Walter Allner’s (1909–2006) creativity, artistic skill, and imagination have led to amazing graphics, logos, and magazine covers. (Walter Allner | Cary Graphic Arts Collection | RIT, n.d.) Walter Allner, a noted designer, typographer, and painter, was trained at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joost Schmidt.
I try to be brief in all of my work, whether it’s a poster, a magazine cover, or something else. In his own words, “The contribution of the individual—the artist, the designer—in graphic originality, excellence, inventiveness, and even audacity alone… stimulates interest and creates a link between the advertiser and the public.” He believes that the key to successful design is to capture the viewer’s attention quickly and effectively while conveying a clear message. He achieves this by utilising bold colours, strong typography, and striking imagery in his designs.
Allner trained at the Bauhaus
Allner did what he learned at the Bauhaus in Dessau: clear and to the point. He explains each assignment in a way that is clear and easy to understand, and he often does this with solid graphic symbols. A text message is always short and to the point. His shapes are primarily abstract, with clear lines and geometric shapes made more interesting by solid areas of pure colour. In each case, the design is straightforward to recognise as a symbol for the product.
Allner was already a well-known painter, designer, and poster expert when he moved to the United States in 1949. He helped the poster artist Jean Carlu and worked with A. M. Cassandre while he was in Paris. He had started his own design company, Omnium Graphique, and was the art director for Formes, Editions d’Art Graphiques, et Photographique.
Allner in the United States
People say that Allner and others carried on the work of the Bauhaus in the United States. In particular, the covers he made for Fortune show the strong spirit of functional design used there. These covers show how many different things can be done with this art. Allner thought that every cover should have “something surprising” about it. For one thing, he told the computer what programme to use to make the cover. He made a fold-out for the 35th-anniversary issue by assembling a bunch of broken cans. Shortly after this was published, Allner was praised for his work and invited to join the United States Information Agency’s display at the Berlin Industries Fair.
Recognition
Allner was asked to make the first poster for the new Bauhaus Museum in West Berlin at the beginning of the 1980s. At the same time, his editorial graphics and poster designs were shown in a big way at the Kunstbibliothek of the Staatliche Museum in Berlin. His poster for this show is a big “A” that isn’t in the middle. It is made out of white paper’s empty space and comprises three colours: brown, green, and blue. The words are written in grey ink across the bar of the letter “A.” The poster, made directly, creatively, and briefly, is a perfect example of his philosophy and a symbol of the product, Allner. (Pendergast, 1997)
From 1962 to 1974, he was the art director for Fortune magazine, which is what most people know him for. He designed 79 covers for Fortune magazine himself and was known for being creative with how he used computers in his work. He is known for making the first computer-made cover for a national magazine, the Fortune 500 issue, every year. (Walter Allner | Cary Graphic Arts Collection | RIT, n.d.)
Collections
Sources
Walter Allner | Cary Graphic Arts Collection | RIT. (n.d.). Walter Allner | Cary Graphic Arts Collection | RIT. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.rit.edu/carycollection/node/313675
Pendergast, S. (1997, August 31). Contemporary Designers. https://amzn.to/3ZHv3TO
Graphic Design – Amazon
* This website may contain affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission when you click on links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon and Sovrn affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
More on Graphic Designers
-
The Impact of Alan Fletcher on British Graphic Design
Alan Fletcher was a highly regarded British graphic designer who worked for IBM, Fortune magazine, and the Container Corporation of America. Fletcher was interested in visual ambiguity and added value, investing solutions with visual surprise and wit.Read More →
-
Enid Crystal Dorothy Marx (1902 – 1998) British textile and graphic designer
Designs for London Underground seats. She studied painting and wood engraving at the Royal College of Art in London, as well as at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.Read More →
-
William Morris – Beauty of Practicality
Morris believed his responsibility was “to revive a sense of beauty in home life, to restore the dignity of art to household decoration.Read More →
-
Paul Rand (1914 -1996) – Designer who led the way
Paul Rand, was a seminal figure in graphic design who made innovative visual identities for some of America’s major corporations and book and magazine publishers We all have seen the designs of Paul Rand at some stage of our lives. He had a career spanning nearly seven decades. There is the seminal logo for IBM…
-
Walter Allner (1906–2006), an American painter and designer
Walter Allner (1906–2006) was an American painter and designer known for his creativity, artistic skill, and imagination. He was trained at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joost Schmidt and used bold colours, strong typography, and striking imagery in his designs.Read More →
-
Adrian Frutiger (1928 – 2015) Typographer – creator of widely used fonts.
