DESIGNING INFORMATION
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Longberg-Holm
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Longberg-Holm: DESIGNING INFORMATION. New York: Whitney Publications, Inc. 1947. First edition thus. Quarto. Plastic-comb binding. Printed wrappers. 40 pp. Illustrated in up to four spot colors. Plastic binding split at one point. Textblock lightly dampstained [with few leaves skinned] to upper corner descending several inches down the fore edge. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln . . . A good copy only of an edition seldom offered.
In our opinion, DESIGNING INFORMATION remains Sutnar's finest graphic achievement.
9 x 12 softcover edition with 40 pages heavily designed and illustrated by Ladislav Sutnar in up to four spot colors. The Series"Designing Information" was commissioned by Interiors magazine and originally appeared in three parts during February, March and April of 1947. This edition collects all thre articles inside a coil-bound edition with an original cover design by Sutnar. Sections are titled 1) Elements 2) Patterns 3) Elements and Patterns. Intended to compel designers to emphasize, indicate, separate and combine through size, blank space, color, line, shape and texture; also to design for visual selectivity through pattern and visual flow, pattern and structure, pattern and content; also design for visual continuity through elements and patterns; to use variety and unity through repetition, change and grouping. Extremely rare.
"The lack of discipline in our present-day urban industrial environment has produced a visual condition, characterized by clutter, confusion and chaos," wrote Allon Shoener, the curator of the exhibition Ladislav Sutnar: Visual Design in Action, which originated at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati in 1961. "There is an urgent need for communication based upon precision and clarity. This is the area in which Ladislav Sutnar excels."
According to Steven Heller (in Critique, 1999): "...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."
"Although Sutnar and Lönberg-Holm didn't coin the term 'information design', Designing Information codified the tenets of clarity and accessibility like no book before it. 'The treatment of the subject came about through our realization of the need to clarify design in everyday terms, and to demonstrate that design has practical values that go far beyond mere decoration', K. Holm said. Thus, in their hands, 'the basic elements of design-size, blank space, color, line, etc.-become tools for selectivity, simplifying the visual task' of the user. Designing Information (which was planned as a huge volume, but published in an abridged form) set out to define design as a tool for achieving the 'faster flow of information', through principles of flow and unity. "
Sutnar and Lönberg-Holm took great pains to demonstrate the process of visualizing information by including scores of charts and graphs that addressed the needs of customers, employees, stockholders, and the general public. They believed that giving efficient form to information requires more than just pictorial illustration ('Ease of seeing means more than easy to look at,' wrote K. Holm). Their crystalline charts became the foundation on which comprehension could be built. In fact, in one simple chart the whole of Designing Information is efficiently summarized as 'Transmitting: speed, accessibility; Seeing: visual selectivity, visual continuity; Comprehending: visual extension, universality.'
Perhaps Sutnar's most significant innovation in the design of the book itself was his use of full-spread designs. Indeed, he was one of the earliest designers to treat spreads as units rather than as separate pages. Even a casual review of Sutnar's designs for everything from catalogs to brochures during his American period (with the logical exception of covers) shows that he used across-the-spread designs regularly. Using all the space at his disposal, he was able to inject excitement into even the most routine material without impinging upon comprehension: his signature navigational devices guided users firmly from one level of information to the next. At the same time, Sutnar was not an 'invisible' designer. While his basic structures were decidedly rational, the choices he made in juxtaposition, scale, and color were rooted in sophisticated principles of abstract design, bringing sensitive composition, visual charm, and emotional drama to his workaday subjects. He developed a distinctive vocabulary, or style, notable for arrows, fever lines, black bullets, and other repeated devices."
Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.
out of stock