50 Fun Facts About Graphic Design

Helvetica was originally released in 1957 under what name?

Linotype renamed it in 1960 after Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland; Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann designed it.

The name 'Helvetica' is Latin for what?

It cashed in on Switzerland's reputation as the home of ultra-modern graphic design and became the face of the International Typographic Style.

Which of these is a hallmark of the Swiss or International Typographic Style?

Sans-serif faces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica were the other signature.

Futura, the geometric sans-serif released in 1927, was designed by whom?

It was built from near-perfect circles, triangles and squares as part of the New Frankfurt project.

The serif face Stanley Morison created for a newspaper in 1931 took its name from which paper?

Stanley Morison of Monotype conceived it with Victor Lardent of the paper's advertising department, basing it on Plantin.

Gill Sans (1928) grew out of Edward Johnston's corporate typeface for which organisation?

Eric Gill had assisted Edward Johnston on the 1916 'Underground Alphabet' as a young artist.

Garamond typefaces are named after a Parisian engraver of which century?

Many 20th-century 'Garamond' revivals were actually based on the later punchcutter Jean Jannon.

Adobe's 1989 typeface by Carol Twombly, ubiquitous on film posters, is based on the inscription on what?

Carol Twombly designed it in 1989 from the Roman square capitals.

Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans in 1994 for which software product, then missed the deadline?

He thought Times New Roman looked too formal in the cartoon speech bubbles, and drew on Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.

In typography, what does 'kerning' adjust?

The word comes from the French 'carne', a projecting angle; a kern was the part of a metal letter that overhung its block.

In the CMYK printing model, what does the K stand for?

It is a subtractive model: inks reduce the light reflected from white paper.

The placeholder text 'Lorem ipsum' is a scrambled version of a work by which Roman author?

It comes from De finibus bonorum et malorum; Letraset transfer sheets popularised it in the late 1960s.

In European typography, sans-serif faces were traditionally called what?

'Gothic' is the equivalent term still used in East Asia and in names such as Franklin Gothic.

Paul Rand's defining corporate identity, designed in 1956 and striped in 1960, was for which company?

The stripes were a half-toning trick to make the heavy letters lighter; an eight-stripe and a thirteen-stripe version exist.

Saul Bass's first celebrated title sequence, a cut-out of a heroin addict's arm, was for which 1955 film?

He went on to do North by Northwest and Psycho, plus logos for AT&T, Bell System and Hanna-Barbera.

Which of these logos was designed by Saul Bass's firm?

The firm also did the Geffen Records logo and the sixth Bell System bell.

Where did Milton Glaser sketch the I Love New York logo in 1976?

He drew it in red crayon on scrap paper for a state tourism campaign by Wells Rich Greene.

Milton Glaser co-founded which influential New York studio in 1954?

With Seymour Chwast he ran it for twenty years; his 1966 Bob Dylan poster is another landmark.

Massimo Vignelli's 1972 New York subway map was criticised for what?

He also designed the American Airlines logo (1967-2013) and the subway signage while at Unimark.

How much was Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for designing the Nike Swoosh?

She was a Portland State design student; Phil Knight later gave her shares and she became known as 'The Logo Lady'.

What is hidden in the negative space between the E and the x of the FedEx logo?

Lindon Leader of Landor drew a proprietary typeface based on Univers and Futura in 1994 to make it work.

The Coca-Cola logo, created in 1885 by bookkeeper Frank Mason Robinson, uses which handwriting style?

Robinson also came up with the name; the script was the dominant formal hand in 19th-century America.

Susan Kare drew the first Macintosh icons on what?

She mocked up 32 by 32 pixel grids in a $2.50 notebook, producing the scissors for 'cut' and the paintbrush for MacPaint.

Peter Saville designed record sleeves for Joy Division and New Order as a partner in which label?

He co-founded it with Tony Wilson in 1978; his Closer sleeve, showing an entombed Christ, was controversial after Ian Curtis's death.

Neville Brody made his name as art director of which British style magazine in the early 1980s?

He later designed Arena and redesigned The Guardian and The Observer.

