Ivan Chermayeff

Ivan Chermayeff HonRDI (June 6, 1932 – December 2, 2017) was a British-born American graphic designer and artist. He is best known as co-founder of graphic design firm Chermayeff & Geismar. Chermayeff created logotypes for the Smithsonian Institution, New York Museum of Modern Art, and Harper Collins publishing house, as well as numerous poster designs, book covers, architectural sculptures, exhibitions, illustrations, and fine art. Chermayeff is credited with introducing the concept of design as problem-solving and inventing the modern graphic design profession.

Childhood and early career Son of Serge Chermayeff, an acclaimed Russian-born British architect from a wealthy Jewish Caucasian family, Ivan Chermayeff was born in London in 1932. He spent a part of his childhood at the family’s Bentley Wood estate in Sussex, South East England, in a landmark 1938 timber house considered one of the earliest examples of modernist architecture, frequented by prominent artists and architects including Frank Lloyd Wright. The same year he apprenticed with architect Edward Larrabee Barnes tasked with producing multiple vinyl record jacket designs per day. Chermayeff co-founded Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar with former Yale schoolmate Tom Geismar and family friend, designer Robert Brownjohn. In 1959 Brownjohn left and the studio changed the name to Chermayeff & Geismar Associates. With a client roster that included Mobil, Xerox, Pan Am, and Chase Bank, it quickly became one of the leading corporate design companies in the United States, One of the earliest examples of a designer-run design agency, in 1960s Chermayeff & Geismar was a pivotal influence to the emerging industry of graphic design in the United States.

The firm produced over six hundred logomarks, some of them considered the most recognizable brands ever created, including one of the first ever abstract trademarks for Chase Bank (1960) still in use today.

Other logotypes created by Chermayeff include the Smithsonian Institution, PBS (1984), MoMA, Barneys New York, WGBH (1974), Pan Am Airlines, National Geographic, MOCA, New England Aquarium, and Showtime Network. and over 300 posters. His best-known poster series include richly-illustrated playful designs for PBS Masterpiece Theatre and minimal, photographic works for Pan Am World Airways, co-created with Tom Geismar. Posters from both series are held in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. alt=A modernist black poster with mid-century white typography and a minimal illustration with green hills, black mountain, blue skies, and a stipe of yellow sand. Large type at bottom right reads "North Cascades." A poster for North Cascades National Park designed and illustrated by Ivan Chermayeff in 1972.

In 1978, Chermayeff created the Kennedy Center Honors rainbow ribbon medals, used until 2025.

CambridgeSeven

Chermayeff was a partner at Cambridge Seven Associates, an architectural studio he co-founded in 1962 with six others, including Chermayeff’s younger brother, architect Peter Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Alden Christie, Louis Bakanowsky, Paul Dietrich, and Terry Rankine.

Career in illustration Chermayeff was an accomplished artist and illustrator. Most of his illustrations were made using the collage technique, with occasional use of mixed media, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, serigraphy, lithography, and finger painting. Additionally, Chermayeff designed tapestries and murals.

He was particularly drawn to bricolage, utilizing pieces of scrap paper and garbage like candy bar wrappers or used envelopes to depict expressive, abstract faces. He reported to work on collages between phone calls or meetings, with many pieces taking only minutes to assemble. One of his favorite bricolage materials were abandoned work gloves he collected from the streets of New York City. Chermayeff’s collages were exhibited in over 40 solo exhibitions throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

He authored and illustrated multiple children’s books, including Sun Moon Star, a Nativity story, with text by Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1980. Many of Chermayeff’s other children’s books were created collaboratively with his children and wife Jane Clark Chermayeff. The play principle Chermayeff rejected rigidity and prescriptiveness of modernism such as its reliance on grids, in favor of "the play principle", a term he used to describe use of concepts in the design process and openness to being guided by the project's subject matter. Notable examples of his playful approach to design are the 1975 bus shelter posters for the Whitney and the Guggenheim museums' free admission program sponsored by Mobil Oil.

Views Chermayeff (left) while working on the design of the U.S. pavilion at Expo 67, pictured with United States Information Agency design director Jack Masey (center) and architect Buckminster Fuller (right) Chermayeff argued that designing, unlike creating art, is a methodical, rational, idea-driven activity and a service aimed primarily at solving a client's business challenge:

Awards and honors Chermayeff received numerous industry awards including AIGA’s Gold Medal (1979), the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame (1981), the Gold Medal from the Philadelphia College of Art, and the Cooper Hewitt’s 2014 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. He held an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

A faculty member at School of Visual Arts in New York, he also taught design at Brooklyn College, Cooper Union, and the Parsons School of Design.

Personal life Chermayeff lived on Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City. Throughout his lifetime, he also owned residences in Girona, Spain, Litchfield, Connecticut, and Garrison, New York.

Chermayeff's final public appearance was at the AIGA Design conference in Minneapolis in October 2017. He died on December 3, 2017, at the age of 85, in New York City. and to exhibit curator Jane Clark Chermayeff (née Jane Clark) from 1978 until her death in 2014. artist Sacha Chermayeff, and photo editor Catherine Chermayeff. Ivan Chermayeff. Collages (New York: Abrams, 1991, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Fred Wasserman, Mary J. Shapiro. Ellis Island: An Illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience (New York: Macmillan Pub Co, 1991, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Sagi Haviv. TM: Trademarks Designed by Chermayeff & Geismar (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, ) Ivan Chermayeff. Suspects, Smokers, Soldiers, and Salesladies: Collages by Ivan Chermayeff (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2001, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar and Steff Geissbuhler. Designing: (New York: Graphis, 2003, ) Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar. Watching Words Move (New York: Chronicle Books, 2006, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Sagi Haviv. Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks of Chermayeff & Geismar (New York: HOW Books, 2011, )

Books about

Identity: Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv (New York: Standards Manual, 2018, ) Ivan Chermayeff: Mostly Early Covers (Somerville: Katherine Small Gallery, 2018)

Children’s books illustrated by

Sandol Stoddard Warburg. The Thinking Book (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1960) Ivan Chermayeff. 3 Blind Mice and Other Numbers (New York: Colorcraft, 1961) Ogden Nash. The New Nutcracker Suite and Other Innocent Verses (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1962) Kurt Vonnegut & Ivan Chermayeff. Sun Moon Star (New York: Harper & Row, 1980, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Jane Clark Chermayeff. First Words (New York: Abrams, 1990, ) Ivan Chermayeff, Jane Clark Chermayeff. First Shapes (New York: Abrams, 1991, ) Ivan Chermayeff. Fishy Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, ) Ivan Chermayeff. Furry Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, ) Ivan Chermayeff. Feathery Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, ) Ivan Chermayeff. Scaly Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, ) Eve Merriam. The Hole Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, )