SVA Archives

December 05, 2017

Ivan Chermayeff 1932-2017

A tribute to the brilliant designer Ivan Chermayeff.

October 24, 2014

Against the grain

These exhibition catalogs and announcements for the Museum of Contemporary Crafts were created just a year after the museum’s founding in 1956.

March 03, 2014

That New York

Brownjohn, Chermayeff and Geismar’s expressive typography for The Composing Room.

November 24, 2013

Love and Joy About Letters is a testament to Ben Shahn’s love affair with letters: the beauty of the letter forms, the liberating influence hand-lettering, and how the incorporation of letters added meaning to his art.

November 16, 2013

C&G for Howard Wise Gallery

Chermayeff & Geismar designed a series of exhibition posters for the Howard Wise Gallery in the 1960s, highlighting the artists’ works. Wise exhibited abstract expressionists including Milton Resnick and Edward Dugmore, and later specialized in kinetic art and light sculputure.

October 25, 2013

What am I doing here?

I was initially drawn to this book because it reminded me of the Chas Addams and Ed Arno collections from my dad’s bookshelf. There are stylistic similarities to the classic New Yorker cartoons, but Abner Dean’s work dispenses with their gloss to espouse a much bleaker reality.

September 16, 2013

Chermayeff and Geismar’s System 1

Is it a top secret missile defense system? A world-wide clandestine computer network designed to topple rogue governments? The futuristic and vaguely ominous-sounding System 1 was actually an office furniture system from Dictaphone’s furniture division Marble/Imperial.

August 20, 2013

High-caliber promotions

Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar designed this elaborate promo system for a Knoll modular filing system. Some details from the project follow.

August 12, 2013

Desk set

Chermayeff & Geismar’s promotional work for General Fireproofing’s steel office furniture neatly represents how they adapted their dominant styles to suit the needs of their corporate clients.

July 02, 2013

C&G for Masterpiece Theatre

Masterpiece Theatre was the principal portal into British television for American audiences in the seventies; Mobil, the sponsor, drafted their longtime designers Chermayeff & Geismar to make posters for various features.

June 01, 2013

Six ways of looking at a piano

Ivan Chermayeff uses collage and collections to create texture and dimensionality, continually exploring modernist ideas about bringing process to the forefront.

May 25, 2013

Pepsi Generation

The design firm of Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar established their reputation for brilliant corporate identity work with one of their earliest clients, Pepsi-Cola.

May 21, 2013

The new graphic art, 1959

Another recent addition from Ivan Chermayeff: the beautiful slipcased hardcover for The new graphic art, a trilingual history of the basis for the Swiss design style, compiled by Karl Gerstner and Markus Kutter in 1959.

May 14, 2013

107 graphic designers

The most recent addition to the Chermayeff & Geismar Collection is twelve boxes of old and rare art books, ranging from annuals to architecture; Switzerland to Japan. As always, there were plenty of surprises: one was the catalog for an AGI exhibition from 1976, which featured, alongside reproductions of their work, dramatic photos of the designers.

May 10, 2013

The many trademarks of Chermayeff and Geismar

Chermayeff and Geismar published a spiral-bound portfolio of their trademarks in 1979, a precursor to the 2000 volume TM, published by Princeton Architectural Press.

April 14, 2013

The newest culinary celebrity

Chermayeff & Geismar for the State of Maine Cheese Company.

April 12, 2013

They might be giants

Icons of culture and folklore are interpreted by the artists of Push Pin.

April 07, 2013

Georgia’s always on my mind

Herb Lubalin was among the many designers and illustrators who contributed to the United States Information Agency’s 1962 graphic arts exhibition that toured the USSR.