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Tue 04|27

Spotlight: Ivan Chermayeff

“Interiors” Architectural News, Chermayeff & Geismar, 1964

Way back in first term–knee high to a grasshopper as I was–we were assigned in Communication Design 1 to make a magazine cover for Architectural News using the idea of “fused metaphors.” We were told to make lists of each of the things to be represented (in our case America and architecture), and find a way to combine them metaphorically. Our reference material was a series of such covers, inspiring at the time, but not memorable in my over-stimulated mind.

This term, in the same class (which I now TA), Sea n Adams is showing presentations of noteworthy designers each week. My job is to compile images and make a slideshow to share with the kiddies and help them with their visual literacy. When we chose Alvin Lustig and Ivan Chermayeff, I was excited to do the research, but I wasn’t expecting to find so many ingenious examples of this “fused metaphor” business. In my further inspection of the Architectural News covers by Chermayeff & Geismar that I hadn’t seen since first term, I found new inspiration in the simple yet intelligent solutions. (And I’m pretty proud of the fact that I can finally spell “Chermayeff” without looking now, too.)