He gained a reputation for using tight-letter-and-line spacing and conveying type in a very unique illustrative way that influenced generations of type designers around the globe, and cemented his status as one of the world’s most inventive and inspiring designers. His amazing body of work broke with tradition in every possible way. He also co-founded International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in late 1969, which soon became one of the largest type foundries in the world. Lubalin went on to establish his own design studio – Herb Lubalin, Inc. where – as a partner – he brushed aside the traditional norm of copy-driven advertising and added a new visual dimension to art direction. After leaving this place he worked for a number of other prominent firms such as Fairchild Publications and Reiss Publications, but it was his two decades of experience at Sudler & Hennessey, Inc. Early life and careerīorn on March 17, 1918, in New York City, Herb Lubalin graduated from Copper Union and started his early career as an art director for Deutsch & Shea Advertising. Herb Lubalin is often considered as one of the greatest and most influential graphic and type designers in history. Lubalin’s groundbreaking and adventurous typographic innovations – particularly his emphasis on tight type – have influenced the state of visual communications, but his wonderful accomplishments in the arena of graphic arts and advertising goes well beyond typography. He is remembered for his expressive and bold experimentation with type, and his uncanny skill to locate illustrative ideas and emotion in every word or note. 83 vol.Herb Lubalin (Ma– May 24, 1981) is universally considered one of the greatest and most influential figures in the history of graphic design, typography, and art direction. A limited-edition, numbered and boxed edition of this book can be ordered for the reduced price of £55 until 13 August 2012 from the Unit Editions website: Article first published in Eye no. Herb Lubalin: American Graphic Designer 1918-81 (Unit Editions). Today, as we foreground human-centred design, Lubalin seems remarkably contemporary. Along with Seymour Chwast and a handful of writers and illustrators, Lubalin produced McGraphic, an eight-page pro-McGovern / anti-Nixon / anti-Vietnam War newspaper.Īfter two years researching Lubalin’s life and work, I have found that his design was inclusive and humanistic: he pioneered a form of typographic design that required the participation of his audience, and never did anything that was authoritarian, bombastic or elitist. And he was a supporter of Senator George McGovern, the ‘peace candidate’ who stood against Richard Nixon in the 1972 US presidential race.
When this is compounded with his work with Ginzburg, which put him at the forefront of the 1960s free speech and anti-censorship movements, we see he was unafraid to declare his political allegiances and sympathies.įor such a high-profile designer, he was not above working on small, no-budget liberal journals. He was never a radical, but a progressive liberal at a time when such sympathies were undoubtedly ‘bad for business’.