Lesterbook1

THE ART OF LESTER BEALL

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He was one of the first graphic designers to work for the government as a poster designer for the Rural Electrification Administration. He was an innovator of design systems for corporate identity and initiated extensive programs of associated print applications; his detailed manuals proved to clients and other designers the importance of establishing graphic controls for the implementation of identity programs.

1 “America Calling”, Crowell-Collier Publishing, 1939 2 Rural Electrification Administration, Series 2, 1939 3 Rural Electrification Administration, Series 2, 1939 4 “There Will Be War”, CrowellCollier Publishing, 1939

American Pioneer L

ester Beall is an American graphic designer who primarily worked between 1928-1969. He not only revolutionized poster design for the country, but changed how to world perceives posters. Lester produced solutions to graphic problems that we unique among American contemporaries. He studied and adopted innovations of typography and photography of the European avant-garde, and applied the forms he synthesized to appropriate designs for American businesses.

Getting Started D

uring his childhood in Chicago, Illinois, Lester Beall’s mother encouraged him to draw as a means of creative expression and as a diversion from their family’s difficult financial situation. In 1917 Beall began attending Saturday art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, where his youthful efforts received high praise. Beall continued to draw during high school, his course work including four years of mechanical drawing classes. This early grounding in technical drawing became an important element of his developing graphic style.

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5 Age of the Auto, 1960 6 Poster for the U.S. Lines Co., 1952 7 Scope Magazine Spread, 1945

Beall enrolled at the University of Chicago as a science major, but ultimately switched to the art history program. Because the school offered no studio courses at that time, Beall supplemented his art history classes with additional life drawing and painting classes at the Art Institute.

Upon graduation from the university in 1926, Beall found work as a freelance illustrator in Chicago.

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Lester in University of Chicago’s Track Team , 1926

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8 Exposure to these very modern representations of art, typography, and illustration dramatically changed Beall’s artistic vision. He incorporated these influences into his own advertising designs to create the dynamic graphic style for which he is remembered today. The Museum of Modern Art recognized Beall’s achievements in 1937 with a solo exhibition, the first time a graphic designer was so honored.

The exhibit was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and was the first time a graphic designer received a one man exhibit. In 1942, he accompanied a distinguished group of colleagues at an exhibition titled “A Half Century of the Greatest Artists of the Modern Media” in New York. The exhibition was created to celebrate “Those who have bridged the gap between art and commerce.”

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uring the difficult years of the Depression, Beall continued to take studio art classes at the Art Institute. In addition to the classes, he spent a great deal of time at the museum’s library, where he reveled in the avant garde graphic design of French art magazines.

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8 Connecticut General Life Insurance Logo, 1948 9 “Hitler’s Nightmare” CrowellCollier Publishing Co., 1939 10 Rural Electrification Administration, Series 1, 1937 11 Graphic construction standard for the International Paper Co., 1960

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Rural Electrification B

eall worked mostly with large shapes and bright colors.

When Beall moved to New York in 1937, he really focused in on the proper vocabulary, skill and craft of a professional artist, as well as find means to improve his work. He focused more on photography while in New York.

He would photograph his subjects in dynamic positions, cut them out and use their gesture or silhouette as the focal point for his work. The images were usually in black and white, and bright colors and other shapes are incorporated into the work to give the image even more emphasis.

A great example of this would be Lester’s second and third series for the Rural Electrification Administration.

Lester had to appeal to the average rural American, and what better way of representing them than a photo of their daily lives. He’d also use blocks of white behind the photo or subject to establish more movement, emphasis and dynamism.

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He also improved his typographic skill as well. He began using large blocky type to set up a composition.

Throughout 1937, Lester was working on many different large scaled projects. Throughout the work of that time, you can see how Lester had a fondness of slab serif type. The condensed slab serif gave his work a more industrialized feel, and gave more emphasis to what he was trying to convey. Although the slab serif wasn’t permanent, Lester still used tall, condensed fonts throughout most of his work.

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12,16,18 Rural Electrification Posters, Series 1 13,17,19 Rural Electrification Posters, Series 2 14,15,20 Rural Electrification Posters, Series 3

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quarter of a century after his death, the excellence of Beall’s life work continues to win him converts, especially among students and young designers who are receiving their first introduction into graphic design. I admire the clarity in his work, and the different dynamic visual treatments. Lester Beall was an extraordinarily effective communicator, and much can still be learned from his systematic approach to corporate design.

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Above all, Beall represents in his own life experience the synthesis that he strove to achieve in his work. By uniting what he once described as the goal of all design: to engender a “harmony of form, beauty and cleanness that seems inevitable when you see it.”

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21 Cover for Photo Engraving, No. 3, 1938 22 What’s New? Magazine Cover., 1941 23 Cancer Cover for Scope Magazine, 1948 24 PM Magazine Cover, 1937 25 Freedom Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, 1939

ns are io is v e r t a h t e iz l a e r The moment cliecnatns-eat buffet, suddenly they not an all-you- they are not hungry. realize

Designed and written by Sam Manion Composed in Azo Sans, Scala Sans, Sutro Delux, and BalboaPlus, typefaces distributed through Adobe, 2017 Printed from a Big Gray printer onto Hammermill 60# text.

Copyright Š 2017 Sam Manion, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art