already begun his teaching career by helping other students draw. When it was time
for Lissitzky to receive a post-secondary education, he struggled with getting into a college as a result of the anti-Semitic laws at the time which only allowed a certain number of Jewish students to go to Russian universities. However, this didn’t stop Lissitzky. He decided to more to Germany in 1909 and pursued a degree in architectural engineering at a university called Technische Hochshule in Darmstadt, Germany. For some years, Lissitzky “wandered through Europe,” teaching himself about art and architecture by seeing it first hand. It was during this time that he was exposed to the conflicts occurring in societies as a result of revolutions and inequality. This quickly became what would inspire Lissitzky for the rest of his life in his artwork. Lissitzky made his career as a painter, typog-
rapher and designer who created pieces for social and political change. He consistently used angles and flat shapes to portray dimension in his pieces, and heavily used primary colors. In 1927, Lissitzky married his wife, Sophie Kuppers, who would go on to work with him on various projects. One of which was the magazine USSR im Bau. Lissitzky signed his first contract to work alongside Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Steoanova, and Soloman Telingater, the editors of the magazine. In total, Lissitzky did 17 issues, 10 of which he collaborated with Sophie as well. Aside from working with USSR im Bau, he also collaborated with Kasimir Malevich, another artist in Russia at the time. Together, they designed exhibitions, displays, and various propaganda pieces.
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erbert Bayer was an Austrian g r ap h i c designer who was born in 1900, with a wife named Joella Syrara Haweis. At the age of 19 became an architect and later came to America at age 38, and stayed in America until the end of his career in 1985. His work was considered very influential, and he was well known for his practice in architecture and typography. His career spans many different forms of design, from architecture
herbet bayer to graphic design he lead the industry through his experience and spread that knowledge at Bauhaus, where he was the head of print and advertising. His career is notable for its many shifts in ideas and formats, yet has still been known for his consistent quality of work throughout. His career kicked off in architecture. At the age of nineteen he entered an apprenticeship under designer Georg Schmidthamer. There, he began to develop his very first typographic works. His work in typography was very influential, cre-
ating innovations such as the removal of capital letters for lowercase type later on in his career, as well as defining the type that would become standard curriculum when studying the mechanics of visual design. After two years he moved his work to the Darmstadt artists’ colony, where he worked as an architectural assistant for Josef Emmanual Margold, until he enrolled as a student into the Weimar Bauhaus, where he studied painting. Bayer was a fine student, and once he graduated and completed his train-
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ing in 1925 he was made head of printing and advertising at the Bauhaus, the same department that also produces the school’s printworks. The same year, he married his first wife Irene Angela Hecht, in 1929 he had his first and only child, Julia Alexandria Bayer.
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radbury Thompson was a successful graphic designer because not only did he have talent but made a lot of connections throughout his career. Bradbury Thompson was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1911 and lived to be 84. He was married to Dolly and have two sons and two daughters. During his time, he attended Washburn Col-
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bradbury thompson lege and worked at Capper Publications after he graduated. It was there that he become familiarized with the printing process. In that small interaction with the printing process, it would later inspire him to make his famous CMYK designs that he is known for. After his time there, Thompson moved on to higher ranking jobs in New York city where he branched out to local printing and design companies.In 1938, Thompson
worked in association with West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, where he frequently made designs for their art journal it was then that he started experimenting with type and started up his CMYK designs. Thompson worked with that company for about 27 years, however, at the same time he branched to other companies as in 1939 he designed a catalogue for World’s Fair. It became apparent that Thompson’s innovations
would soon become very successful. He pushed the evolution of design by tieing together traditional and modern styles in a unique way. As a Graphic Designer, Thompson set a standard by showing it’s important to make connections. Not everyone can become successful on talent alone, although it is helpful. He pushed
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dward Fella is an A me r i c an Graphic designer most well known for his innova-tion in hand-drawn typography. He would often break every single rule in typography and design and developed a unique personal theory that was based of off the concept of deconstruction. Fella was born in Detroit Michigan in 1938 to a middle-class family and attended Cass Technical High School where he began to learn about various com-mer-
edward fella cial art techniques. To discuss Fella’s impact in the design world, let’s dive into his career. After graduating from Cass Technical High School in 1957 he immediately went into the commercial art industry where he stayed for 30 years. The majority of his works of the time were based around Automotive and health care posters. The first job he worked in the industry was an apprentice at the Phoenix studio. This also happened to be his first job in the commercial space. This job primarily consisted of him drawing
head lines and layouts to further develop and refine his drawing skills. One thing that separated him from most was his experimentations with many different type specimens for his designs. These included such things as found typography, clip art, stencils, and typesetting. Through all of this he was given the title The King of Zing due to the ethere-al and whimsical style that he had developed. Eventually Fella came to find that the commercial work he was doing was not fulfilling enough to him. This pushed him to reach out
into more alternative types of art. Because of this he became very active in Detroit’s culture scene and offered his artistic services to many alternative art institutions, one of which being the Detroit focus gallery. The kind of work he was doing gave him motivation to create and print a lot of the cra-zier designs that he had previously only been doing in private. One of the things that Fella primarily used as a creative outlet were his After The Fact posters.
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