Typograhy - Font Book by Michelle Vu

HERB LUBALIN

AVANT GARDE

MAGAZINE

TYPEFACE

TRAITS

LIGATURES

CURRENT USE

INSPIRED

REFERENCES

Herbert F. Lubalin was an post-modern, American design guru. He was an art director, graphic designer, and typographer. He entered Cooper Union at the age of seventeen, and quickly became entranced by the possibilities presented by typography as a communicative implement. Gertrude Snyder notes that during this period Lubalin was particularly struck by the differences in interpretation one could impose by changing from one typeface to another, always “fascinated by the look and sound of words (as he) expanded their message with typographic impact.” After graduating in 1939, Lubalin had a difficult time finding work; he was fired from his job at a display firm after requesting a two dollar raise on his weekly salary, up from a paltry eight (around USD100 in 2006 currency). Lubalin would eventually land at Reiss Advertising, and then later worked for Sudler & Hennessey, where he practiced his considerable skills and attracted an array of design, typographic and photographic talent that

included George Lois, Art Kane and John Pistilli. He worked with with Sudler for twenty years before leaving to start his own firm, Herb Lubalin, Inc., in 1964. He collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on three of Ginzburg’s magazines: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde, and was responsible for the layout and creative direction of these publications. He designed the typeface, Avant Garde, for the last of these; this distinctive font could be described as a postmodern interpretation of art deco, and its influence can be seen in logos created in the 1990s and 2000s. Lubalin’s vast collection of work can be viewed at The Herb Lubalin Study Centre of Design and Typography located in New York. There viewers can also view work by other prominent designers. There is also a library of books and magazines about design and typography, an extensive collection of posters, myriad type specimen books and pamphlets.

A few examples from the massive body of Lubalinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s designs. Top: Logo for Sudler, Hennessey & Lubalin, the studio in which Lubalin work at with his partners in design.

Below: Logo for PAS Graphics, a distributor of art supplies.

A logo Lubalin designed for his self titled design firm.

Avant Garde started out as a clever logogram for the magazine in which it was named after. It was a product of collaboration between Lubalin and author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist, Ralph Ginzburg. The creation of the magazine’s logogram proved difficult, largely due to the inherent difficulties presented by the incompat-ible letterform combinations in the title Lubalin’s solution, one which sought to meet Ginzburg’s hope for an expression of “the advanced, the innovative, the creative,” consisted of tight-fitting letterform combinations to create a futuristic, instantly recognizable identity. The typeface’s character is still easily recognizable now. The demand for a complete typesetting of the logo was extreme in the design community, so Lubalin released Avant Garde from his International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1970. Atlthough Lubalin had designed other typefaces, Avant Garde was his most well known design due to its popularity. Unfortunately, Lubalin quickly realized that Avant Garde was widely misunderstood

and misused in poorly thought-out solutions, eventually becoming a stereotypical 70’s font due to overuse. However it’s still considered to be one of the most highly influential additions to the world of design and typography.

A trade ad designed by lubalin to introduce the Avant Garde typeface. An excellent example of his masterful work with the typrefaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tricky kerning and ligatures.

Avant Garde Magazine was an expression of the advanced, the innovative, and the creative. It was one of several magazine collaborations between Lubalin and Ginzberg. It was most notable for its graphic and logogram design. Avant Garde had 14 issues and was published from January 1968 to July 1971. While it could be deemed obscene, Avant Garde Magazine was filled with creative imagery often caustically critical of American society and government, sexual themes, and (for the time) crude language. One cover featured a naked pregnant woman; another had a parody of Willard’s famous patriotic painting, “The Spirit of ‘76”, with a woman and a black man. Avant Garde had a modest circulation but was extremely popular in certain circles, including New York’s advertising and editorial art directors. The magazine also provided Lubalin with a large format of wide typographic experimentation; the page format was an almost square 11.25 by 10.75 inches bound in a carboard cover, a physical quality

that, coupled with Lubalin’s layouts, caught the attention of many in the New York design scene. The magazine would often employ full-page typographic titles, which at the time was a largely new idea; in recent times, Rolling Stone art director Fred Woodward has used this method widely in his publication. Ginzburg, who held some experience as a photographer, gave Lubalin total control over the magazine’s look: “Herb brought a graphic impact. I never tried to overrule him, and almost never disagreed with him.” Other issues included a portfolio of Picasso’s neglected erotic engravings, which Lubalin willingly combined with his own aesthetic, printing them in a variety of colors, in reverse, or on disconcerting backgrounds. Unfortunately, Avant Garde repeatedly caught the eye of censors, after an issue featuring an alphabet spelled out by nude models; Ralph Ginzburg was sent to prison for violating federal obscenity laws, and publication ceased.