David Carson, the 'grunge typography' pioneer of Ray Gun magazine, had which earlier career?

He was art director at Beach Culture before joining Ray Gun in the early 1990s.

Shepard Fairey's Obama 'Hope' poster was based on a photograph taken by whom?

The stencil portrait in red, beige and blue appeared with the words 'progress', 'hope' or 'change'.

Which New York firm, founded in 1957, designed logos for Chase, Mobil, PBS, NBC and National Geographic?

Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar were Yale graduates; Sagi Haviv is now a partner.

The Swiss designer of Univers and Avenir also created which humanist sans-serif bearing his surname?

The Swiss designer called sans-serifs his 'main life's work'; Univers pioneered the consistent wide-ranging type family.

Jan Tschichold, author of Die neue Typographie, later directed the visual identity of which publisher?

He fled Nazi Germany in 1933 after being arrested, and designed the typeface Sabon.

Herbert Bayer's 'universal' typeface for the Bauhaus was notable for what?

It was never cast as real type; Gropius made Bayer director of printing and advertising at the school.

The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius in which city?

It moved to Dessau in 1925 and Berlin in 1932 before closing under Nazi pressure in 1933.

Josef Müller-Brockmann's long-running poster series was for which venue?

The 'Musica Viva' concert posters began in 1950; he also wrote Grid Systems in Graphic Design.

Bezier curves, the backbone of vector graphics, are named after an engineer who used them to design what?

Paul de Casteljau at Citroën found them independently but his work stayed unpublished until the 1980s.

PostScript, the page description language behind desktop publishing, was created at which company?

John Warnock, Charles Geschke and colleagues built it from 1982 to 1984; Illustrator was Adobe's second product.

Desktop publishing took off in 1985 with the Apple LaserWriter and which software from Aldus?

TeX had offered desktop typesetting since 1978, but PageMaker made page layout mainstream on the Macintosh.

Photoshop was created in 1987 by which pair of brothers?

Thomas was a Michigan PhD student and John worked at Industrial Light & Magic; the program was first called Display.

Since which year has the Pantone Color Institute named a Color of the Year?

Lawrence Herbert bought the firm's technology in 1962 for $50,000 and renamed it Pantone.

Where is Pantone headquartered?

It began as the printing company of the Levine brothers, who hired Herbert part-time in 1956.

Who developed movable metal type in Mainz in the mid-15th century, transforming graphic communication?

The Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng had invented movable type centuries earlier.

Adobe Illustrator, released in 1987, was originally developed for which computer?

It commercialised Adobe's in-house font tools and the PostScript format.

Edward Johnston designed the typeface still used on the London Tube in which year?

The roundel and the Johnston face are the network's two great branding assets; Gill Sans grew out of it.

The design firm Pentagram was founded in 1972 in which London neighbourhood?

Its five founders were Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky.

Otl Aicher led the design team and pictogram system for which Olympic Games?

He also co-founded the Ulm School of Design with Max Bill and his wife Inge Scholl, sister of White Rose members Hans and Sophie.

The Isotype pictorial-statistics system, first called the Vienna Method, was developed by whom?

He recruited woodcut artist Gerd Arntz in 1926 to draw its standardised symbols for the city's social museum.

The influential design magazine Emigre was published from 1984 to 2005 in which city?

Rudy VanderLans edited it and Zuzana Licko typeset it on a Macintosh, pioneering digitally designed layouts.

Which designer created the Apple logo in 1977 while working at Regis McKenna?

Steve Jobs's only direction was 'don't make it cute'; Janoff later titled his memoir Taking a Bite out of the Apple.

Alexey Brodovitch was art director of which American fashion magazine from 1934 to 1958?

He first won notice in 1924 Paris with a poster for Le Bal Banal, beating a drawing by Picasso into second place.

Which brand consultancy designed the controversial logo for the London 2012 Olympic Games?

Founded in London in 1965, the agency also created identities for Orange, Tata Group and the Unilever flower U.

Who first launched the First Things First manifesto, criticising consumerist design, in 1964?

It was republished in 1999 as First Things First 2000 in issue 51 of Emigre magazine.