Although he repeatedly asked me to call him Bill, in all the years I worked for him, I could never call him anything but Mr. Bernbach. After six years of working for Jay Chiat, I wouldn’t think of calling him anything but Jay. Other than that, working for both men has been remarkably similar. Far…

To me, Janet Froelich isnt a magazine art director. Dont get me wrong: she is an art director, and a great one (having won more than 60 gold and silver awards from graphic design organizations, for one thing), and I have known my share of art directors, and lets leave it at that. But Janetwho…

Born in Leipzig, the son of a designer and painter of letters, Jan Tschichold was exposed early in childhood to the craft that became his life’s work. This first exposure to type notwithstanding, Tschichold studied to become an artist and took evening classes in calligraphy. In 1923, when he was twenty-one years old, he visited…

I’m glad to know Jan Middendorp personally for many years (much longer than many of my peers, but shorter than many of my colleagues, of course) and lucky to call him a friend.  I can even recall my first memory of him. I was a type design and typography student at UMPRUM Academy of Art,…

In his long and varied career, James Webb Young served as head of J. Walter Thompson (JWT), president of the 4A’s, college professor and consultant to U.S. presidents. But it is his achievements as a copywriter that earned him entry into the Creative Hall of Fame. His 1919 “Within the curve of a women’s arm”…

Jack Tinker is best knownparticularly to younger peoplefor his creative think tank that helped spawn many of the trends of the creative revolution of the sixties. But for 30 years before that, he had been a bright lightan art director of protean skills. And Tinker has been an important presence in the industry. The word…

When Ivan Chermayeff arrived at Harvard in the early 1950’s he presented the Dean of Undergraduate Studies with an unusual request. Rather than majoring in any particular subject, Chermayeff wanted to major in professors. A man of obvious perception, the Dean gave his approval. As a result, Chermayeff’s program of study was a crazy-quilt of…

Issey Miyake (1938-2022) was born in Hiroshima in 1938. He graduated from the Tama University, Tokyo in 1963 with a degree in graphic design. In 1965, he left for Paris to study at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. From 1966-1969 he worked for different fashion houses in Paris and New…

Strong, clean, and impactful are the best descriptives you could use to describe Ikko Tanaka’s work. They are universal images, honed with a fastidious eye: finding the natural flow of photographs in a book spread, steadying the central point of a corporate symbol so the mind retains every detail, and enriching the typographic and illustrative…

Howard Zieff is the advertising legend whose comic eye and flawless direction put Benson & Hedges 100s and Alka-Seltzer on the map. He is also the Hollywood film director whose boundless energy, attention to detail, and acute sense of timing contribute immeasurably to the success of films likePrivate BenjaminandMy Girl. Zieff grew up in Los…