Seymour chwast design philosophy meaning
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His collected physical work could easily fill a sizable warehouse (or cruise ship); children’s book and editorial illustrations (before digital files) alone number in the thousands. The poster effectively communicates two wildly unrelated stances. It was his goal to state a client’s message in as personal yet as public and engaging vocabulary as possible.
Push Pin was on the cutting edge of popular art.
His formal artistic education began at Brooklyn’s Abraham Lincoln High School and later at Cooper Union, where he laid the foundation for his illustrious career.
After graduating in 1951, Chwast held various jobs, including working on promotional art for the New York Times and at Esquire magazine. Inside his gaping mouth, tiny American aircraft are depicted bombing equally tiny Vietnamese houses.
Seymour's on stage and we're out here."
Seymour Chwast: Inspiration and Process in Design (Moeskin Books) with text by Steven Heller is now on shelves. Yet when he repeats himself, as all artists do, he makes every effort to turn such repetition into something great. As co-founder, with Milton Glaser, of Push Pin Studios, they led a revolution in graphic design, producing bold, vibrant work that pushed the limits of nearly every visual medium—from posters, advertisements, book jackets, and magazine covers to album covers, product packaging, typography, and children’s books.
In the pantheon of American (nay, world) illustration, he stands, albeit slightly shorter and a little more rumpled, beside N.C. Wyeth, J. C. Leyendecker, and Normal Rockwell—and he’s not through yet.
— Reprinted, edited and condensed, from Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast published by Chronicle Books
“What makes the very best of his art so arresting, and so identifiable, is the tenacity of his ideas—simple, complex, rational, and even absurd ideas.”
— Steven Heller
“Seymour has always managed to work outside his reputation, his legend, his towering historical position.”
— Paula Scher
“He is flexible without being eclectic, sentimental without being maudlin, an artist for commerce whose individuality is never for sale.”
— Alan Fern
The Left-Handed Designer: Seymour Chwast’s Graphic Art Legacy
Seymour Chwast has been a pioneering figure in the field of graphic design since the 1950s, continuously pushing boundaries and exploring new frontiers in design and typography.
What makes the very best of his art so arresting, and so identifiable, is the tenacity of his ideas—simple, complex, rational, and even absurd ideas. it went like this:
Peggy: Why a book that goes to war with war now?
Seymour: I produced my first book, A Book of Battles, almost 60 years ago.
Unpretentiously because anyone who knows him will attest that he just does his “jobs” with no other ambition than to do them. The illustrations for magazines, posters, advertisements, book jackets, record covers, product packages, and children’s books that he created after founding Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel in 1954 directly influenced two generations (statistical fact) and indirectly inspired another two (educated conjecture) of international illustrators and designers to explore an eclectic range of stylistic an conceptual methods.
Seymour has been an unvacillating peace advocate since he was a child. They married in 1973.
His hands are always covered with ink; his clothes are stained with paint; his hair is speckled with pigment. Seymour is his art; he is what he makes. His contributions to the industry and impact on both American and international culture cannot be overstated. His contributions have helped shape the evolution of graphic design as a vibrant and dynamic discipline, leaving an indelible mark on the visual landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Seymour Chwast is often referred to as “the legendary graphic designer and co-founder of Push Pin Studios.” But how many legends can you think of who are known by a single name?
He was very instrumental in wedding illustration to typographic design (a concept that was viewed as passé by modernists). His talent has always been demonstrated in his ability to wed sophistication to pop and pop to old and new vernaculars.
Glaser left Push Pin in 1975 to explore different media and métiers, ending their twenty-year collaboration.
Few are as flexible yet so consistent.