SVA Archives

July 09, 2015

George Tscherny for MoMA and the Family Service Association

MoMA’s 1956 exhibition of posters for the Family Service Association featured the work of George Tscherny, among other artists and designers.

December 10, 2014

Portraits of Pnin

Several incarnations of Vladimir Nabokov’s most lovable protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin.

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.

October 12, 2014

Politics in print, by Henry Wolf

Henry Wolf took a variety of approaches to dramatizing the American political process in his magazine design.

August 31, 2014

Use your head

SVA’s early subway posters helped raise the school to a new plane of artistic and intellectual pursuits.

June 28, 2014

Robert Weaver at SVA

Pioneering illustrator Robert Weaver was a major figure at SVA beginning in 1950s.

March 23, 2014

Henry Wolf on typography

In 1958 Henry Wolf, newly appointed art director for Harper’s Bazaar, was tapped by the Advertising Typographers Association to write an essay on magazine typography for their bulletin.

February 22, 2014

Words and music

Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar’s playful experiments with type placement and scale for Concert Associates.

February 16, 2014

Ciba graphics

Chermayeff & Geismar interpreted scientific data for Ciba Pharmaceuticals.

February 16, 2014

Outside the box

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable. – Samuel Johnson

February 03, 2014

Text clean and tight, some tearing

Early in his career, Tony Palladino specialized in book jackets—his style was always restrained, and oscillated between primitive torn-paper graphics and highly simplified visual ideas.

January 13, 2014

George Tscherny for Herman Miller

George Tscherny developed his style working for Herman Miller in the mid-50s.

December 06, 2013

Illustrating ‘Seventeen’

Mid-century editorial illustration from the pages of Seventeen magazine.

December 01, 2013

Identity Programs by Noel Martin

Noel Martin was a renown self-taught typographer and designer who studied drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He later became an instructor there and was the long-time designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as a prolific free-lance designer. Martin was celebrated for modernizing museum graphics and industrial trade catalogs. In 1953, he was featured in MoMA’s landmark design exhibition, Four American Designers, along with Herbert Bayer, Leo Lionni, and Ben Shahn. His spiral-bound self-promotional piece, Identity Programs, presents some of his iconic minimalist logos.

November 30, 2013

Smiling faces

An assortment of Seventeen magazine advertisements from the ’50s and ’60s.

September 14, 2013

Fifteen years of heartache and aggravation

In 1969, the Mead Library of Ideas presented an exhibition of the work of Push Pin Studios, sharing the design and illustration of its many current and former members.

September 03, 2013

George Tscherny’s brushwork

This detail for a 1956 poster for the Cartoonist & Illustrators School by George Tscherny. Rebranded as the School of Visual Arts later that year, the designer had a long and fruitful relationship with the institution.

August 12, 2013

Concrete Poetry

Milton Glaser tips his hat to French poet, playwright, and critic Guillaume Apollinaire.

June 01, 2013

Josef Presser and Bob Gill

Bob Gill lets Josef Presser’s words speak for themselves in this visually simple but verbally playful announcement for Presser’s exhibition at SVA.

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.

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