Who doesn’t love the title sequence from Mister Magoo? Little did we know as small children we were watching the work of design hero Alvin Lustig. For those living under a rock, Mister Magoo was a television cartoon character voiced by Jim Backus (Mr. Howell on Gilligan’s Island).  The cartoon followed the practically blind Magoo’s misadventures. Obviously many a hi-jinx occurred with driving and cases of mistaken identity. United Productions of America, UPA, produced Mr. Magoo. Lustig designed their logo also. My favorite moment: the roller coaster near miss. I suggest we stop yelling, “mother@#%*!^,” and yell “Road hog,” when someone cuts you off. Or at least, I should.

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A few weeks ago, Lou Danziger called and told us he was willing to part with his history slide library. Noreen immediately took him up on the offer and drove to his house to retrieve the treasure. I’d seen these slides before. Many, many, many years ago I was in Lou Danziger’s history of design class. This class was after lunch in a dark, warm room. Clearly, set up for sleeping. Now I wasn’t a kiss-ass (well, sort of), but I sat next to Lou and the old slide projector and was riveted. I remember the Lou’s description of the compositional structure of a Jules Chéret poster, and the ambiguity of color of a Josef Müller-Brockmann piece, but I was especially drawn to Alvin Lustig.

There was something tragic about his short life. He went blind from diabetes, insisted on continuing to design, and died at forty. His work is sublime. As usual, Steven Heller is the authority on Lustig, and his article “Born Modern” is an insightful and comprehensive analysis. I continue to be inspired by Lustig’s book covers. Including many of his pieces, I use the cover for Lorca’s 3 Tragedies as an example of juxtaposition in my class at Art Center. I like to think that this is a tribute, teaching at the same place he studied and lectured, and using his work as the highest example of an idea.

Fortune magazine cover

Alvin Lustig book covers

Camino Real book cover

3 Tragedies book cover

UPA logos

3 Wagons Full of Cotton book cover

Industrial Design magazine cover

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History of Electricity cover

Years ago, Lorraine Wild showed me a publication that Eric Nitsche had designed for General Dynamics and it changed the way I look at design. Nitsche had been a hero of mine for years. I tend to like the designers who aren’t the huge names, but do great work just under the radar, like Alvin Lustig, or Lester Beall. Am I self aware? Probably not. Steven Heller wrote a wonderful essay about Nitsche in 1999. Nitsche is not the rock star like his contemporaries, Paul Rand, or Saul Bass, but he is remarkable. His simple modernist aesthetic combines a scientific rigor and precision with an emotional fluidness. That’s not easy.  Michael Bierut says, “Design is 90% persuasion.” (Michael forgive me if I have the percentage wrong, its’ not that I don’t try hard, it’s that I’m stupid). How Nitsche convinced his clients to give him enormous amounts of real estate on a page for nothing is genius. When I showed one of his spreads from a General Dynamics project to Chris and Monica in my office, they both said, “Yeah right. A client would demand that you make the image bigger, or add a few paragraphs.” We’ve religiously collected Nitsche’s books, and I’ve been warned by my staff to not share this secret. But I am convinced that we all need as much inspiration as possible these days. Does that sound political? Sorry, it’s in my DNA.

History of Transportation, cover

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postcard, General Dynamics

Annual Report, General Dynamics, spread

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