40 Crucial Lessons From The Most Famous Graphic

Designers in History
While graphic design can sometimes feel like a brand new industry, its actually
quite the opposite.
Graphic design is an industry that has been growing and changing for centuries at
the hand of countless designers.
So, to celebrate this rich and exciting history, weve compiled a list of 40
famous designers that have done their part in shaping graphic design in some way.
From those who specialize in typography or magazine design, through to album
covers and political posters, each of these people have made their mark on the
industry and shaped it in some way through hard work and some great designs.
With that, lets have a look at 40 people who changed graphic design for good.
01. David Carson: Break the Rules
Appropriately dubbed the Godfather of Grunge, David Carson revolutionized the
design industry by taking a unique, rule-breaking attitude toward design. His
strikingly shredded, warped, and sometimes illegible layout designs remain to be a
constant source of radical inspiration for designers around the globe.
02. Saul Bass: Design the Iconic
A household name in the world of design, Saul Bass is a legend whose work youve
likely encountered before. Bass made his mark on the design world with his work in
the 1950s designing iconic movie posters and motion picture title sequences for
films such as Psycho, The Man with the Golden Arm, and North by Northwest.
Bass was also an accomplished logo designer, having designed a plethora of
timeless brand marks that have an average lifespan of about 35 years. Much of his
work is still in effect to this day just check out the Kleenex, Girl Scout or AT&T
logos.
03. Stefan Sagmeister: Blend Inspiring Qualities
Stefan Sagmeister is an accomplished contemporary designer with an impressive
client list, ranging from The Rolling Stones and HBO to the Guggenheim.
Sagmeisters work often blends humor, sexuality, the unorthodox, and painstaking
detail to create jarringly modern designs that continue to inspire and shake the
design community.
04. Paula Scher: Treat Type as a Visual Image

Paula Scher was the first woman to sit in a principal position at the acclaimed
graphic design firm Pentagram, and for good reason. Her impressive body of design
shaped the perception and application of graphic design in many ways, particularly
her technique of treating type as a visual image in her work for the New York Citys
Public Theater (pictured above) which continues to have a lasting impression on
modern design.
05. Michael Bierut: Make Complex Content Accessible
Michael Bierut is often credited with democratizing design, thanks to his unique
and ubiquitous approach to graphic design. Bierut paved the way for accessible
design whereby complex content was made more easy and enticing to read and
consume through a sharp, direct design.
06. Massimo Vignelli: Convey Ideas
Massimo Vignelli is considered by many as one of the most influential designers of
the past century. A self proclaimed information architect, Vignelli endeavoured to
condense large, busy ideas into more digestible, understandable formats through
design. This is highly evident in his 1972 redesign of the New York City Subway
Map whereby he chose an experimental, abstracted design that was heavily
debated but later proved incredibly effective.
07. Milton Glaser: Bridge the Gap Between Seeing and Understanding
Creator of the iconic I NY branding, logos for Target and JetBlue, the opening title
sequence to Mad Men, and poster designs for musician Bob Dylan, Milton Glaser
has transformed what it means to create a powerful, timeless design. You want to
move the viewer in a perception so that when they first look at [the design],
Glaser explains, They get the idea, because that act between seeing and
understanding is critical.
08. Paul Rand: Merge Copy With Design
Paul Rand is a big name in the design world, credited with visually transforming
America post WWII by developing radical new methods of approaching advertising,
logo creation and design. One of Rands greatest legacies in his design career was
his removal of copywriting from the principal position in design, instead placing it
on the same tier as design, suggesting that by simplifying the amount of type, and
instead letting form and function interact, rather than one overpowering the other,
the design would work better.
09. Alan Fletcher: Be Expressive With Typography
Dubbed the British father of graphic design, amongst producing inspiring designs
himself, Alan Fletcher changed the way design was thought of. His expressive
typography, bold colors and strong visual language helped pave the way for
graphic design to be thought of as a key and crucial element to businesses, not

just an optional decorative extra.