Adrian Frutiger was a Swiss graphic designer and typographer. Frutiger created some of the most widely used fonts of the 20th century, and they can be seen daily in airports on street signs and in subway stations. He was the creator of many internationally known and loved fonts such as Avenir, Frutiger, Univers and Vectora.Read…
-
Wolfgang Weingart – Swiss Typographer and Designer
He was dubbed “the father” of New Wave or Swiss Punk typography . LEARN MORERead More →
-
Keith Haring (1958 – 1990) – art that danced
Keith Haring was best known for his graffiti-like painting, initially on the black paper used to cover discontinued billboard advertisements in the New York subway. After after a feverish 1980’s style career of surging popular success and grudging critical attention, Haring died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 31.Read More →
-
Ikko Tanaka (1930 -2002) 🇯🇵 Graphic Design blend of East and West
Ikko Tanaka was a Leading Graphic Designer in Japan. He had an enormous impact on the post-war visual culture in Japan.Read More →
-
Gustav Klutsis (1895 -1944) photographic montage
Gustav Klutsis was a Latvian artist and graphic, poster and applied arts designer who was a devoted supporter of the Boshevik regime and a member of the communist party. He was the pioneer of photomontage in the Soviet Union and an acclaimed graphic designer and painter. Influences included Suprematism and Constructivism. LEARN MORERead More →
-
Jan Tschichold (1902 – 1974) – Swiss Typographer
German-born, Tschichold is one of the most outstanding and influential typographers of the 20th century, He cleared away the old typography of pre-1925 and made room for a modern, structured and regulated new typography. His work is characterised by rigorous structure, asymmetrical placement of contrasting elements, and layouts based on horizontal and vertical underlying grids.Read…
-
Paul Bacon (1923 – 2015) – created looks for books
Paul Bacon was not a household name, but anyone who has a passion for books will have seen his works. Bacon was an artist, who used minimal imagery and bold typography to sell famous novels such as, “Catch 22” by Joseph Heller, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest’s and Phillip Roth’s “Portnoy’s complaint?Read More →
-
Robert Bonfils (1886 – 1972) French Graphic Artist
Born in Paris, Robert Bonfils was a French graphic artist, painter, and designer. He studied at the École Germain-Pilon in 1903 and at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1906. He worked for Henri Hamm, a furniture designer. His work included paintings, bookbindings, ceramics for Sèvres, Bianchini-Frerier silk, wallpaper and interior design layouts.…
-
Dan Friedman (1945 – 1995) American Graphic Designer
Dan Friedman (1945–1995) was a prolific graphic and furniture designer, artist, writer, and educator. Friedman’s work posed a radical challenge to tradition and commodification in design practice. His work is held in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.Read More →
-
Giovanni Pintori (1912 – 1999) Italian Graphic Design
Giovanni Pintori (1912–1999) was an Italian graphic designer best known for his advertising work with Olivetti. His posters for the Lettera 22 and Olivetti logo are renowned for their use of geometric shapes and minimalist design. Read More →
-
Poster for Nikon (1957) by Yusaku Kamekura
Yusaku Kamekura’s poster emphasises the brilliance and clarity attained with the Nikon lens and the technical perfection of his client’s camera by using brilliant optical patterns and powerful, white letter-forms against an intensely dark background. Read More →
-
René Kieffer (1875 -1964) – French Bookbinder
René Kieffer was a gilder at the Chambolle-Duru bindery for ten years. In 1903, set up his workshop at 99 boulevard St-Germain, Paris. Later he moved to 41 rue St-Andre-des-Arts and finally, in 1910, to 18 rue Seguier. A disciple of Henri Marius Michel, his work shifted from classical forms to motifs in the Art…
-
Robert Oxenaar (b.1939) Designer of Dutch Banknotes
Robert Oxenaar (1929 – 2017) Designer of Dutch banknotes and stamps. Head of the Art and Design branch of the Dutch postal service. Helped launch a new generation of Dutch designers in the 1970s, including notables like Gert Dumbar.Read More →
-
Herbert Bayer (1900 – 1985) American multi-disciplined designer
Herbert Bayer was one of the Bauhaus’s most influential students, teachers, and proponents. Most of Bayer’s photographs come from the decade 1928–38, when he was based in Berlin working as a commercial artist. He designed the show Road to Victory (1942), which would set the course for Steichen’s influential approach to photography.Read More →
-
Hiroshi Awatsuji (1929 – 1995) Japanese Textile Designer
Hiroshi Awatsuji (1929- 1995) was a Japanese textile and graphic designer: born in Kyoto. He was considered the first Japanese textile designer to be recognised for contemporary design rather than for traditional art and craft. The main characteristic of his work was over sized motifs.Read More →
-
František Zelenka (1896 – 1942) – Czech architect and stage and graphic designer.
