Before star book jacket designer Chip Kidd, there was Alvin Lustig, a pioneer of signage, typography use and illustration whose work revolutionized the look of printed graphics as America emerged from World War II.
Everything and anything was a vehicle for his talent, from toothpaste packaging and company logos to textiles and ads for Knoll furniture, but it was his book jacket designs that truly modernized their field.
Lustig's playful shapes and colors graced covers of reprinted work by the likes of James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, and a handful -- including his iconic cover for Franz Kafka's Amerika -- are available as limited-edition framed prints from alvinlustig.org.
Plus: Feast your eyes on graphic design group FWIS' online tribute gallery to great book jackets of the last century.
written on Friday Jul 27, 2007
book,
cover,
design.
