John Rieban’s importance to graphic design can’t be understated, and the work he designed for the Chicago Public Library, titled Chicago Public Library, was one of many indicators of this. This is my favorite piece by Rieben because it draws the eyes of the viewer with the giant red “a” and brings you closer only…
One of the many iconic print design works by John Massey was the piece he created for the Container Corporation of America as part of their Chicago Cultural Communication project. This piece was cutting edge at the time in more ways than one. Firstly, in the late 60’s it was rare for a large corporation…
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on July, 6th, 1931, John Massey would come to be known as one of the premiere contemporary graphic designers of the twentieth century. He became interested in design as a young boy, partially following his father’s footsteps into the realm of architecture before eventually finding his niche in graphic design. At…
Penfield, Edward, and Pollard, Percival. Posters in miniature. New York: R.H. Russell (1896), pg 240. The American designer William H. Bradley is one of the most influential designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Regarded as the “American Aubrey Beardsley,” Bradley left behind a legacy of incorporating many styles into design due…
Stefan Sagmeister was born in Austria in 1962 where he would grow up and later study. His design career first started when he worked for the Austrian magazine Alphorn. He studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna until later being accepted at the Pratt Institute in New York as a fulbright scholar. He…
Perhaps the Guerilla Girls’ most famous work, The Advantages Of Being A Woman Artist is a poster created 1988 steeped in the irony of being a woman artist in a time where your work is not valued on the basis of your gender. It was not commissioned by anyone, simply originated from the group as…
Muriel Cooper, an influential twentieth century designer best known for her pioneering in book design who also engaged in digital design, design research, and education, was born 1925 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Cooper would take her first steps into the world of graphic design during her time at Ohio State University, where she studied to receive…
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville is an American graphic design, feminist, educator, and artist currently living in Hamden, Connecticut. I was initially drawn to research her based on the range of her popular works and accomplishments, most of which involved standing up for women’s rights. The fact that de Bretteville was born in November of 1940,…
In 1999, Sheila de Bretteville redesigned the flooring, walls, and railings of 207th Street Subway Station in Manhattan for the MTA Art for Transit Office. She was inspired by the interviews of subway goers as well as the song “Take the A Train” by iconic jazz musician Billy Strayhorn. From the song, she repeated the…
Mellby, Julie. “The Twins.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, 3 Oct. 2011. The name William H. Bradley is now synonymous with American Art Nouveau. It was through his work on advertizing posters for the magazine The Chap Book that Bradley refined his style, and made his name known. In order to advertise…
This 1989 poster is one of the first posters created by the Guerrilla Girls in direct response to one of the most significant events in their career. It was commissioned to be a billboard by the Public Art Fund in New York but was rejected for not being clear enough. The ad ran on New…
Will Bradley: His Graphic Art: a Collection of His Posters, Illustrations, Typographic Designs & Decorations. Dover Publications, 1974. p.17. William H. Bradley was one of the first American designers to employ the principles and style of Art Nouveau in his work (Flinchum). Though many of his earliest works included poster and magazine cover design,…
During the 1880s, the type industry began to face a frustrating design problem. Because type supplies – sizes, widths, base alignment and metal alloy – were uncommon, most printing establishments had no choice but to continue a business relationship with a single type foundry rather than branching out into others. The lack of advanced printing…
Gran Fury was an agit-prop artist collective that began in early 1988 and officially disbanded in 1995. The group used a combination of bold graphic design, guerilla dissemination tactics, sophisticated subversion of traditional marketing strategies, and visually striking confrontational works to spread medical and political messages during the AIDS crisis. The collective was closely associated…
The logo that Thomas Geismar created for the merger of the bank of the manhattan company and chase national bank is a nationally recognized design that’s had much success. This design was originally created in 1961 and has survived over four decades of mergers. This design features four blue quadrilaterals that lead the eye in…