Design Literacy

by Steven Heller

  Liberman’s success was further guaranteed not just because Nast valued the young Liberman’s judgment, but also because he was taken under the wing of the former editor of Vanity Fair, Frank Crowninshield, who, since the demise of his own magazine had been the fine arts consultant editor of Vogue. One day during Liberman’s first month on the job he was playing with a Horst photograph of a girl in a bathing suit lying on her back balancing a beach ball on her feet. He substituted the O in Vogue for the ball, which had no fixed logo in those days. “Crowninshield happened to be walking through the art department … he stopped to look at Alex’s design, which impressed him enormously,” wrote Kazanjian and Tompkins. “‘There’s a genius in the art department,’ he told Nast.”

  In those days fashion plates were photographed in their hats and “royal robes.” The main Vogue pages were created in Paris and arrived in New York entirely laid out. When Liberman was appointed Vogue’s art director in 1942 he rebelled against Parisian dominance. “I had always resented the fussy, feminine, condescending approach to women by women’s magazines,” he asserted. “I thought it was important to shake up this rather somnolent society. If we had to show hats, I tried to mix hats with contemporary life.” He also introduced art into fashion photography, and had Cecil Beaton photograph a model in front of some Jackson Pollock paintings. He admired the lack of artifice in photographs by portraitists Nadar, Atget, and August Sander. “Fortunately, Irving Penn came into my life,” Liberman boasted. “He worked as an assistant with me in the art department on design and layout until one day I said, ‘Why don’t you go and take the picture.’”

  Clarity and strength of communication are what interested Liberman. He admitted that graphic design for its own sake was meaningless…

  Clarity and strength of communication are what interested Liberman. He admitted that graphic design for its own sake was meaningless, and was never so “sensitized to type” that a sixteenth of a millimeter spacing mattered. He rejected fancy typefaces and in 1947 changed the logo of Vogue from an elegant Bodoni to Franklin Gothic, which he claims until then was only used in newspapers. “I thought it had strength and looked modern. All the captions and the titles were set in Franklin Gothic, which was then revolutionary in women’s publications.”

  “[I]mperfection was the essence of what Liberman was looking for—the breakthrough from fantasy and artifice into the here-and-now,” wrote Kazanjian and Tompkins. “It was the antidote to the ‘visions of loveliness’ that Mrs. Chase and generations of Vogue readers cherished—visions that Alex wanted to banish forever from the pages of Vogue, in part because he felt that they were demeaning to women. Vogue was not really about fashion, he always said; it was about women.”

  Like Brodovitch, Liberman focused his creative energy on photography; he encouraged many women photographers to enter a field largely dominated by men. Liberman urged Vogue’s editors to publish photographs of Dachau concentration camp by Lee Miller, a former model who learned photography from Man Ray. “Nobody realizes that Vogue published them,” he related. “But for me this was practically a justification for being on Vogue.” For Liberman the lessons of Lee Miller’s and Cecil Beaton’s war photography changed the style of fashion photography. News photography in general and the emergence of a daring paparazzi forced a rethinking at Vogue that exceeded the boundaries of visual presentation. “I’ve always felt that Vogue was one of the strong pioneers for democratization, for women’s rights, and for breaking down false cultural values,” asserted Liberman.

  Like Brodovitch, Liberman shared the belief that cinematic pacing was the visual backbone of a magazine. However, Brodovitch saw photography as an art form while Liberman believed that “photographs … were documents—momentary glimpses of something that could be printed in ink on a magazine page and eventually discarded. That was their function and their fate,” wrote Kazanjian and Tompkins. Liberman made layout sequences the way a film is cut, trying to communicate moods through narrative imagery. “I hate white space because white space is an old album tradition,” he charged. “I need to be immersed in the subject matter.”