František Zelenka (1896 – 1942) was a Czech architect and stage and graphic designer. He was born in Prague. Zelenka’s career in the theatre was initiated by K.H. Hilar, the National Theatre director in Prague in 1926.Read More →
-
Selwyn Image (1849- 1930) British Priest, Artist, Designer
In 1873, Image was ordained a priest in the Church of England. From 1882, he was associated with A.H. Mackmurdo in forming the Century Guild and designed the first issue (1884) of the Guild’s publication, The Hobby Horse. Read More →
-
Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) German Typographer and Calligrapher
Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) was born and educated in Nuremberg. Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse, a calligrapher and typeface designer, was his wife. Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino are some of the typefaces he developed.Read More →
-
Laura Knight (1877 – 1970) British Painter and Ceramicist
She was a juror of the 1922 Carnegie International competition, Pittsburgh. She designed both the shapes and the decorations for the 1933—34 Circus range of tableware produced by Arthur J. Wilkinson, Burslem, under Clarice Cliff’s supervision.Read More →
-
Herbert Matter (1907 – 1984) Swiss Designer and Photographer
Herbert Matter (April 25, 1907 – May 8, 1984) was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of photomontage in commercial art.Read More →
-
Hermann Bongard Norwegian graphic & glassware designer
Hermann Bongard Norwegian graphic designer and glassware designer. He studied lithography and commercial design. Read MoreRead More →
-
Alexey Brodovitch (1898 – 1971) 🇺🇸 🇷🇺 graphic designer and magazine art director
Alexey Brodovitch (1898 – 1971) was an American/Russian graphic designer and magazine art director. Alexey Brodovitch was born in Russia and worked in Paris in the 1920s, creating books, posters, furniture, and advertising. He moved to America in 1930 and worked as the art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine in New York after a brief…
-
William Dwiggins (1880 -1956) – Typographer and all-rounder
Dwiggins was known for his “Metro” series of typefaces, the first designed specifically for newspaper headlines. He produced that in 1929 when he won the gold medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.Read More →
-
Rut Bryk (1916 – 1999) Swedish ceramicist/graphic/textile designer
In 1942, she worked for the pottery Arabia, Helsinki; from 1959, she was a freelance ceramics designer with Rosenthal, Selb. From the 1960s, she worked for Vassa Cotton Company.Read More →
-
Pierluigi Cerri (b.1939) Italian Architect/Graphic/Exhibition Designer
He was active as an exhibition designer, designed 1978 ‘Peter Behrens und die AEG’ exhibition, Berlin; 1978 ‘Carrozzeria Italiana’ exhibition, Turin and Rome; 1981 ‘Identité Italienne,’ Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 1983 ‘Alexander Calder’ exhibition, Turin; 1984 ‘Italian Design,’ Stuttgart and Tokyo; 1984 ‘Venti Progetti per il futuro del Lingotto,’ Turin; 1986 ‘Futurismo e Futurismi,’ Venice.…
-
Zdeněk Rossmann (1905 – 1984) Czech Book Designer, Architect
He was a member of the Devétsil group from 1923 until its closure in 1931 and the Brno Devétsil group 1923-27. He designed publications, including Pasmo (1924—27) and the Fronta compendium (1927). His work was based on the principles of Bayer and Tschichold.Read More →
-
Abram Games (1914 – 1996) British graphic and industrial designer
In acknowledging his power as a propagandist, he claimed, “I wind the spring and the public, in looking at the poster, will have that spring released in its mind.” Read More →
-
William Caxton (1422 – 1491) Father of English Printing
William Caxton learned about the mystery of printing in the Low Countries, and it was in Bruges that he translated a French work, ” The Tales of Troy, ” through his printing press.Read More →
-
Michael Peters (b. 1941) British Graphic Designer
The 1980s in Britain were marked by an apparent economic rebound and a newfound enthusiasm among Britons for business, risky capitalism, and design. Design was pushed as a fundamental ingredient to financial success by a new generation of design entrepreneurs, one of them being Michael Peters.Read More →
-
