BRaDBURY THOmPSOn PReSenTaTIOn BY meGan ROOK
In late 1938 he was to design for Westvaco Inspirations for Printers, a periodical published in the Westvaco Corporation between 1925 and 1962 as a showcase for its printing papers. Under Thompson’s direction it became one of the leading avant-garde publications in the field, its influence reaching from San Francisco to Milan.
With the start of the Second World War there was a rise of innovation in graphic design and the continuation of modernism into the art world since the late 19th century. Artist wanted to break away from the traditional views of art and create new realities which demanded new form, but not Thompson. He identified at a modernist at peace with the past. He never imitated antique layout styles but at the same time he never hesitated to include work of the past in his pages.
Modernism
World War Two
NEW REALITIES
He encouraged using many typefaces in Westvaco Inspirations over the years. At this time the treatment of adjacent pages as parts of a unified design began to break down the convention of the discrete, single-page layout.
new form
Toward the end of the war in the 1940’s, he experimented with the interaction of process inks to create the effect of motion on the printed page.
BRaDBURY CReaTeD THe mOnOaLPHaBeTIC In 1944 TO aCHIeVe a TYPOGRaPHICaLLY SImPLIFIeD aLPHaBeT. He eXPeRImenTeD WITH anD mODIFIeD THe eaRLIeR BaUHaUS mODeL OF aLL THe LOWeRCaSe TYPe In a nUmBeR OF WaYS, WITH THe GOaL OF ReDuCInG THe aLPHaBeT TO 26 SYmBOLS WHen THe TRaDITIOnaL aLPHaBet FOR THe enGLISH LanGUaGe HaS 45 SYmBOLS.
(They all have a shield!) By 1956, Thompson starting teaching at the Yale School of the Arts and stayed there for over 30 years.
He was also a consultant to the Harvard University graduate school of business administration and the Cornell University department of publications.
He received honor art DFA degrees from Washburn University and Rhode Island School of Design, and the Frederic W. Goudy Award from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
When the 1960s rolled around, Bradbury Thompson was working on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee. Recognizing his sense of the relation of typography to the history of fine art, the Advisory Committee asked him to design the first of several annual Christmas stamps from the Old Master paintings in the National Gallery collection.
Later in time the postal service commissioned a stamp to honor the newly established Department of Education.
Brad adapted a vibrant painting by Albers from his Homage to the Square series and added the motto “Learning Never Ends,� thereby giving loyal tribute to a fellow teacher and artist.
Published in 1979, the Washburn College Bible was an opportunity to try out an array of new ideas in a scale rarely available to the graphic designer, Bradbury Thompson. The Holy Bible was a collaboration with friend and Yale colleague, Josef Albers, who contributed three frontispieces and with Jan Tschichold, who made the new typeface Sabon available for the Bible.
Thompson had created a homogenous entity, combining his typographic innovations with such seemingly disparate elements as ancient symbols, modern abstract design, and Bible-inspired art treasures.
The perfection of detail in Thompson’s pages and the warmth and grandeur of Sabon made it a powerful demonstration of a new principle in typography. Holy Bible that reconsiders the fundamental traditions of typographic design and has been described as “representing the most through reassessment of the printed Bible format since Gutenberg.”
Toward the end of Bradbury’s life, he had taught art to many students, earned extravagant honors, and
influenced the next generation to experiment with photography, typography, and motion.
Yale University Press New Haven and Lonodn 1988 His artistic autobiography, “The Art of Graphic Design.” It won the Art Libraries Society of North America’s George Wittenborn Memorial Award as best art book of the year and was praised in The New York Times Book Review as a book in which “art and design are gloriously and daringly mixed.”
