Herb Lubalin is a seminal figure in 20th century American graphic design, with a substantial body of work in lettering, calligraphy and typography Yet he claimed not to be a great typographer, ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I’m terrible, because I don’t follow the rules.’ This book argues the opposite. It makes the case that Lubalin’s typographic genius for logos, layouts, lettering and typefaces, and his continuing popularity as a source of inspiration amongst young designers, makes him a typographic giant.

This new book, concenatrting on Lubalin;s typography, charts the descline in Lubalin;s reputation with the rise of the compuyet un design..

written by one of hs accompices, had been written about his work. This volume appeared in the 1980s and quicjly fell out of print: Through text and image, the book demonstrates how Lubalin continuously deployed developments in typographic technology (phototypesetting, computerised setting, etc.) to adapt, merge and forge new typographic forms, and in so doing, enhanced and amplified meaning in ways that hadn’t been seen before, and which have been widely copied ever since the high point of his career in the 1970s

After extensive research in the Lubalin archives (The Herb Lubalin Study Center
of Design and Typography, housed at Cooper Union, New York City), and interviews with leading Lubalin contemporaries, the book places Herb Lubalin at the forefront of 20th century typographic innovation, and notes his suitability as a model for current typographic practice at a time when ‘expression through typographic form’ (Lubalin’s phrase) is extensively employed throughout visual communication of all kinds – from advertising to the more rarefied modes of graphic expression.