GEBRAUCHSGRAPHIK
February 1938
H. K. Frenzel [Editor]
Professor H.K. Frenzel [Editor]: GEBRAUCHSGRAPHIK. Berlin: Gebrauchsgraphik, 1938. Original edition (Volume 15, Number 2: February 1938 ). A vintage magazine in very good to near fine condition: wrappers lightly worn. Trace of foxing early and late. Cover design by Joseph Binder.
9.25 x 12.25 vintage magazine with 68 pages of editorial content and around 20 pages of advertising trade ads. Editorial Contents represent the best of European Art Deco Commercial and Advertising Art, Posters, Photography and Packaging circa 1937. The advertising shows the strong Bauhaus influences of Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer, as well as echoes of El Lissitzky, Piet Zwart and Jan Tschichold's neue typografie.
The highlights of this issue are the knockout feature on the French posters of Jean Picart le Doux; a design competition for 24-sheet posters; the Bauhaus-inspired designs of Willi Kunze and much more.
Contents:
- Willi Kunze
- Louise plump-Hellersberg and her dolls
- Outdoor advertising association design competition for 24-sheet posters
- Jean Picart le Doux
- Liselotte von Wolff
- graphic art of the Nuremberg Artists Festivall
- old catalogs of handicraft and industrial products
- publicity of the city of Lubeck
- certificates for the german reich federation
Joseph Binder's poster work used simple compositions and geometric patterns derived from Cubist and DeStijl principles. In 1924 he won the poster design for the Buro des Festes, Vienna. He emigrated to the United States in 1934 and was influential in developing the pictorial graphic design style of the 1930's and 1940's. In 1939 he designed the poster for the New York World’s Fair. His success in the US was further increased by winning many poster competitions organized by the Museum of Modern Art, for such agencies as the National Defense, the United Nations and the American Red Cross. He also designed covers for Fortune and Graphis Magazine. After 1950 he was art director for the US Navy Department in Washington, DC.
Founded in 1923 by Professor H. K. Frenzel, Gebrauchsgraphik was the leading voice of the Avant-Garde influence on the European Commercial Art and Advertising industries before World War II. In the thirties, all roads led through Berlin, and Gebrauchsgraphik spotlighted all of the aesthetic trends fermenting in Europe -- Art Deco and Surrealism from Paris, Constructivism from Moscow, Futurist Fascism from Rome, De Stijl and Dutch typography from Amsterdam, and of course the spreading influence of the Dessau Bauhaus. A journal that was truly international, presented in both German and English.
Gebrauchsgraphik was in the perfect place to showcase all the latest and greatest European trends and rising artists for the rest of the world. Gebrauchsgraphik was an incredibly influential journal and agenda setter, most notably to a young man in Brooklyn named Paul Rand. According to his biographical notes, Rand's exposure to Gebrauchsgraphik in the early thirties created his desire to become a Commercial Artist. The rest is history.