  Liberman’s approach has been subjected to harsh criticism from other designers who argue that his contempt for design has lowered the standards of magazine layout. But his anti-design fervor was sincere, and his disgust for anything that was visually flabby and antediluvian influenced all the magazines he touched. The most significant change in Vogue from the 1960s to the 1980s was its shift from bold elegance to striking sensationalism. Reversed type and other strong typographic devices (such as torn edges and screaming headlines) borrowed from the sensationalist press were used to accentuate motion, catch the eye, and communicate the message. “Much bolder type is intended for faster communication,” explained Liberman. “White space does not exist, but a certain power, a daring has emerged that wasn’t there even when I first used Franklin Gothic. In retrospect it seems dainty.”

  Scope

  WILL BURTIN

  Bacteriology is about as interesting to graphic designers as typography is to bacteriologists. But for graphic designer Will Burtin (1908–1972), German-born son of a French chemist, learning to understand molecular biology, endocrinology, and bacteriology was like working with a classic cut of Didot or Bodoni. Making such complex data accessible to himself and others was as pleasurable as designing an elegant page of text. The role of the graphic designer, he wrote in Print (May 1955), was to increase the average man’s understanding “between what the reading public knows and what it should know.”

  His professional life was, therefore, devoted to designing the kind of information that decorative designers reject as humdrum. Indeed such technical material might have remained forever ignored by aesthetics, relegated to dry textbooks, if Burtin had not become the champion of beautiful functionality. As design consultant for the Upjohn Company—one of America’s largest producers of pharmaceuticals—from 1948 to 1971, he made functional design as attractive as any book or poster. Burtin refused to shy away from complexity, rather he interpreted it and then cast it in an accessible light. This was evident in the layouts and covers he designed while art editor for Scope, Upjohn’s scientific house organ.

  Burtin, who left Hitler’s Germany in 1939 after being ordered to design posters for the Nazis, adopted Thomas Jefferson’s dictum, “To learn how to keep learning is the mark of civilized man.” He believed that designers had to know about more fields than just design, and among the ones he embraced, science was integral to every area of human activity. Science, the exploration and prediction of phenomena, is the holy grail of civilization, and for the sake of clarity scientists reduce time, space, and thought into abstract symbols. “The designer stands between these concepts, at the center, because of his unique role as communicator … interpreter, and inspirer,” Burtin wrote in Graphis #4 (1949).

  Preoccupation with graphic communication of scientific phenomenon and theory dominated Burtin’s practice.

  In this sense Burtin and Upjohn were the perfect match. His graphics for their advertisements, catalogs, and Scope were rooted in simplicity and directness with emphasis on the message. But Burtin imbued each piece with unique attributes that identified the work as his own. “Integration” was his mantra. It was also the defining trait of his graphic signature. “In designing booklets, posters, ads, exhibits, and displays, I noticed that the integration of job components towards a dramatic end-product asked for a measure of discipline difficult to define,” he wrote. But he defined it as the marriage of order and instinct—learning everything there is about a particular subject and then allowing instinct to drive the design. In 1948 he designed an exhibition for the AD Gallery, entitled “Integration: New Discipline in Art,” which demonstrated how he, and by extension others, clarify scientific information for general consumption. “Understanding of space and time relations is a main requirement in visual organization. In printed design images are superimposed on paper surfaces. The spaces inside and between letters
, between lines of type, their relationship to illustration, are vital factors, which determine the eye’s access to the basic information,” he explained in terms that added a scientific dimension to graphic design.

  Preoccupation with the graphic communication of scientific phenomenon and theory dominated Burtin’s practice. As art director of Fortune from 1945 to 1949 he developed a vocabulary for conveying information through the design of charts, maps, graphs, and diagrams that made complex data discernible and understandable. Ladislav Sutnar noted in Visual Design in Action (Hastings House, 1961) that Burtin developed two basic approaches: The purist, where charts and diagrams were compressed into a two-dimensional projection, with color used to facilitate understanding; and the dramatized approach, the grouping of visual data with posterlike impact as in a chart describing how cosmic ray trajectories bombarded the earth. For this Burtin used airbrush to transform a photograph of the globe into a scientific diagram so concise and beautiful that it functioned both as art and information. This was the foundation on which he built even more intricate, yet no less accessible, graphics for Scope.