Opposite Page: Examples of Avant Garde’s racy covers. Above: The cover of Issue #7. A parody of American painter, Archibald Willard’s patriotic painting “Spirit of ‘76” featuring an African American male, which was controversial at the time, and most likey still controversial now.

extra light condensed

ABCQRX abcqrx

book condensed

ABCQRX abcqrx

medium condensed

ABCQRX abcqrx

demi condensed

ABCQRX abcqrx

bold condensed

ABCQRX abcqrx

extra light

ABCQRX abcqrx

book

ABCQRX abcqrx

medium

ABCQRX abcqrx

demi

ABCQRX abcqrx

bold

ABCQRX abcqrx

The typeface was originally intended primarily for use in logos. The first version consisted solely of 26 capital letters. It was inspired by Ginzburg and his wife, designed by Lubalin, and realized by Lubalin’s assistants and Tom Carnese, between 1968 and 1970. Avant Garde ican be characterized by its geometrically perfect, round, even strokes, short, straight lines, and an extremely large number of kerned ligatures. The font family consists of 5 weights, extra light, book, medium, demi and bold, with complementary obliques and condensed versions. The condensed fonts were drawn by Ed Benguiat in 1974, and the obliques were designed by André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt in 1977. The original designs include one version for setting headlines and one for text copy. However, in the initial digitization, only the text design was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not included. When ITC released the OpenType version of the font, the original 33 alternate

characters and ligatures, plus extra characters were included. Elsner+Flake also issued the ligatures and alternate characters separately as Avant Garde Gothic Alternate.

Q G RP

The curve on tail cap of Q.

The low crossbar on the G.

The bowl of R doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t close, but P does.

gpqy i j Descenders of g, p, q, and y are short.

The dots over i and j are rectangular.

ITC Avant Garde Century Gothic Univers 55

Opposite Page: Although Avant Garde may look similar to fonts like Century Gothic or Futura, aside from its ligatures, it does have traits that make it identifyable, the biggest give aways being the Q and the R. Above: Overlay comparisons of Avant Garde with the typefaces Century Gothic and Univers 55.

In typography, a ligature is a special character consisting of two or more joined letters. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called “contextual forms”, where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or proximity to the end of a line. One of the most attractive, yest misunderstood characteristics of Avant Garde are its ligatures. Which set it apart from simllar geometric fonts. These designs push the typeface’s geometry profile even further allowing it to be more than just a static font. Avant Garde’s ligatures were designed to deal with fitting the text into tight spaces and was strictly used for titles an headings, never for content. The original designs include one version for setting headlines and one for text copy. However, in the initial digitization, only the text design was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not

included. When ITC released the OpenType version of the font, the original 33 alternate characters and ligatures, plus extra characters were included. Steven Heller, one of Lubalin’s fellow AIGA medalists, notes that the “excessive number of ligatures were misused by designers who had no understanding of how to employ these typographic forms,” further commenting that “Avant Garde was Lubalin’s signature, and in his hands it had character; in others’ it was a flawed Futuraesque face.” Regardless of Avant Garde’s future uses, Lubalin’s original magazine logo was and remains highly influential in typographic design.

Avant Gardeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique ligatures push the letters forms form simple characters to beautiful graphical elements which can be appreciated as designs on their own. Back Image: Issue #12 cover image, featuring a tastefully nude photo of an African American woman.

Avant Garde is a deceptively diffucult typeface to use well, and many designers lacked the necessary understanding of Lubalinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letterforms to make it work. Despite many warns from pretentious designers and typographers against using the typeface because of its hard to work with circular letters, which have a tendancy to create eye traps, and general outdated look, It still makes its mark when it comes to representing companies in the corporate world. After being released commercially, the font quickly became overused and is commonly found in poor design solutions. However, Avant Garde remains extremely popular to this day and the most successful examples of use are where restraint and sensitivity to tight kerning is exercised.

Examples of Logos that use the Avant Garde typeface: Opposite Page: Avant Garde being used in a Sephora campaign. Top: Meralco Centre: Vazquez Bottom: Adidas

Avant Garde still casts a powerful infulence on modern day design, typography and pop culture, despite being typeface which had been deemed outdated by some designers, Although Avant garde has been regarded as one the most abused typefaces, and is demoted to a font that belongs to its era, one can argue that it was designed to represent ideals that broke the mold. Its form and innovative ligature designs are making a comeback in popluar culture. It has infulenced a myriad of current logos and word marks that cover fashion magazines and concert posters. There are countless derivatives designed with extreme ligatures and highly geometric letter forms, Many of these new typefaces sport an almost retro cosmic aesthetic. Examples of these typefaces are mostly seen in underground and underground DJ and electronic music culture. Although many discretions against using such extreme typefaces, The users of such fonts (magazines, artists, contemporary designers) in a way pay homage to what

Avant Garde originally represented, pushing beyond the boundries of conservative cultural and social conventions. The Herb Lubalin Study Centre of Design and Typography also held an exhibitio in 2009 called Lubalin Now, which showed work by contemporary designers and typographers which were inspired by Lubalinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work.

Opposite Page: Myld Type, a typeface that was inspired by Avant Gardeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circles and ligatures. Top: Valerie Collective Centre: DJ U-Tern Bottom: Lady Gaga

Printed

Web

Heller, Steven. “Herb Lubalin: Type Basher.” U&lc 25 (Summer 1998): 8-11.

www.lubalincenter.cooper.edu www.designboom.com

Lawson, Alexander, Archie Provan, and Frank Romano, Primer Metal Typeface Identification, National Composition Association, Arlington, Virginia, 1976, pp. 34 - 35. Meggs, Philip. “Two Magazines of the Turbulent ‘60s: a ‘90s Perspective.” Print 48 (Mar-Apr 1994): 68-77. Snyder, Gertrude. “Herb Lubalin: Art Director, Graphic Designer and Typographer.” Graphis 41 (Jan-Feb 1985): 56-67. “Pioneers: Herb Lubalin,” Communication Arts Magazine 41 (Mar-Apr 1999): 159.

Michelle Vu