Past Print: Herb Lubalin: the man who loved letters (and ampersands, too)

Aaron Burns of the New York designer typesetters The Composing Room called Herb Lubalin’s way with letters ‘typographics’. A pretty good description because when Herb played with type it always seemed to be a strong graphic solution even though it was just type especially noticeable when he reduced as much letterspacing as possible. Maybe the classic example of this is the Mother and Child logo he designed for a Good Housekeeping column in the magazine but for some reason it was never used.

I think the best book of his work was published by American Showcase (right) in 1985 (ISBN 0931144280) with 360 illustrations. Look through it now and the work still looks fresh and exciting even though some of it is fifty years old. His work had a timeless feel to it because he cared about every little detail and took the time to get it right (typesetters probably hated him for it, too).

Lubalin art directed four magazines: Eros (see the complete first issue in the August 2011 and second in the March 2011 Archives) Fact; Avant Garde; U&lc. The first three edited by Ralph Ginzburg folded but with U&lc his love of letters found a home. From the first issue in 1973 came page after page of dazzling typography, helped of course by a readership that understood and appreciated design.