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.

These exhibition catalogs and announcements for the Museum of Contemporary Crafts were created just a year after the museum’s founding in 1956.
Brownjohn, Chermayeff and Geismar’s expressive typography for The Composing Room.
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.
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.
In the 1970s, the Mead Library of Ideas held exhibitions showcasing the best contemporary graphic design; they commissioned announcement posters from designers including Tony Palladino, Chermayeff & Geismar, and Seymour Chwast.
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.
Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar designed this elaborate promo system for a Knoll modular filing system. Some details from the project follow.
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.
During the 1960s, SVA published a series of course announcements advertising the practical aspects of its evening classes. The text was often dry but the graphics were playful and eye-catching. Here, having some fun with type, are Ivan Chermayeff and Tony Palladino. Chermayeff and Bob Gill are after the jump.
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.
Ivan Chermayeff uses collage and collections to create texture and dimensionality, continually exploring modernist ideas about bringing process to the forefront.
The design firm of Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar established their reputation for brilliant corporate identity work with one of their earliest clients, Pepsi-Cola.
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.
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.
Chermayeff & Geismar for the State of Maine Cheese Company.
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.
The United States Information Agency deploys its secret weapon in the Cold War: designers and illustrators.
An envelope showing the logo for slider chain Krystal, ca 1980s, designed by Chermayeff & Geismar. Doggie bag follows.
Spin to see if new markets overseas raise your income or if underproductivity kills your business.
Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar’s playful experiments with type placement and scale for Concert Associates.