CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS:
ADVANCING STANDARDS IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Lönberg-Holm
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Lönberg-Holm: CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS: ADVANCING STANDARDS IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION. New York: Sweet¹s Catalog Service, [F. W. Dodge Corporation] 1950. First edition ( less than 1,000 copies printed). Oblong quarto. Five-color screen-printed glazed paper boards. Die-cut screen-printed dust jacket. Screen-printed plastic coil-binding. Unpaginated [106 pp.] Yellow acetate frontis. Four title pages printed in color on heavier stock. A near fine copy in a very good or better dust jacket: the scarce dust jacket has several small fingerprint shadows on the rear panel and the die-cut has closed tears at two of the window corners. Another small closed tear along top fore edge. Overall, an exceptionally well-preserved copy. Book designed by the author. 9.5 x 12.5 hardcover book with approximately 106 illustrated pages that simply must be seen to be believed. This book was printed on a variety of papers (coated, uncoated, textured, etc.) with a stiff plastic front free endpaper and a screen-printed label on the plastic binding. The overall effect is truly amazing.
According to Steven Heller: "Over forty years after its publication, CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS remains the archetype for functional design. It is a textbook for how designers can organize and prioritize information in a digital environment . . . "
". . . Ladislav Sutnar was a progenitor of the current practice of information graphics, the lighter of a torch that is carried today by Edward Tufte and Richard Saul Wurman, among others. For a wide range of American businesses, Sutnar developed graphic systems that clarified vast amounts of complex information, transforming business data into digestible units. He was the man responsible for putting the parentheses around American telephone area-code numbers when they were first introduced."
"As impersonal as the area-code design might appear, the parentheses were actually among Sutnar's signature devices, one of many he used to distinguish and highlight information. As the art director, from 1941 to 1960, of F.W. Dodge's Sweet's Catalog Service, America's leading distributor and producer of trade and manufacturing catalogues, Sutnar developed various typographic and iconographic navigational devices that allowed users to efficiently traverse seas of data. His icons are analogous to the friendly computer symbols used today."
"He made Constructivism playful and used geometry to create the dynamics of organization," says Noel Martin, who was a member of Sutnar's small circle of friends in the late 1950s."
"One of his favorite comments was: "Without efficient typography, the jet plane pilot cannot read his instrument panel fast enough to survive. [So] new means had to come to meet the quickening tempo of industry. Graphic design was forced to develop higher standards of performance to speed up the transmission of information. [And] the watchword of today is 'faster, faster'; produce faster, distribute faster, communicate faster." excerpt ©2004 AIGA
A true high point of American Graphic Design.
Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.
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