IMAGE SOURCES Boom http://fau3110.pbworks.com/f/1205787116/bradburyThompson01.jpg a97f127cc7beed1742641f88de6b0af6 https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a9/7f/12/a97f127cc7beed1742641f88de6b0af6.jpg Love stamp http://media4.allnumis.com/1189/20-love-1984_1189_823937797ba4c34L.jpg caveman w rock http://www.typogabor.com/Westvaco-II-1953-1955/images/70-westvaco-1953-1955.jpg Woman w drops 2098fb6a65322bba48c3d86c69985750 http://cfile239.uf.daum.net/image/2451544B537D717A0DA218 Bells http://www.presentandcorrect.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/34-westva co-1953-1955.jpg Red gears to the left 71-westvaco-1953-1955 http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kuh3EpHE96A/TRKOwyLDnCI/AAAAAAAADyc/AcAt j1Ms--s/s1600/71-westvaco-1953-1955.jpg 2237537135_210e3d83b0 https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2330/2237537135_210e3d83b0.jpg 1718877 Girl w red O over eyes http://ehstompkins.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/0/1/14014394/1718877.jpeg?607 Saxophone https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1b/0d/5f/1b0d5f68004fd8c0ddd5981ea1a5354a.jpg Book about him http://www.thisisdisplay.org/images/made/bookimages/thompson11_700_525.jpg Image of him https://loveofwordsdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/img_0473.jpg AIGA-Stamps_20 http://designobserver.com/media/slideshows/AIGA-Stamps_20.jpg bradbury-thompson_4 http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MzuMJLxBdAk/UvnLNH_3vrI/AAAAAAAABuU/MHy1tOUSJB0/s1600/bradbury-thompson_4.jpg
IMAGE SOURCES Mademloselle001 http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Mademloselle001.jpg hide_thompson_mme_01 https://va312iremakdogan.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/hide_thompson_mme_01.jpg Him w cat http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XfNtPl7myzU/VUt_6uw1R5I/AAAAAAAAABo/FblMuknw4js/s1600/RayBradbury060612.jpg ABC XYZ stamp http://designobserver.com/media/slideshows/AIGA-Stamps_22.jpg AIGA-Stamps_18 http://designobserver.com/media/slideshows/AIGA-Stamps_18.jpg Stamps of classical portraits http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/6422267_f520.jpg alphabet in CBK https://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/787/flashcards/649787/png/thomp son1352786510591.png washburn book layout http://tschiegg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/washburn1.jpg wasburn cover http://designarchives.aiga.org/assets/images/000/012/787/12787_lg.jpg washburn emblem http://media.graphis.com/uploads/cache/c7/2b/c72b8a515181a2dee5adc2c22c86bae9.jpg World War Two Image http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EqtqytC2F1w/UPRgboy12vI/AAAAAAAAAzM/uZSaXs9o0YM/s1600/world-war-2.png America At War http://thinkingform.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/bradbury-thompson_3.jpg Yale School of Arts https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c7/Yale_School_of_Art.png/220pxYale_School_of_Art.png Harvard Logo http://aizenberglab.seas.harvard.edu/images/Affiliations/HarvardLogo.jpg
IMAGE SOURCES Cornell logo http://static.tumblr.com/0b63bd96f506de1072a6d9508cde1d97/onlkile/Z9Nmv111t/tumblr_static_cornell_logo_new.png Washburn http://www.d2baseballnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Washburn.jpg rhode island school of design logo http://designxri.com/assets/img/events/RISD_SEAL_Benson_Art_.jpg Westvaco poster http://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/ bradbury-thompson/bradbury-thompson-13.jpeg Washburn Bible on display http://www.washburn.edu/about/150/artifacts/images/17-washburn-bible.JPG Washburn book cover https://img0.etsystatic.com/021/0/8502415/il_570xN.500573864_5u5p.jpg Rochester Institute of Technology https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Rochester_Institute_of_Technology_seal.svg/1024px-Rochester_Institute_of_Technology_seal. svg.png
FACT SOURCES DESIGN IS HISTORY http://www.designishistory.com/1960/bradbury-thompson/ The New York Times By Lawrence Van Gelder Published November 4, 1995 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/04/arts/j-bradbury-thompson-dies-designer-and-art-director-84.html Bradbury Thompson: The Art of Graphic Design published by Yale University Press in 1988
THE END