While technology and new media continue to transform the process and delivery of visual communications, what hasn’t changed is the designer’s need to create compelling messages that connect with their intended audiences. On the following pages is a sampling of work and commentary from a few of the designers and firms we’ve profiled in the last 60 years. Much of the work continues to exude a vibrancy that transcends its moment in time.
Right: Litton Industries annual report, 1960. Robert Miles Runyan & Associates, design firm.
“There must be a rapport between the client and the designer. Whether this rapport centers around an intellectual, professional or personal level doesn’t really matter—as long as there is a respect translated between two people.” —S. Neil Fujita, 1962
“The most important factor in our work is the operation of a unique personality. The design should never be anonymous.
—Milton Glaser, Push Pin Studios, 1962
“We’re selling concept and production capabilities. All that neatness and showy presentation hasn’t got a damn thing to do with how well you’ve solved the problem.” —David Ashton, Ashton-Worthington, 1973
Right: Bauhaus book cover, 1969. Muriel Cooper, designer; MIT Press, publisher.
“Excessive outputting can destroy anyone. You need inputs like information, solitude, observation, nature. You want to be a good designer, do good work, meet deadlines. But you also want to be a good human being.”
—Vance Jonson, 1977
Right: US Film Festival poster, 1973. Cap Pannell, art director/designer; Ron Sullivan, illustrator; The Richards Group, design firm.
“What you need to understand, if you’re going to understand the annual report business, is that they’re all problem-solving jobs. They’re not done for art’s sake, and they’re not done for our sake. They’re done to solve somebody’s problem.”
—Arnold Saks, 1978
Right: Arts Council of Great Britain poster, 1974. Alan Fletcher, designer; Pentagram Design Partnership, design firm.
“Books are, as all of us know, labors of love anyway. No good designer can really afford to do them the way they ought to be done.” —Louise Fili, 1986
Right: Olympic graphics program for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, 1983. Deborah Sussman/Paul Prejza, partners in charge; Mark Nelson, project manager; Debra Valencia, senior designer; Sussman/Prejza & Co., design firm.
“If you have a brilliant idea and it’s well executed, then the whole piece holds together. But a lot of stuff that’s just well produced presents itself as good design, and it’s not.” —Leslie Smolan, Carbone Smolan Associates, 1987
Right: Progressive Corporation annual report, 1988. Nesnadny & Schwartz, design firm.
“I think of my work as conceptual. The appeal may be to a different aesthetic, where preconceived notions of ‘pretty’ or ‘ugly’ have no real function. All that matters to me is concept combined with ink on paper.” —Art Chantry, 1988
Right: The Earth Technology Corporation annual report, 1994. Lana Rigsby/Troy S. Ford, designers; JoAnn Stone, writer; Gary Faye, photographer; Rigsby Design, design firm.
“Design is seductive propaganda. I don’t think we can forget that we have a responsibility as a communication profession to make the most of that.”
—Jennifer Morla, Morla Design, 1993
“There’s no office aesthetic here, really. I guess it’s because of the mix of people, but the result can sometimes be a kind of creative chaos.”
—Dana Arnett, VSA Partners, 1994
“We never deliberately make something difficult to read. We try to provoke people into reading things they might otherwise skip.” —John Plunkett, Plunkett + Kuhr, 1995
Right: David Byrne Feelings CD packaging, 1996. Stefan Sagmeister, art director; Stefan Sagmeister/Hjalti Karlsson, designers; David Byrne, writer; Tom Schierlitz, photographer; Yuji Yoshimoto, model maker; Sagmeister Inc., design firm.
“If we don’t create images for our client to grow into, then our work is of no lasting value.” —Jack Anderson, Hornall Anderson Design Works, 1996
Right: Tazo Tea packaging, 2001. Steve Sandstrom, designer/art director; Steve Sandoz, writer; Sandstrom Design, design firm.
“I loved when you worked on projects in the old days; you sketched and photocopied and Scotch-taped. You arrived there; it didn’t just happen. You knew you had done the work.” —Sharon Werner, Werner Design Werks, 2002
Right: Saks Fifth Avenue packaging, 2007. Michael Bierut/Jennifer Kinon/Kerrie Powell, designers; Joe Finocchiaro, typography; Pentagram Design, design firm.
“Most of us got into the field because we enjoy making things. But over the years, we discovered that the process of designing can be applied to more than just artifacts. It can be applied to an entire range of business activities.” —Robert Stone, Stone Yamashita Partners, 2005
Right: Canada Post Signs of the Zodiac stamps, 2011. François Leclerc/Daniel Robitaille, art directors; Louis Gagnon, creative director; Paprika, design firm.
“If you can’t get a concept down on a piece of paper, don’t bother with the execution. Our designers focus on the concept—not on what font or style of execution to use, but on what we’re trying to say.”
—Pum Lefebure, Design Army, 2009
Right: Platform Summit identity, 2014. Ken Deegan/Pedro Mendes, designers; Eddie Opara, art director; Pentagram, design firm.
“We question assumptions. Maybe they don’t need a logo. Maybe they need to sit down and write some letters to their customers. Maybe it’s a really good holiday gift. We figure out what they don’t need as much as what they do need.”
—Jennifer Jerde, Elixir Design, 2009
Right: Exploratorium After Dark identity, 2017. Kris Wong, lead designer; David Nguyen, design director; Karin Soukup, creative director; Matt Luckhurst, chief creative officer; Shea Jackson, producer; collins, design firm.
“Having something take root in a much more public, nondesigner forum is really what we aspire to do. Design is for people, not Pinterest.” —Eric Heiman, Volume Inc., 2014