Alvin Eisenman was an influential American graphic designer and educator throughout the last half of the 20th century. He is most notable for founding and heading Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

's graduate program in graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 beginning in 1951 — the first graduate program in graphic design in the United States. He remained the director of that program until he was replaced by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville is a graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design...

 in 1990. Eisenman continued to teach in the program through the 1990s.

Raised in rural DuBois, Pennsylvania

DuBois, Pennsylvania

DuBois is a city in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city in the DuBois, Pa Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...

, Eisenman did his undergraduate work in graphic arts at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

. After World War II, Eisenman took a position as a designer for the McGraw-Hill

McGraw-Hill

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...

 Book Company. By 1950, Eisenman was in New Haven, first in the role as a designer for the Yale Press and soon becoming a leader in establishing a graduate program for graphic design at Yale. For the early program, Eisenman drew faculty from the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

 in London (as part of a faculty exchange system) and recruited liberal arts graduates from Yale, Harvard and the Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...

. The Yale graphic design program in the 1950s was successful in bringing together established and upcoming designers such as Paul Rand

Paul Rand

Paul Rand Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum, (August 15, 1914 — November 26, 1996) was an American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs’ NeXT...

, Herbert Matter

Herbert Matter

Herbert Matter was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of photomontage in commercial art...

, Armin Hoffman Bradbury Thompson Josef Albers

Josef Albers

Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....

, Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher (graphic designer)

Alan Gerard Fletcher was a British graphic designer. In his obituary, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific"....

 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04EEDD1F31F935A1575AC0A9609C8B63, Lester Beall

Lester Beall

Lester Beall was a twentieth-century American graphic designer notable as a leading proponent of modernist graphic design in the United States.His clear and concise use of typography was highly praised both in the United States and abroad...

 and Alexey Brodovitch

Alexey Brodovitch

Alexey Brodovitch was a Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1938 to 1958.- Early life in Russia :...

 http://www.rit.edu/library/archives/rkelly/html/01_ori/ori_yal2.html. Eisenman is interviewed in the 2010 film The Visual Language of Herbert Matter discussing Matter at Yale.

From 1960 to 1963, Eisenman was also head of the American Institute of Graphic Arts

American Institute of Graphic Arts

AIGA is an American professional organization for design. Organized in 1914, AIGA currently has more than 22,000 members throughout 66 chapters and more than 200 student groups nationwide...

. He was awarded the AIGA

Aiga

‘Aiga is a word in the Samoan language which means 'family.' The aiga is the family unit of Samoan society and differs from the Western sense in that it consists more than just a mother, father and children. The Samoan family, also referred to as an 'extended family' is based on the culture's...

medal in 1990.