Ladislav Sutnar
Pioneered what we know now call information design, wrote books laying out important guidelines for design systems, and designed catalogs, books, exhibits, toys, and more.He clarified vast amounts of information using colors, shapes, and graphic symbols to guide the reader. He established hierarchy by emphasizing type, changing scale and weight, reversing out of color, and using italics and parentheses which made skimming, reading, and remembering easier.
Alvin Lustig
Worked in multiple design disciplines, took an intellectual approach to solving problems, and designed groundbreaking book covers. He designed just about everything but he is best known for his book covers. Rather than showing an image that explicitly represented the story, he read the work and created symbolic visuals that interpreted the book's overall meaning. He died at the young age of 40.
Cipe Pineles
Became the first female art director of a mass-market American Magazine, Seventeen. She also inducted into the first New York Art Directors Club and elected to its Hall of Fame as the first woman. She hired fine artists to illustrate mainstream magazines. In her day she was one of the few women graphic designers. When she would send her portfolio to employers they liked it until they found out she was a woman. When working for Seventeen magazine she rejected the idealized style typical of magazine illustrations at the time, and exposed her audience to modern art.
Bradbury Thompson
He recycled vintage elements in modern design, designed and art directed 30 plus magazines, and developed a new concept for the alphabet. Low budgets didn't limit his creativity. He took advantage of vintage letterpress type and found imagery, he used his background in printing and his knowledge of typography and color to develop projects that still look fresh today.
Erik Nitsche
Understood that design could shape a company's public image, designed iconic scientific posters, and elevated the standard for nonfiction book design. He illustrated magazine covers, designed movie posters and album covers, and created marking materials for retailers and then he started working with General Dynamics where he created innovative corporate design.
Josef Muller-Brockmann
He advocated the use of the grid, sans serif type, and objective photography. He also founded Neue Grafik to promote Swiss Style and wrote the first comprehensive history of graphic design. He believed in rational, functional design. To achieve that he used geometry, photography, and abstraction. His favorite typeface was Akzidenz Grotesk.
Paul Rand
He mastered corporate identity, advertising, and editorial design. Developed strong identity programs for major corporations. He also influenced others through writing and teaching. Visual communication is form and function. Its not just how something looks or how something works. It is how it looks and works together. He created logos for companies like ABC, Yale University, Press, Next Computers, Colorforms, Westinghouse, and United Parcel Service.
Saul Bass
Pioneered the art of film title design, developed comprehensive ad campaigns for movies, and design many well-known corporate identity programs. Before Saul Bass movie titles were not important at all. He made the entertaining and tell a story. He learned Russian Constructivism and Bauhaus principles. He wouldn't focus on the film's star, he would make symbols to represent its meaning. He designed a lot of titles for Alfred Hitchcock movies.
Georg Olden
He pioneered on-air television graphics and became the first notable African American graphic designer. When he was designing for television the medium was very limited. It was black and white, fixed proportions, the the picture quality made type look fuzzy. He designed clean and simple titles that quickly communicated the gist of the show. He integrated type and images to create bold, graphic and playful visuals.
Will Burtin
He made complex information understandable through design with information graphics, he had an advanced understanding of science, and he organized multidisciplinary conferences on communications. He was pressured to design Nazi propaganda for Adolf Hitler and he instead fled to the United States and it is said he never said another word in German. He designed info graphics for Fortune Magazine as well as for Scope.