Famous Designers

To be a graphic designer is one thing, and despite what you may learn from a book or in college, it’s the artists who break the rules who become recognized as famous graphic designers. Creativity isn’t necessarily about sitting down and straining your mind to come up with ideas – sometimes, it just involves experimenting. It’s not even about what medium you use – anything from paintings to sculptures to Photoshop art can be considered graphic design. The most creative ideas are often very simple, and many of the more eminent designers probably didn’t spend months pondering over the works that made them famous.

David Carson and Neville Brody are known for their experimentation with text and fonts, the aftermath of which began appearing in magazines. Carson in particular played around with eccentric type and merged said type with photos to achieve his style. Does the name Milton Glaser ring a bell? If you’ve taken any kind of art history or design history class, you should definitely recognize that name, since Glaser designed several well-known logos, including the “I ♥ NY” insignia. More recently, Jonathan Ive, while not quite a graphic designer, is known for his design of the iMac and the iPod, and his designs aided considerably in transforming Apple from a figurative Joe Schmoe to Almighty Deity in terms of business.

How about Paul Rand? Several of his logos are also quite prominent, such as the emblems for ABC, IBM, and for the slightly professionally-tarnished Enron. Do you remember Patrick Nagel, the designer/painter who did Art Deco-esque paintings of women (many for Playboy, and some for 80s band Duran Duran)? His method resembles the vector illustration technique that can be achieved today in Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to include him because illustrators often don’t get included in lists of great designers, even though many aspects of graphic design are also technically forms of illustration (like logo design). And also because I personally think he has a unique style and is a fantastic artist.

Let’s go back further in history, even – Aldus Manutius, who was born around the middle of the 1400s, was the inventor of the italic type style. And speaking of fonts, did you know that the Helvetica font (which a movie was also named after) was created in Switzerland? Every single font you see that you might take for granted was designed by someone at some point… even Times New Roman.

The bottom line is this: Following the rules can mean getting paid, but breaking the rules can be what puts your name in the art history books. Adhere to the rules when working, but rebel in your spare time.