10. Hermann Zapf: Change the Game
Hermann Zapf changed typography in a lot of ways. Primarily, he was the creator
of the popular typefaces Zapf Dingbats, Palatino, and Optima amongst many
others. He also pioneered computerized typography being a big advocate for the
move from press printed designs to computerized ones. And to top off the already
impressive list of accolades, he also invented a typesetting program that would
later go on to inform a lot of modern day software developments.
11. Lester Beall: Be A Problem Solver
Lester Beall left his mark on the design community both through his own
inspirational, avant-garde designs, as well as his revolutionary attitude toward
design. Beall brought forth the idea to American businesses that graphic designers
should be seen and treated as creative problem solvers who should be more
heavily involved in the marketing side of business. Bealls attitude toward design
as well as his own powerful designs are what keep his work timeless and a
standard by which current designers can measure their own work by.
12. Claude Garamond: Invent the Wheel
Born circa 1505, Claude Garamond shaped design right from its inception by
becoming the first person to ever specialize in type design as a profession. During
his career, Garamond produced a series of iconic typefaces, many of which are still
in use, such as Garamond, Granjon, and Sabon to name a few. Garamonds work
not only paved a path for type design, but it set the wheels in motion for what
would become the evolution of the graphic design industry.
13. Jan Tschichold: Strive for New Techniques
Jan Tschicholds career is prolific and left a great imprint on design. Tschichold
authored the widely credited book Die Neue Typographie in which he established
new typographical standards, pushed for the standardization of paper sizes and
formed guidelines for typographical hierarchy many of which are still referred to
to this day.
Tschichold was also the designer behind the iconic orange Penguin Books cover
design during his work with the company, where he oversaw over 500 books go to
print. Tschicholds constant striving for new techniques and practices are what
keep his name in the spotlight as a heavily influential graphic design icon.
14. William Golden: Lead and Pioneer
Described by AIGA as (a member of) a distinguished group of pioneers in the postWorld War II era who gave shape to the emerging field of graphic design, William
Golden is an accomplished designer who changed the industry both stylistically
through his bold, punchy work at CBS. He also pushed for the recognition that an

artist and a designer were to be thought of as two different things, thus helping
shape the graphic design industry in a more defined way.
15. Jacqueline Casey: Pair Strong Meaning With Your Designs
Jacqueline Casey was a graphic designer known for her heavily influential Swissinspired posters. It was her work that helped to introduce the America and the MIT
community of which she was a part of to the emerging European Swiss typography
and design, which would later go on to shape much of contemporary design.
Caseys work is still considered a paragon of what can happen when you pair a
clean, strong design with a powerful and impactual meaning.
16. Cipe Pineles: Break Free From Limitations
Cipe Pineles design career extended over a lot of high profile magazines, from
Vogue and Vanity Fair to Glamour, Seventeen, and Charm. Her career was also full
of a lot of firsts; She was the first female designer to become a member of the Art
Directors Club in New York, the first autonomous female art director for a
magazine. She was also the first designer to hire fine artists to illustrate mass
market publications which began a long standing trend within magazine design
that would go on to shape the magazine design industry.
17. Susan Kare: Bring Your Designs to Technology
Susan Kare is a contemporary designer who left a large mark on design when she
developed a series of interface element designs for the Apple Macintosh in the
1980s at Apple and Steve Jobs NeXT. Some of her work you may be familiar with
is the Monaco typeface, Geneva typeface, the Command key symbol on Apple
keyboards, as well as icons like the trash can, the paint bucket tool, the lasso tool,
the floppy disk save icon etc. Many of these examples of Kares work are still in use
in some capacity, and a majority have influenced much of current interface design.
18. Abram Games: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means
Abram Games was an official WWII artist who is well recognized for his 100s of
punchy, politically-driven poster designs. Games work set a trend for designers
everywhere by exemplifying his own personal motto of maximum meaning,
minimum means, meaning that while the message and communication should be
strong, the design should stay simple, clean, and direct.
19. Armin Hofman: Blend Minimalism with Context and Meaning
Hailed as a legend of Swiss design, Armin Hofmann was a designer who inspired
designers past and present with his powerful, clean, designs and his consistent
encouragement of designing with context and meaning. Hofmanns work typifies
Swiss design and design with purpose making his work a paragon of effective,
timeless and thoughtful design.
20. Josef Muller-Brockmann: Go with the Grids

