chain of INNOVATIVE and MODERNIST designs

defamiliarize the ordinary

conceptual, professional, practical

informal group of american poets, painters & musicians

inspiration from surrealism + contemporary avant-garde art movements

action painting, abstract expressionism, jazz improvisational theater, world's vanguard circle

Cover of Direction

PAUL RAND

1940, USA

cultural magazines with left-wing slant & anti-fascist agenda

biting commentary on impending escalation of WWII

barbed wire > ribbon

dots > blood

foreshadowing

Cover of H.L.Mencken, Prejudices: A Selection

PAUL RAND

1958, USA

low budget, bland book

biting commentary to mencken: figure + cut paper

conceptual/interesting

Eye Bee M Poster

PAUL RAND

1981, USA

established graphic standards (notice signature)

ibm event 

most know poster

Poster announcing UCLA Extension's Winter Quarter

PAUL RAND

1990, USA

citrus + california > winter season

Stettler typeface announcements, Reader's Digest mastheads

HERB LUBALIN

mid-late 1960s, USA

Covers for Avant Garde #1 and #12

HERB LUBALIN

1968 & 1970, USA

sexual revolution

provacative magazine > alphabet of nudes

loVe > vagina

U&lc

HERB LUBALIN

1976, USA

1776 bicentennial

lifestyle magazine for designers

Album cover for RND Orchestra of Philadelphia

ALEX STEINWEISS

1940-50s, USA

*compare to EL LISSITZKY's beat the red

influence like lester beall

Album cover for Joseph Szigeti

ALEX STEINWEISS

1940-50s, USA

*compare to mondrian

Album cover for Contrasts in Hi-Fi, Bob Sharples

ALEX STEINWEISS

1940-50s, USA

Cover for Print

IVAN CHERMAYEFF

1962, USA

speaks for studio's work

visual puns > common > new meaning

paint splatters/blood

Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare

(Bertrand Russell)

THOMAS GEISMAR

1958-9, USA

campaign for peace > height of cold war

Oldenburg Book

CHERMAYEFF + GEISMAR

1970, USA

monograph featuring work of claes oldenburg

unconventional materials

Guggenheim Museum Poster

CHERMAYEFF + GEISMAR

1975, USA

mimics shape of building

Anatomy of a Murder

(Otto Preminger)

SAUL BASS

1959, USA

thinking made VISUAL

Esquire Cover

GEORGE LOIS

March 1968, USA

the masculinization of the american woman

inventored of big idea

Esquire Cover

GEORGE LOIS

April 1968, USA

muhammad ali, a conscientious objector to the war in vietnam, was stripped of his fighting title and sentenced to five years in prison

(because he didn't go to vietnam)

saint sebastian - catholic

top 10 covers 

Esquire Cover

GEORGE LOIS

May 1969, USA

the decline and collapse of the american avant-garde

andy warhol getting sucked into his own soup signature