Alvin Lustig

PJ in Budapest has a fantastic type blog and has very kindly featured Ace Jet 170 a little while back. It's written in Hungarian, which you won't be surprised to learn I unfortunately don't speak, but it's worth a good look around, it's ace!

For example, there's a link to an amazing and comprehensive tribute to Alvin Lustig, who made these incredible typographic compositions. I'm surprised you don't hear more about him, although he died quite young his output was impressive both in it's quality and it's originality.

Root around that a bit and you'll find the Dr Leslie Project which tells of the good Dr and the Composing Room:

Founded in 1927 by Sol Cantor and Dr. Robert L. Leslie, The Composing Room set out to be the cream of the crop in typesetting firms. Described in a promotional piece as "a shop where type is set intelligently for intelligent clients. Also promptly, reasonably, and with true professional enthusiasm. An outfit which plays up the art in every particular, and doesn't and doesn't miss the fun in fundamentals either."

Like Paul Giambarba's account of his work with Polaroid, it's a fascinating flash back into American Graphic Design history.

Back to PJ's blog and you'll find a wealth of other brilliant material. I could just lift it all and post it here but that would be doing PJ a terrible injustice. Go and have a look.

Comments

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Dwell Magazine, this month, has an article about him.