Herb Lubalin:
The Legacy Designer Project
Services
Print Design
Visual Identity
Client
Personal Project
Location
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
Year
Fall 2023
Info
This project, completed over six weeks, involved creating three stationary pieces to pay homage to Herb F. Lubalin, a distinguished American graphic designer known for his illustrative typography and post-modern style. Lubalin’s career included work and art direction for magazines, like Avante Garde, and in advertising, typeface design, logo design, and more. The deliverables for this project included a logo, a postage stamp, and a postcard taking inspiration from Lubalin’s huge personal archive.
The Logo
The postage stamp takes inspiration from the various magazine spreads Lubalin art directed, which often blended illustrations or photography with Lubalin’s unique typographic brand. I originally had a different design idea, stacking the 51¢ price over the year, but it was difficult to read, so I pivoted to mixing large and small text as Lubalin did in his “No More War!” poster.
The Postcard
The postcard is a mixture of many of Lubalin’s iconic works. The design combines Lubalin’s bold lettering with photography, similar to his “Come Home to Jazz” magazine cover. The photograph is taken directly from one of the Avante Garde publications featuring Marilyn Monroe, while the crimson flourish is reminiscent of the font Lubalin often used for his signature.