Herbert Bayer: Inspiration and Process in Design
Herbert Bayer (1900–1985) was one of the most influential graphic designers of the twentieth century, with a prolific career spanning more than six decades and two continents. As a student and teacher at the Bauhaus, he used geometry, photomontage, functional analysis, and simplified typography to forge a new approach to graphic design. This book explores…
-
Karel Teige (1900 – 1951) Czech art critic, typographic artist
Between the wars, Teige was a prominent figure in Czech art and architecture. He was the editor of many avant-garde magazines, including Disk, Stavba, and ReD, and wrote about photography. Read More →
-
Alexander Girard (1907 – 1993) American interior, & Textile designer
Alexander Girard (1907 – 1993) was a man of many design talents. He trained asRead More →
-
Herb Lubalin (1918 – 1981) renowned graphic designer
Renowned American graphic designer, Herb Lubalin, best known for his collaborations with Ralph Ginzburg on the magazines Eros, Fact and Avant Garde, is regarded as one of the seminal designers of the 20th century. The, 17 March 2018, will mark what would have been Lubalin’s 100th birthday.Read More →
-
Stanley Morison (1889-1967) – Designer of Times New Roman typeface
Stanley Morison, widely regarded as one of the most influential typographic designers of the twentieth century, was drawn to the subject by his passionate interest. Early on, he worked for several publishers and printing houses, including Francis Meynell’s Pelican Press and the Cloister Press. Read More →
-
Milton Glaser (1929 – 2020) American Graphic Designer
Co-founder of Push Tin Studios. The colourful posters of designer-illustrator Milton Glaser epitomise an era for the Woodstock generation. His psychedelic ‘American Sixties style’ was a synthesis of various influences ranging from Surrealism to Islamic painting.Read More →
-
Paul Follot (1877 – 1941) French decorative artist and sculptor
His early graphic design reflected a fascination with mediaeval and Pre-Raphaelite art. He joined Julius Meier-shop Graefe’s La Maison Moderne in Paris in 1901. He met Maurice Dufréne and designed bronzes, jewellery, and fabrics.Read More →
-
William Dwiggins (1880-1956) – Typographer and all rounder
Dwiggins was born in Martinsville, Ohio in 1880, he had studied East in Chicago, and then he moved to Boston. Between the years 1917-1918, he became the acting director of the Harvard University Press. He also worked for the Yale Universty Press, designing jackets, endpapers, bindings and posters.Read More →
-
Massimo Vignelli designer of subway maps to corporate logos
Massimo Vignelli and his wife Leila, an architect, were considered a husband and wife team credited with introducing restrained, European fashion and taste in America in the 1970s.Read More →
-
Marcello Minale (1938 – 2000) Italian designer
He worked as a designer at the Finnish advertising agency Taucker and as an art director at Mackkinointi Uiherjuuri. He was the design director at the Young and Rubicam advertising agency in London until 1964. He founded a design firm with Brian Tattersfield in 1964. Read More →
-
Michele Provinciali (1921 – 2009) Italian Industrial Designer
He received the ADI’s Compasso d’Oro Award for his career in 2008. Michele Provinciali provides an alternative trend to the late rationalist approach typical of the postwar period in every art form. He is expressive, poetic, experimental, abnormal, and refined in every art form.Read More →
-
Edward Bawden British painter, illustrator and graphic designer
Edward Bawden was a British painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. Bawden studied at the Cambridge School of Art from 1919 to 1922 and at the Royal College of Art from 1922 to 1925, where Paul Nash was one of his teachers and Eric Ravilious was a close friend. Read More →
-
Beauty through the eyes of Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh
Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh have been contemplating the concept of beauty. This may seem unsurprising, given that both are designers at the top of the design food chain, and aesthetics, you’d think, would be a constant priority.Read More →
-
studio de Ronners – Design Inspiration for Print Lovers ♥︎
