Herb Lubalin was a strong player in the field of graphic design; he didn’t play around with anything but type. He let the type talk for itself and made no move to try and covnquer it but instead he would adjust slightly and massage the type till it was what he wanted. As one person said, “Herb visualized the headline. There was no need to set it several ways. He put his ideas down simultaneously, like stream-of-consciousness designing.” (pg14), he was well known for his tissues of tracing paper that was his process of designing and went through about fifteen to twenty pads a week.
Lubalin didn’t even consider what he did really typography but as Aaron Burns called it, typographics’ as he designed with the letters and didn’t just put down and arrange letters on a page. I really see his true power coming through with all of his sketches as it highlights the importance of the thought process it takes to get to the final product even though not everyone can visual the almost final product right away as Lubalin often did. His sketches weren’t something that were laid out crisp or easy to read but the idea was there as he understood it and it turned over to his team to complete the product but it was pure design put into each tissue he sketched out.
“Typography is a servantthe servant of thought & language to which it gives visible existence.”
Even when choosing jobs to work on he never chose one he didn’t respect, as he believed in exposing the public to good graphics and bringing his perfection of type design to those who are ‘worthy’. Which is a really good point I like about his thought process because you can have good graphics that draw the consumer in but end up being disappointed, deception, meaning the effort put into the design wasn’t worth the end product. Good design is meant to be conserved for those who really bring something great to the public as it isn’t just satisfying the customer but thinking about those who will actually be reacting and interacting with the final design, the viewer matters.
What amazed me the most was that he didn’t have some big formula for his process in developing logos or posters or magazines, it was a process that you can’t describe in words and a few develop such a method. He was interested in the importance of things such as the editorial material in magazines and newspapers because those are the things that matter the most. That you don’t have to drown something in imagery and don’t shy away from using mostly to all type as shown by his logo for Cooper Union and many others because words aren’t as mudane and blending as they seem to be. This is what he was tying to get across that I really believe in as well because type is the basis of typography and can become lost, especially when there was rush to redesign magazine formats in the 60s.
Lubalin was known for such logos as the one for ‘The Sound of Music’ because he added in the use of Spencerian script lettering, which is not calligraphy. Its process involves starting in a sketch form as all do and then drawn with a croquil pen and with Lubalin being a perfectionist with his designs he would draw and redraw on his tissues until he had exactly the right form.
Lubalin came into a prime part of his carrier during the time he worked on the magazines Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde. I do favorite his work with Avant Garde as an interesting take on how type should behave along with the type showcasing his true mastery of type ad letting it speak loud and clear for itself Avant Garde was originally created as just the logo for the magazine but then it changed as he made it into a full typeface, with tight fitting letters, all in uppercase and easily identifiable. Though there was a set of lower case letters formed latter when the type was let out for public use. Unfortunately it wasn’t fully understood and became overused and fell far from what Herb had originally pictured for his font, as it was originally to be the beacon of the magazine in its originality and individuality.
”You can do a good ad without good typography, What really captured my attention was the power he gave to the type even though it was purposed for one thing which was to advertise the logo of a magazine but he did it in such a way that the type pulled all the weight without anything extra. He did also go on to create Lubalin Graph, which is the serif version of Avant Garde and also Serif Gothic which he created to be the in between of Gothic and Roman.
but you can’t do a great ad without good typography.”
Designed and written by Olivia Donner Composed in Century Gothic, typeface designed by Monotype Staff in 1991 Copyright Š 2015 Olivia Donner, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art