Arguably one of the most well known Swiss designers, Josef Muller-Brockmanns
body of work captures the ins and outs of Swiss design, from the geometric shapes,
clean sans-serifs and the vibrant colors. Though, one of Muller-Brockmanns
greatest legacies is his role in the development and use of the grid system in
graphic design, a tool which is still widely credited and used daily by designers.
21. Seymour Chwast: Combine Your Design Disciplines
Seymour Chwast is often credited as the designer who shaped contemporary
design and illustration, thanks to his expressive and iconic style that worked to
blend the two disciplines in radical, playful ways that directly counteracted the
clean, minimalist nature of Swiss design. Chwast helped develop a new, unique
way of approaching design, as AIGA notes, that approach was based on
knowledge, appreciation and reapplication of past styles and forms. Both Chwasts
visual work and this unique approach to design have had lasting impacts on the
graphic design industry.
22. Chip Kidd: Master Visual Language
Chip Kidd is a contemporary designer specialising in book jacket designs whose
work has been described by NPR as having spawned a revolution in the art of
American book packaging. Chip Kidds unique approach to book cover design
consists of working to embody the books narrative in a visual way, through visual
language. Its this radical way of thinking about design that sets him apart from the
rest, and keeps his designs memorable, timeless and a credit to the design
community.
23. Alexey Brodovich: Experiment With Trends
Alexey Brodovich was instrumental in introducing European design trends to
America in the 1920s, which triggered a new generation of designers who created
simpler and modern designs. This was not his only dabbling in trends though,
throughout his famous 15 years at Harpers Bazaar, Brodovich would consistently
experiment with new trends in photography, typography and layout design, all of
which helped to catapult the magazine into the spotlight.
24. Herb Lubalin: Have Some Pun
Herb Lubalin is one of the biggest names in typographical design, or as he calls it
typographics. Lubalins typographics were said to have transformed and
enhanced written messages in ways that copywriting simply couldnt, and his firm
grasp on visual language, puns, and simplicity are what helped his designs leave
their mark on the design industry.
25. Max Miedinger: Look To Be Transformative
Max Miedinger was a Swiss typeface designer known for creating one of the most
well known typefaces in the world, Helvetica (or as it was formerly known, Neue

Haas Grotesk). Helvetica itself is a paragon of Swiss design clean, legible, flexible,
and it had no sight of serifs anywhere, no naturally it caught on pretty quickly.
Miedingers contribution to the development of Swiss design helped shape the
movement in an immeasurable way.
26. April Greiman: Pursue New Technologies
April Greiman in many ways helped to put the graphic in graphic design.
Greiman is recognized as one of the first designers to influence and encourage the
acceptance and use of technology in graphic design and the arts during the 1980s.
Before Greiman championed this move, computers had been seen solely as
information processing tools, but after her Greimans shift, the industry followed
suit and never looked back.
27. John Maeda: Be Interactive
John Maeda is another designer credited for redefining the use of computerized
media in the graphic design industry. Maedas work explored the boundaries of
every medium he had access to, both digital mediums and analogue. This
exploration and his resulting work became fundamental in the development of
interactive motion graphics which are used so frequently in modern graphic design.
28. El Lissitzky: Blend Stylized Shapes Colors
El Lissitzky was a Russian designer, most well known for his political propaganda
poster designs, whereby he used heavily stylized shapes and colors to create a
powerful visual language. Lissitzky was also a very influential player in the
development of the Bauhaus, a school that would go on to produce some of the
most revolutionary graphic designers and design trends. In short, Lissitzkys body
of work set in motion a huge domino effect that would eventually lead to the
formation of many contemporary design practises.
29. Ladislav Sutnar: Use Design To Convey Information
Ladislav Sutnar was a designer famous for making sense out of nonsense through
design. His specialty was information design, the practise of using a clear and
clever design to help make information more accessible and consumable for the
general viewer. One of Sutnars techniques to aid the clarity of his designs was to
limit his color and type palettes, which is a design technique still very much in play
today.
30. Alvin Lustig: Suggest, Dont Tell
Alvin Lustig is a designer who radically changed the way book cover design was
approached, displayed, and thought of. While the common practise at the time was
to create a cover that directly summarized the book contents, Lustig instead
operated under a suggest, dont tell approach to his cover designs where he
would read the book first and then create a cover that visually captured the tone of
the text. This approach was radical at the time and quickly caught on to the point

where it is now common practise in most book cover designs.

