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 HarperCollins 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
Caucasus 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.
After economic conditions in England deteriorated as the result of the World War II, Chermayeffs went through a personal
bankruptcy.
In 1940, when Ivan Chermayeff was 8 years old, they
Emigration to the United States in search of better job opportunities.
After arriving in the U.S., Chermayeff and his younger brother Peter spent nearly a year living with
Walter Gropius in Lincoln, Massachusetts, while his parents looked for permanent housing.
Chermayeff attended no fewer than 24 different schools.
Chermayeff & Geismar
In 1957
Chermayeff co-founded Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar with former Yale schoolmate
Tom Geismar and 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.
Over the next 50 years, the firm produced over six hundred Logo, some of them considered the most recognizable brands ever created,
While best known for his achievements in corporate branding, throughout his career Chermayeff also designed numerous book covers
CambridgeSeven
Chermayeff was a partner at
CambridgeSeven, 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.
Many of Chermayeff’s projects in exhibition and signage design, including the Kennedy Presidential Library, signage for the Boston public transit system, and Osaka Aquarium, were developed in collaboration with CambridgeSeven.
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,
Screen printing,
lithography,
and
finger painting.
Additionally, Chermayeff designed
Tapestry and
Mural.
He recalled making art, collages in particular, throughout his life, beginning in his teenage years.
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.
He authored and illustrated multiple children’s books, including Sun Moon Star, a Nativity story, with text by Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1980.
After Chermayeff's death in 2017, a collection of 700 original artworks and illustrations was donated to SVA by his children, and now comprises the Ivan Chermayeff Collection at the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives.
Style and method
The supermarket principle
Together with Tom Geismar, Chermayeff developed a layout design approach known as "the supermarket principle" that involves using a multiple repetition of similar objects to create an impactful visual. Notable examples of its use include the 1972 poster for the Aspen Design Conference and the 1974 poster promoting the Museum of Immigration at the Statue of Liberty.
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 coined to describe his belief in importance of visual design concepts and openness to being guided by the project's subject matter. Notable examples of his playful approach to design are the 1975
Bus stop posters for
Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim museums' free admission program sponsored by Mobil Oil.
Views
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:
He dismissed approaches relying on following styles and trends in brand design, stating that to be successful any brand identity needs to be original:
Awards and honors
Chermayeff received numerous industry awards including AIGA’s Gold Medal (1979), the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame (1981),
the Yale Arts Medal (1985), the Society of Illustrators gold medal, the Industrial Art Medal from the American Institute of Architects, the President's Fellow Award from the Rhode Island School of Design,
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 degree doctorate in fine arts from the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Chermayeff was a longtime trustee of Museum of Modern Art in New York, a 1963–1966 president of AIGA, and 1988–1996 board director at the Smithsonian Institution.
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.
Influence and legacy
Chermayeff is considered to be the author of some of the most recognized logotypes in the history of design,
and one of designers who shaped the profession of commercial graphic design.
He was one of the first design practitioners to refer to design as problem-solving.
Personal life
Chermayeff lived on Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City.
Throughout his lifetime, he also owned residences in
Girona,
Litchfield, Connecticut,
and Garrison, New York.
Chermayeff's final public appearance was at the AIGA Design conference in Minneapolis in October 2017.
He was married to Sara Anne Duffy Chermayeff (née Sara Anne Duffy), the daughter of Edmund Duffy, from 1955 until 1977,
Books
Books by
-
Ivan Chermayeff. Observations on American Architecture (New York: Viking, 1972, )
-
Ivan Chermayeff, Richard Saul Wurman, Ralph Caplan, Peter Bradford, Jane Clark. The Design necessity: a casebook of federally initiated projects in visual communications, interiors and industrial design, architecture, landscaped environment (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1973, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Collages (New York: Abrams, 1991, )
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Ivan Chermayeff, Fred Wasserman, Mary J. Shapiro. Ellis Island: An Illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience (New York: Macmillan Pub Co, 1991, )
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Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, Sagi Haviv. TM: Trademarks Designed by Chermayeff & Geismar (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Suspects, Smokers, Soldiers, and Salesladies: Collages by Ivan Chermayeff (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2001, )
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Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar and Steff Geissbuhler. Designing: (New York: Graphis, 2003, )
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Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar. Watching Words Move (New York: Chronicle Books, 2006, )
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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
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Identity: Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv (New York: Standards Manual, 2018, )
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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)
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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)
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Kurt Vonnegut & Ivan Chermayeff. Sun Moon Star (New York: Harper & Row, 1980, )
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Ivan Chermayeff, Jane Clark Chermayeff. First Words (New York: Abrams, 1990, )
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Ivan Chermayeff, Jane Clark Chermayeff. First Shapes (New York: Abrams, 1991, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Fishy Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Furry Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Feathery Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, )
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Ivan Chermayeff. Scaly Facts (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, )
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Eve Merriam. The Hole Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, )
See also
