G R A P H I C D E S I G N E R , I N T E R I O R D E S I G N E R & T Y P O G R A P H E R

ALVIN LUSTIG

LIFE/DEATH & MARRIAGE

•Born: 1915 in Denver, Colorado

•Deceased: Dec. 4, 1955 in New York

(age 40)

•Met his wife in 1948 at a Los Angeles art

museum opening.

•Spouse: Elaine Lustig Cohen

•That same year they got married in

December.

EDUCATION & CAREER

•Studied design at Los Angeles City

College, Art Center.

•In 1937 he began making book jackets in Los

Angeles.

•His first cover was in 1941 for a firm called

New Direction Publishing.

CAREER

•Lustig then designed a Cover for a magazine called, Perspective USA.

•There were 13 editions of the cover that Lustig designed. Here are three.

1952 1953 1955

MAGAZINE

•In 1944 he moved to New York to became the director of Visual

Research design department for Look Magazine until 1946.

•He designed six Covers.

•In house publication for

Look Magazine (1944-45)

MAGAZINE

•He also designed for Fortune Magazine & Girl Scout of the United

States.

•1946

•1952

INTERIOR & ARCHITECTURAL

•Lustig was an accomplished

interior and architectural

designer.

•In 1949 he designed the

“Lustig Chair” for Paramount

Furniture in Beverly Hills.

SUCCESSES

•Alvin Lustig maintained a successful relationship

with New Direction for almost a decade.

•He designed more than 70 dust jackets for the New

Classic Series from 1945 till his death in 1955.

AFTER DEATH

•After his death Lustig was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of

Fame in 1886.

•The American Institute of Graphic Arts

awarded Lustig a posthumous AIGA Medal.

QUOTE

“The words graphic designer, architect, or

industrial designer stick in my throat, giving

me a sense of limitation, of specialization

within the specialty, of a relationship to

society and form itself that is unsatisfactory

and incomplete. This inadequate set of terms

to describe an active life reveals only

partially the still undefined nature of the

designer.”

•Alvin Lustig (1915-55) in The Designer Says:

Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom