Otto Storch and McCall's fifty years ago / part 1

Otto Storch was the Art Director of McCall’s for fourteen years from 1955. He was one of the New York School of designers that gave popular magazines a circulation lift from the mid-fifties onwards. Others included Bill Cadge on Redbook, Henry Wolf for Esquire and Show, Allen Hurlbert on Look and Arthur Paul for Playboy.
   I always thought Storch was the best of the bunch because of his knack of creating easy-on-the-eye pages that pulled you in to read them. Like Herb Lubalin, Storch was very keen on expressive typography on the page. Some of these type spreads are shown below and look perfect because the choice of the headline type, sub-head and story length blend together seamlessly. Have a look at The Dietrich legend and Dream up a dressing room with the huge brackets, they look as perfect today as the did fifty years ago.
   Another Storch visual technique was integrating photography and headlines, especially with the food photos, mostly taken by the brilliant Paul Dome, look at his wonderful hot dog and corn cob below. The fashion and beauty pages also looked different because the headlines and other photo graphics on the page create a fresh take on clothes and accessories.

   I couldn't keep piles of magazines for years so I removed the spreads I liked best and kept them.  Unfortunately mass-market paper doesn't keep too well in an attic so some of these layouts are not at their best but they will give you an idea of Otto Storch's wonderful page designs.
   Parts 2 and 3 are in the December 2012 archive.

...now go to December 2012 archive for Parts 2 and 3







Imagination 3 / Woman / 1964 / Champion Papers

Nude alphabet / Quadrat Print / 1970

This nude alphabet was published as a Quadrat Print. They were a series of experimental graphic design publication edited by Pieter Brattinga and given away by the Hilversum printer de Jong from the early fifties to the mid-seventies. Each one was ten inches square, mostly several stapled pages but some were loose leaf sheets (this alphabet) in a box or folder.
   Diter Rot, with issue twelve, had sixty loose pages of newspaper stock reproducing hugely enlarged sections of the Daily Mirror, a leading British tabloid.  Issue six (1953) by Bruno Munari was what he called an Unreadble book of sixteen pages using alternate red and white card with each page cut into various geometric shapes and widths so you could create your abstract designs as the pages were turned. 

   The alphabet was created by Anthon and Anna Beeke and photographed by Geert Kooiman. Published as Quadrat Print fourteen in 1970. The thirty square loose pages were presented in a folder with a blank cover which opened up to three pages with photos of the shoot. Nicely each letter was printed on card stock rather than paper, litho with a 150 screen.