Herb Lubalin 
was an American
graphic designer also known as the king of typography. He entered Cooper Union
at the age of 17. He was mesmerized with typography as a way of communication.
Lubalin collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on three of Ginzburg’s magazines: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde. Lubalin graduated in 1939. He was fired from a job at
a design firm for requesting $10.00 an hour versus his eight dollars that he was
making. Lubalin worked for Reiss Advertising for a short period, and in 1945 he
went to work for Sudler & Hennessey. He worked for Sudler & Hennessey
for 19 years and in 1957 he along with John J. Graham created the original NBC Peacock
logo. “The Cooper Union web book 100 Days of Herb Lubalin (day 46)
displays a Sudler ad from the 1950s that shows Andy Warhol,
Art Kane and John Pistilli were among his
employees”.
In 1961 Lublin designed a trademark
for the Saturday Evening Post. That redesign
of the Post was the subject for a Norman Rockwell
cover painting. In 1973 Lubalin designed a trademark for the World Trade Center he also designed
versions of Readers Digest, New Leader, and Euros Magazine the last which was
surrounded in controversy as it was involved in a Supreme Court case on obscenity Ginzburg v The United
States 383 U.S. 463 (1966). Fact Magazine found itself involved with
controversy after publishing an article on a then conservative candidate for
president Barry Goldwater it was titled “The Unconscious of a Conservative; it
was a special issue on the mind of Barry Goldwater. Goldwater sued and was
awarded $90,000. He succeeded in causing the magazine to fold.
Not long after the magazine Avant Garde was introduced “Avant
Garde was Lubalin’s signature, and in
his hands it had character; in others’ it
was a flawed Futura-esque face.”[9] Regardless of ITC Avant Garde’s future uses, Lubalin’s original
magazine logo was and remains highly influential in typographic design.”
Lubalin spent the last tens years of his life working on his own projects his
last notable project was a typographic journal U & Ic. Lubalin enjoyed the freedom his magazine provided him; he was quoted as saying “Right
now, I have what every designer wants and few have the good fortune
to achieve. I’m my own client. Nobody tells me what to do
His independent spirit is quite evident in your review. "Nobody tells me what to do."... Seems refreshing these days.
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