31. Muriel Cooper: Experiment With 3D Design
Muriel Cooper was a graphic designer at MIT who pioneered computerized graphic
design. Over her career, Cooper was able to create visual depth, movement, size
changes, shifts in focus, 3D type etc. in her designs by using computers, which at
the time was otherwise unseen and groundbreaking. These designs and
developments from Muriel Cooper would go on to inform and shape a lot of modern
day digital design.
32. Lucian Bernhard: Master Minimalism
At a time when art nouveau was king, Lucian Bernhard forged a new path and
embraced a more minimal, drawn back approach to design. While working as an
art director, Bernhard created advertisements that consisted of flat colors, no
slogans, just a simple illustration and logo. This small spark of minimalism from
Bernhard would later grow into a raging inferno, and one that has very much
carried on into modern design practises.
33. Otl Aicher: Create Stunning Identities
Otl Aicher was an accomplished graphic designer, best known for his work for the
1972 Summer Olympics where he boldly used pictograms, vibrant colors and a
strict grid system to create a stunning identity. Aicher also created an influential
public signage system that utilized simple stick figure graphics which grew to have
a great impact on graphic design.
34. Erik Nitsche: Communicate Powerful Ideas
Over his 60 year career, designer Erik Nitsche has made a large impact on the
world of design. Having dabbled in just about every facet of the design industry
and branding it with his own personal modernist flair, Nitsches work has not only
remained a source of inspiration but it has also set the trend for design being a
powerful tool in communicating ideas in an industrial sense as well as commercial
one.
35. Neville Brody: Design With A Punchy, Unique Edge
Neville Brody revolutionized magazine, advertisement, album cover and packaging
design in the 1980s by taking the rules and breaking them. Inspired by the punk
movement and unperturbed by the limitations of the commercial market, Brody
experimented and played with design, which gave his work a punchy, unique edge
that would go on to influence much of modern day design.
36. Ivan Chermayeff: Design Logos With Abstracted Shapes
Designer Ivan Chermayeff is easily referred to as a legendary logo designer, having
created a series of powerful, memorable and seemingly timeless logos during his

career ranging from the NBC peacock to the blue Pan Am globe. What made
Chermayeffs work so legendary and impactual on the design community was his
use of abstracted shapes for logos rather than letterforms as had prior been the
norm.
37. Adrian Frutiger: Create Beautiful and Readable Typefaces
Typographic designer Adrian Frutiger was a legend in the design community, best
known for having his typographic work displayed on signage from Westminster
London to Disney World.
Over his career, Frutiger often spoke about the necessity for typefaces to be both
beautiful and readable, and he backed these claims up by creating over 30 very
popular typefaces. Roger Black, founder of Font Bureau type foundry speaks of this
work, (Frutiger) amplified his personal aesthetic for typefaces into large families.
This work inspired younger type designers to think on their own.
38. Bradbury Thompson: Experiment. With Everything.
Considered an overall master of design, Bradbury Thompson is another big name in
the design biz. Thompsons style is best described as one that pushes the limits of
the printed page, by layering, cutting, pasting and experimenting with
photography, color, and type he created designs that would go on to inspire
generations of designers.
39. Peter Saville: Be Bold And Expressive
Peter Saville is nothing short of an iconic record and album cover designer. His
work included Joy Divisions iconic Unknown Pleasures cover, as well as work with
New Order, Roxy Music, and many other high profile names in music. In short,
Savilles bold, expressive style helped establish a new standard by which album
covers were to be judged.
40. Wolfgang Weingart: Experiment With Typography
Never one for conformity, Wolfgang Weingarts impact on the history of design lays
in his experimental use of typography. Weingarts work is best described as
experimental and spontaneous Swiss design, with bold, punchy designs and
dramatically scaled sans serif type. This radically experimental approach to design
was imparted to Weingarts students during his teachings, directly influencing a
new generation of expressive typographers.

https://designschool.canva.com/blog/famous-graphic-designers/