Death of Modernism

[Nguyen, Phan]

I read that Leo Lionni passed away last week, at age 89. That got me
thinking about how the remaining proponents of modernist graphic design from
the first half of the century are approaching their final years.

Within the past few years, Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson, Josef
Müller-Brockmann, Saul Bass, Bruno Munari, and Cipe Pineles have also passed
away. There are very few people left who experienced and participated
first-hand in the modernist revolution* of graphic design and art direction.
I'm not going to go into an assessment of modernism's validity in the
present, but it's interesting to note that we are approaching a time when
the graphic art innovations of the earlier 20th century will only be learned
from history books and artifacts, instead of from first-hand accounts.

It's a bit of a testament to Lionni's skills that his original cover design
for _The Family of Man_, originally published in 1955, is still used today
(the most recent printing being at least 1996), when it is so much more
common for publishers to update and 'refresh' the look of older books. And
of course, many of his innovative children books are still in print and
should be required reading for grown-up graphic designers.

*I'm using the very general term of modernism, by the way.

[Roy Preston]

>instead of from first-hand accounts.

Frighteningly sobering, and so true, Phan.

Roy P(ractically dead)