Studio de Ronners is an agency for graphic communication and concepting. In collaboration with their clients — we develop provocative concepts. Read More →
-
Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891 – 1956) Russian Painter and Designer
He was a proponent of the Russian constructivist art movement. The term ” constructivism” came about because the artists claimed they riveted the images together as engineers, not artists. In the early years of the Russian Read More →
-
David Gentleman (b.1930) British graphic artist & designer
His subjects are paintings of landscapes, environmental posters and sketches of street life, and protest signs. He has written and illustrated several books, most of them are about countries and cities. He also produced several commemorative postage stamps for the United Kingdom.Read More →
-
Milner Gray (1899 – 1997) British Industrial & Graphic Designer
Gray was a fellow student and friend of artist-designer Graham Sutherland at Goldsmiths College School of Art, London University, where he studied painting and design. He served in the Royal Engineers during WWI when he was involved in camouflage work like other famous artists and designers from both wars. Read More →
-
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946) Hungarian Designer – Applied Arts
In Budapest, he studied law, while elsewhere, he studied sketching and painting. During World War I, he began drawing and became interested in Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitzky. Read More →
-
Nikolai Mikhailovich Suetin Russian artist, ceramicist and designer
Nikolai Mikhailovich Suetin (1897-1954) was a Russian artist, ceramicist, and designer. He was born in Metlevsk Station Kaluga. He was the husband of Anna Leporskaia. Between 1918-22, he studied Vitebsk Art School. He became a member of Kazimir Malevich’s Posnovis/Unovis group in 1919, and, with Il’ia Chashnik, was one of Malevich’s closest collaborators. Read More…
-
Neville Brody (b.1957) British Art Director
Neville Brody rose to prominence during the early 1980s surge of “designerism”: a period when the British economy was considered to be expanding, marketing, promotion, and “cultural entrepreneurship” were in the air, and young culture was a money-spinner.Read More →
-
Otl Aicher (1922 – 1991) German industrial and graphic designer
From 1946 to 1947, Otl Aicher (1922 – 1991) attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. He later became closely affiliated with Ulm’s highly influential and radical Hochschule Für Gestaltung after founding a studio there the following year.Read More →
-
Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers
Through essays, interviews, artwork, typeface and beyond, lesser heard voices at various stages of their careers are given a platform to share insights from the inside. Along with information on hiring processes, power structures, mentoring, workplace discrimination and more, Extra Bold aims to make the world of design a little more accessible.Read More →
-
Saul Bass (1920 – 1996 ) opening and closing titles
When the Frank Sinatra film on drug addiction “The Man With The Golden Arm” opened, a Saul Bass poster dominated the cinema billboards. No words, only artwork- a jagged arm.Read More →
-
30 Wonderful Color Photos of Norway in the 1960s
A delightful set of photo postcards made in Norway in the 1960s. Wonderfully, nearly all the cards in the set include a cheerful red car (of various makes), merrily making its way through the Norwegian countryside. The postcards thus evoke a series of personal snapshots of one person’s road-trip.Read More →
-
Paris: May 1968 Posters of the Student Revolt
In the turbulent days of May 1968 in Paris, a group of artists calling themselves the Atelier Populaire created posters that were vital in spreading the call to unite student and workers. The propaganda of the French revolt was fed by immediate pressures. The day by day events – the disruption of classes at Nanterre…
-
Stunning 4D Animation by Besjan Sertolli
Besjan Sertolli, a graphic designer based in Kosovo, produced the video project entitled “Volume”. We discover animations made in 4D and representatives of ephemeral geometric shapes, which disappear in smoke. Most ? The bright colors present in the project. They offer a very esthetic rendering. His work is to be discovered on Behance.Read More →