  “Who said that science cannot achieve beauty,” Burtin argued in Print. “What nonsense, that art cannot contain scientific truth! It is human limitation, deficiency of understanding, that make one or the other not do what they can do.” Much like Leonardo da Vinci, Burtin asserted that art was the queen of sciences, a means of obtaining knowledge and communicating it to all generations. Being a designer was being a scientist. Design was about clarity, not sterility, and Scope was the embodiment of this goal. Originally designed by Lester Beall, Scope already had a modern format; its type was elegant and the graphics were sprinkled with signposts that guided the viewer through a hierarchy of information. Burtin took this to an even greater level of virtuosity. Edited for physicians, Scope was intended to improve the understanding of modern therapeutics, establish goodwill, and help sell Upjohn’s products, yet Burtin gave it entry points that allowed access to the average reader, as well. It is no wonder that Burtin’s mastery at translating tough scientific concepts—the ability to transform technical language into visual symbols—afforded readers a clear grasp of the material.

  For the professional reader, arcane medical articles were not cluttered with dreary text boxes and drab flow charts. “The choice of format was … of great importance, not only to give the new journal the distinction we wished it to have but to appeal appropriately to the physician,” explained Burtin in Print. The house organs already in existence ran the gamut in design from the most conservative to the most modern, and from those that used design sparingly to those that were highly and almost flamboyantly ornamental. Since conservatism was inappropriate for a journal devoted to a rapidly progressing science, contemporaneousness of design seemed mandatory but frivolousness seemed out of place. Burtin’s designs were conceptually acute and couched in an idiom that was scientific in its clarity. His use of photographs of microscopic imagery gave the work an abstract quality that suggested modern art. And in the modern spirit, design was not used for its decorative effect but as an integral part of the scientific presentations. Even the covers of Scope were designed not only to be attractive, but also to suggest the content. Inspired by contemporary art, the visually poetic collages and montages echoed formal elements of modern plastic art. In so doing Burtin developed a visual method that influenced how the pharmaceutical industry approached advertising and promotion for years to follow.

  Esquire

  In revoking Esquire’s second-class mailing privileges the Postmaster General of the United States charged that the magazine was obscene and that its content was not “information of a public character.” Although this sounds like the kind of detour around the First Amendment that Senator Jesse Helms might try, this action was actually taken in 1943 against a ten-year-old magazine whose reputation for taboo breaking was at that time more accidental than deliberate. Publisher David Smart never intended for Esquire to be revolutionary when he founded it in 1933, but rather to serve as a deluxe men’s companion of literature, fashion, art, and women. It was the latter, specifically the sultry “pinups” painted by Alberto Vargas, creator of the Vargas Girl, that prompted the official action. Esquire immediately appealed its case to the Supreme Court, which in 1946 ruled that the Postmaster General had no discretion to withhold any privileges simply because it failed to live up to some vague standards of public morality. Justice William O. Douglas wrote that such an act would be “a power of censorship abhorrent to our traditions.”

  This wasn’t the last time Esquire ignited public controversy or challenged public taste. Indeed for many of its almost six decades Esquire has been an American publishing institution without equal in the realms of art and literature, and sometimes politics. It has been alternately a trendsetter and bellwether. It has at times rocked the foundations of propriety, challenged cultural traditions, and has itself been shaken under the pressures of public opinion.

  Henry Wolf (1925–2005) was hired as graphics editor of Esquire in 1952, five months after he joined the promotion art department as a junior designer. He was twenty-six, one of the youngest design stewards at any national magazine. Not only his age but also his elevation from the chorus line, or art bullpen, to a leading role on the masthead was the stuff of publishing industry legend. Arnold Gingrich, Esquire’s founding editor—who set the tone of the magazine in the 1930s with an entertaining mixture of high literature and a touch of salaciousness—had returned to the company after resolving a major disagreement with publisher David Smart that had forced the former’s temporary retirement. Since Gingrich left in the early 1940s, Esquire had taken a nosedive, becoming ostensibly a girlie magazine with some mediocre fiction and fashion sections. When he returned, Esquire’s layout was tawdry, replete with crass novelty lettering and sentimental cosmopolitan-styled illustration. He sought to cure its most superficial ills with a bright new talent.

