Miguel Medina
Prof. Thelma Bauer
COMD 1112 D110
Designer Research
Designer is a person who devises or executes designs, especially one who creates forms, structures and patterns, as for works of art or machines. Nowadays, we can see a lot of nice, cool, well done logos, posters, labels, and different products with a variety of typefaces, images and backgrounds around us. Each designer has their own methods, styles and they become more popular in our community. Some designers focus on a specific area like, cartoons, companies logos, covers and more. A famous typographer and lettering artist is Ephram Edward Benguiat and this research paper will be based on his life and his designs.
Ephram Edward Benguiat was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 27, 1927. He is an American typography and lettering artist and he has over 600 typefaces and designs, many created between 1970 and 1995. When he was nine years old, he was interested in the design of letters. His father was display director at Bloomingdale’s and he had all the drawing tools, when he was a little boy he saw those tools and he started to play with his father’s pens, brushes, drafting sets and learned about sign painting, showcard and speedball lettering. He received the usual education during World War II, he wasn’t old enough to join the Army service, but he was in the Air Corps and he learned to fly planes. He likes and enjoys flying his personal plane with his wife Elisa. Also, in 1961, he started teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York and continues to work there. Some of his typaces and illustrations include Tiffany, Bookman, Panache, Souvenir, Edwardian Script and the eponymous Benguiat and Benguiat Gothic. Also, he designs or redesigns of the logotypes for Esquire, The New York Times, Playboy, McCall’s, Reader’s Digest, Photography, Look, Sports Illustrated, The Star-ledger, The San Diego Tribune, AT&T, A&E, Coke, Estee Lauder, Ford and the logotypes for the original Planet of the Apes film, Super fly, The Guns of Navarone and Stranger Things. Also, he became typographic director at Photo-Lettering and he was inducted into the Art Directors of Fame in 2000.
There are some of his popular typefaces and some of these typefaces some companies use as logos. ITC Avant Garde Gothic typeface is geometric sans serif design, basic shapes appear to be constructed form circles and straight lines. Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase based their 1970 typeface on Lubalin’s logo for Avant Garde magazine.
In 1974 Ed Benguiat was drawn and in 1977 Andre Gurtler designed the obliques.
ITC Benguiat typeface, is long and finely extended line terminals that harmonise perfectly with the taperin serifs. The original had alts for ‘A’ and ‘M’ and various ligatures which are not available in today’s digital version, designed in 1977 and released in January 1978.
Benguiat Caslon is an Old Style Serif typeface designer to be set in biglarge and huge sizes in classic TNT (tight-not-touching) Style. Ed Benguiat drawn for photo-lettering in 1960s, high contrast between thicks and thins, sharply tapering serifs. This typeface had different fonts as bold and ultrabold, and has two digital interpretations were used in 1970 and an extended version released by House Industries in 2017.
ITC Benguiat Gothic is a decorative serif typeface, released in 1977, has an arched bar in uppercase “A”, shaped lowercase ‘g’ and the inward curving stems of the capital “U” and is available in Book, Medium, Bold and Heavy fonts.
Benguiat Buffalo is a sans serif typeface, has dark markings on limbs, horns shorter than other subspecies, curve upwards, large, prominent ears, wide mouth, bare, moist nose and tuft on tail. Ed Benguiat designed in the early 1960s and created the original film version of Buffalo for Photo-Lettering partners. This typeface was digitized in 2004 by Donald Roos.
In 1967, Edward Benguiat designed logo or screen design for the New York Times newspaper, and worked with Louis Silverstein who was the director of The Times. He made it small letters and in different or no common letterforms which the nameplace is based in blackletter of Gothic, traced in the late 700s. This typeface is referred to as Gothic or Old English, and is characterized by a dense black texture and highly decorated caps. The lowercase are angular forms with dramatic thick-to-thin strokes and serifs.
Coca Cola logo, the legendary typeface which name is “Elegy”,was designed by Ed Benguiat in the 70s and based on the original, hand letters of this Corporation In New York.This typeface is like a wedding dress, it looks like the purest of whites with flowing lace and long, lavish train, simply gorgeous.
McCall’s was a monthly American Women’s magazine, published by the McCall corporation was popular in the 20th century. This magazine used on the front covers many of Benguiat’s typefaces because to the magazine designers liked those typefaces and thought that looked cool.
Benguiat was a prominent jazz percussionist under the name Eddie Benart and played in bands such as Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill and Woody Herman but he decided to choose a career as a designer or illustrator and created their interesting typefaces. Also, he was a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a past president of the Type Directors Club. He received some recognitions like the gold medal for excellence in 1990, he won the prestigious Fredric W. Goudy Award and SVA honored him in 1995.
Work cited:
Cary Graphic Arts Collection, https://www.rit.edu/carycollection/ed-benguiat
Edward Benguiat, http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/edward-benguiat/
Font Designer – Edward Benguiat, https://www.linotype.com/1515/edward-benguiat.html
TDC Medal Winner – Ed Benguiat, https://www.tdc.org/profiles/ed-benguiat/
Type Design Information Page, May 18, 2020, http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-26336.html
