Herb Lubalin
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
. He collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg
Ralph Ginzburg
Ralph Ginzburg was an American author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist. He was best known for publishing books and magazines on erotica and art and for his conviction in 1963 for violating federal obscenity laws....
on three of Ginzburg's magazines: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde
Avant Garde (magazine)
Avant Garde was a magazine notable for graphic and logogram design by Herb Lubalin. The magazine had 14 issues and was published from January 1968 to July 1971.The editor was Ralph Ginzburg.Avant Garde 3 published in May 1968 lists in the masthead...
, and was responsible for the creative visual beauty of these publications. He designed a typeface, ITC Avant Garde
ITC Avant Garde
ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a font family based on the logo font used in the Avant Garde magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin's design firm, worked together to transform the idea into a full-fledged...
, for the last of these; this distinctive font could be described as a post-modern interpretation of art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
, and its influence can be seen in logos created in the 1990s and 2000s.
Education and early career
Herb Lubalin entered Cooper UnionCooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
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 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
George Lois
George Lois is a controversial American art director, designer, and author. Lois is best known for over 92 covers he designed for Esquire Magazine...
, Art Kane
Art Kane
Art Kane , born Arthur Kanofsky in New York City, was a fashion and music photographer active from the 1950s through early 1990s...
and John Pistilli. He served with Sudler for twenty years before leaving to start his own firm, Herb Lubalin, Inc., in 1964 .
Private Practice
Eros and Fact
Lubalin’s private studio gave him the freedom to take on any number of wide-ranging projects, from poster and magazine design to packaging and identity solutions. It was here that the designer became best known, particularly for his work with a succession of magazines published by Ralph GinzburgRalph Ginzburg
Ralph Ginzburg was an American author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist. He was best known for publishing books and magazines on erotica and art and for his conviction in 1963 for violating federal obscenity laws....
: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde. Eros, (Spring 1962 to issue four 1963) which devoted itself to the beauty of the rising sense of sexuality and experimentation, particularly in the burgeoning counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
, it was a quality production with no advertising and the large format (13 by 10 inches) made it look like a book rather than a quarterly magazine. It was printed on different papers and the editorial design was some the greatest that Lubalin ever did. It quickly folded after an obscenity case brought by the US Postal Service. Ginzburg and Lubalin followed with Fact, which the former largely founded in response to the treatment Eros received. This magazine’s inherent anti-establishment sentiment lent itself to outsider writers who could not be published in mainstream media; Fact managing editor Warren Boroson noted that “most American magazine, emulating the Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
, wallow in sugar and everything nice; Fact has had the spice all to itself.” Rather than follow with a shocking design template for the publication, Lubalin chose an elegant minimalist palette consisting of dynamic serifed typography balanced by high-quality illustrations. The magazine was printed on a budget, so Lubalin stuck with black and white printing on uncoated paper, as well as limiting himself to one or two typefaces and paying a single artist to handle all illustrations at bulk rate rather than dealing with multiple creators. The end result was one of dynamic minimalism that emphasized the underlying sentiment of the magazine better than “the scruffy homemade look of the underground press (or the) screaming typography of sensationalist tabloids” ever could. Fact itself folded in controversy as Eros before it, after being sued for several years by Barry Goldwater, the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
presidential candidate about whom Fact wrote an article entitled “The Unconscious of a Conservative: A special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater.” Goldwater was awarded a total of $90,000, effectively putting Fact out of business.
Logo
Lubalin and Ginzburg again turned one magazine’s demise into the creation of another, releasing Avant Garde six months later. The creation of the magazine’s logoLogo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
gram proved difficult, largely due to the inherent difficulties presented by the incompatible letterform
Letterform
A letterform, letter-form or letter form, is a term used especially in typography, paleography, calligraphy and epigraphy to mean a letter's shape.In one sense, letterform applies strictly to the design of individual letters...
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 demand for a complete typesetting
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
of the logo was extreme in the design community, so Lubalin released ITC Avant Garde from his International Typeface Corporation
International Typeface Corporation
The International Typeface Corporation was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin, and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of metal type...
in 1970. Unfortunately, Lubalin quickly realized that Avant Garde was widely misunderstood and misused in poorly thought-out solutions, eventually becoming a stereotypical 1970s font due to overuse. Steven Heller
Steven Heller (graphic design)
Steven Heller is an American art director, journalist, critic, author, and editor who specializes on topics related to graphic design....
, one of Lubalin’s fellow 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...
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 Futura-esque
Futura (typeface)
In typography, Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. It is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933...
face.” Regardless of ITC Avant Garde’s future uses, Lubalin’s original magazine logo was and remains highly influential in typographic design.
Page design
Avant Garde (January 1968 to issue 14 summer 1971) 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. Often, the magazine would 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’sPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
oft-neglected erotic engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s, which Lubalin willingly combined with his own aesthetic, printing them in a variety of colors, in reverse, or on disconcerting backgrounds. Unfortunately, Avant Garde again caught the ire of censors after an issue featuring an alphabet spelled out by nude models; Ralph Ginzburg was sent to prison, and publication ceased with a still-growing circulation of 250,000.
U&lc magazine
Lubalin spent the last ten years of his life working on a variety of projects, notably his typographic journal U&lc and the newly founded International Typographic Corporation. U&lc (shorthand for Upper and Lower Case) served as both an advertisement for Lubalin’s designs and a further plane of typographic experimentation; Steven Heller argues that U&lc was the first EmigreEmigre magazine
Emigre was a graphic design magazine published by Emigre Graphics between 1984 and 2005; it was first published in 1984 in San Francisco, California, USA...
, or at least the template for its later successes, for this very combination of promotion and revolutionary change in type design. Heller further notes, “In U&lc, he tested just how far smashed and expressive lettering might be taken. Under Lubalin’s tutelage, eclectic typography was firmly entrenched.” Lubalin enjoyed the freedom his magazine provided him; he was quoted as saying “Right now, I have what every designer wants and few have the good fortune to achieve. I’m my own client. Nobody tells me what to do.”