Ivan Chermayeff

Ivan Chermayeff HonRDI (June 6, 1932 – December 2, 2017) was an 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, Harper Collins publishing house, and Showtime Network, 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. 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 emigrated to the United States in search for 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. He studied at Phillips Academy of Andover, Harvard University, and IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. In 1955, he graduated from the Yale School of Arts and Architecture with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, where he trained under Swiss designer Herbert Matter. The same year he apprenticed with designer Alvin Lustig and was hired by CBS as assistant Art Director in record cover design department.

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 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.

While primarily known for his achievements in corporate branding, throughout his career Chermayeff also designed numerous book covers and over a hundred 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.

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.

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. 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 also an accomplished artist and illustrator. Most of his illustrations were made using the collage technique, with occasional use of mixed media, painting, drawing, photography, serigraphy, lithography, and finger painting. 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. ''Sun Moon Star'' was later translated into multiple languages, including Japanese. Many of Chermayeff’s other children’s books were created collaboratively with his children and wife Jane Clark Chermayeff.

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.

Awards

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, and the Cooper Hewitt’s 2014 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Personal life

Chermayeff lived on Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City. He died on December 3, 2017, at the age of 85, in New York. He had four children: Sam Chermayeff, an architect based in Berlin, Maro Chermayeff, producer, filmmaker, and founder of MFA Social Documentary Film at School of Visual Arts, artist Sacha Chermayeff, and photo editor Catherine Chermayeff. His younger brother Peter Chermayeff is an architect known for aquarium designs.

Books

Books by

* Ivan Chermayeff. ''Observations on American Architecture'' (New York: Viking, 1972, )
* 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)
* 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, )

See also

* Tom Geismar
* Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chermayeff, Ivan

American graphic designers
American poster artists
20th-century American lithographers
American collage artists
American children's book illustrators
Logo designers
AIGA medalists
1932 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American illustrators