Graphic Design of the 1950s and 60s

Graphic design in the 1950s and 60s involved a lot of revolutionary developments in design in the process of redefining post war corporate identity and magazine layouts. Design was starting to be considered essential to business and graphics design was recognized as a profession. Colleges started teaching design in formal education.

Paul Rand was known for wit, inventive forms, and the use of symbols in communication (eg: graphic of the images of an eye, a bee, and M) The use of symbols in this way was new, innovative, and witty.

Bradbury Thompson utilized a vast well of experience, knowledge, and skill in typography and type setting to come up with new design possibilities never seen before. He is known for using type for innovative ideas such as creating a face out of letting (I mean in a much more complex way than a smiley face like this :), though.)

The Vignelli Associates created the unigrad system in 1977 used for the National subway system for Park Service. This was a new approach to maps that could be easily navigated even by people that weren't very familiar with the English language.

George Lois was one of the most influential designers of this time period. He used emptiness to emphasize nothing but pure typography to convey a message. It's radically different from Swiss design, which focused so much on the design that Lois removes in an extreme use of reduction to focus entirely on type and message without distraction. Lois is known for his work created in Esquire Magazine. He talked intelligently to the audience, used white space, focused on the product, and used simple imagery. This was very effective in his intended purpose of communicating the message without any distraction.

Herbert Lubalin was a typographic genius who focused on space and surface. He loved the "new flexibility" of Photo typography he could use to communicate a message.

Photo-Typography was invented in the 60s. It allowed people to photograph types and then use them. This resulted in the rebirth of many old outdated fonts that could be photographed and then used as a type. This invention also radically reduced the cost of creating new typefaces. The use of the outmodel was made possible by photo typography and resulted in changing views on type. Letterforms and objects became more interchangeable. Letterforms could be images. More variation and possibilities arose in the distortion of type.

The New Wave - Young swiss designers rejected the international style and created new styles of design with newer uses of typography. Wolfgang Weingart inspired the movement in Basal by quiestioning typographic arrangements and purpose.

Leo Burnett created myth and stereotypes in his designs to convey a certain attitude about a product. He is known for creating the iconography of the marlboro lone cowboy.