  Wolf took a year or two to get the magazine the way he liked it. The first big changeovers included conceptual photographic covers (shot by Dan Wynn and Ben Somoroff), streamlining of the rather horsy Esquire masthead (by Ed Benguait, who was in the art bullpen) into a distinctive logotype, introduction of simple interior typography, and development of a stable of expressive illustrators (including Tom Allen, Robert Weaver, Tomi Ungerer, Rudy de Harak, R. O. Blechman, and others). “Still,” he lamented, “I couldn’t get rid of the girlie gatefold for some time because Gingrich didn’t want to lose that part of his audience.”

  Gingrich’s tastes molded Esquire and influenced the young Wolf. “I do a magazine I’d like to get in the mail,” stated the dapper man-about-town in an interview with Edward R. Murrow. “I like fishing, I like cars, I like some girls.” He also appreciated what his editors and art director liked, and so gave Wolf as many as eight pages in each issue to present whatever he wanted. In the late 1950s Esquire was not just a collection of random stories and features, but an entity with a massive “editorial sandwich” as well. While some vestiges of the past remained, such as the girlie pics and gag cartoons, during Wolf’s tenure the editorial mix changed considerably. Wolf’s interests in high and low culture was manifest in exciting photo shoots by some of America’s most promising image makers. Indeed all writers and artists wanted to be showcased in Esquire. Ben Shahn and Richard Lindner did illustrations for $150 and $75.

  Wolf left in 1958 and was replaced by his assistant, a young cartoonist and writer, Robert Benton (b. 1932), who later became an Academy Award–winning director (Kramer vs. Kramer). Benton was art director during a period of “fun anarchy.” Gingrich was loosening control, and two editors, Harold Hayes and Clay Felker, were in a face-off for the editorship. For most of Benton’s tenure no one was really in charge, allowing him freedoms that otherwise might have been impossible. Benton is credited by many of those with whom he worked for evolving editorial illustration to its next conceptual stage. Robert Andrew Parker, for instance, walked in from off the street wit
h a series of “Imaginary War” paintings that Benton rushed into print. Milton Glaser recalls that “Benton was inventive and funny, and gave a very special stamp to the magazine during his period. It differed from Henry’s Esquire not in terms of design but on the literary side. He had great ideas for stories that he and [writer] David Newman [later his movie collaborator] were always generating. To a large extent they formed the backbone of Esquire’s character at that time.” Benton and Newman’s most lasting contribution was Esquire’s “Dubious Achievement Awards.” Each year the “Dubies” laid waste pompous, hypercritical, and scandalous public figures with biting wit and needle-sharp truth, sometimes just bordering on libel.

  Around 1963 Harold Hayes won the hard fought editorship of Esquire. About the same time Benton left to begin his movie career. David November was brought in as graphics editor to, as one observer puts it, “do the mechanicals for Harold.” In practice, Hayes, a rather astute editor, was doing the art direction—and doing it poorly. The magazine was beginning one of its slides when Sam Antupit (b. 1932) was introduced to Hayes. Antupit had previously been Wolf’s assistant at Harper’s Bazaar and Show, and was working at Push Pin Studios when outgoing editor Clay Felker, whom he knew casually, asked if he would like to be art director of Esquire. Antupit took the job with the proviso that he have full control of the visual content of Esquire. The only caveat to which Antupit did not object was that George Lois (b. 1931)—whose agency Papert Koenig Lois was doing innovative advertising at the time—would conceive and design the covers. “It didn’t bother me,” admitted Antupit “because there was so much to do anyway. And Harold made a really good political point: … every editor felt that his or her articles were the best in the magazine and that they should be featured on the cover. Hayes said that it was up to him to decide which was the most important and not anybody else. But he couldn’t do that without alienating his editors. So here was the perfect thing. An outsider read all the manuscripts and picked the one he wanted to illustrate on the cover. Sometimes he didn’t pick Harold’s lead. The Andy Warhol soup can thing was not the main featured article, but it was one of the best covers George ever did.”