CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS
ADVANCING STANDARDS IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Lönberg-Holm
Ladislav Sutnar and K. Lönberg-Holm: CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS: ADVANCING STANDARDS IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION. New York: Sweet’s Catalog Service, [F. W. Dodge Corporation] 1950. First edition [less than 1,000 copies printed according to Arthur A. Cohen]. Oblong quarto. Five-color screen-printed glazed paper boards. Die-cut screen-printed dust jacket. Screen-printed plastic coil-binding. Unpaginated [106 pp.] Blue acetate frontis. Four title pages printed in color on heavier stock. Elaborate graphic design throughout by Sutnar. Jacket spine heel chipped and very faint fingerprint shadows. Board edges and tips slightly rubbed. Exceptionally well-preserved: a nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
9.5 x 12.5 hardcover book with approximately 106 illustrated pages that simply must be seen to be believed. Lönberg-Holm, the research director for Sweet’s, and Sutnar collaborated here in a visual history of the development of catalog design (which is to say, the communication of information) from the early part of the century to the present. Over the course of nearly a half-century, the multiplication of products and the increasing complexity of their functions in building construction have necessitated a revolution in the graphic explication of information and services.
Like his earlier books, CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS is quintessential design, demonstrating visually the principles both writer and designer had developed and employed. A magnificent rich volume, full of design invention and the harmonious employment of a great variety of papers, colors and printing techniques.
“To many people, standards mean only uniformity and restriction, something negative and static. Opposed to this concept of the word is one which may be illustrated by a commonly used expression, like living standards. This may suggest variation, as among the living standards of different parts of the world, or progress, as from the time of the earliest American settlers to the present. In short, the word has potentials, for implying something dynamic, not static- something which is always changing, advancing.
“This dynamic concept of standards has direct applications in the field of industrial product information. With the increasing importance of product information, the standards for its design become more important, requiring continual change and improvement. Technological advance accelerates this process. For example, in such a familiar field of advance as transportation, new standards were required to meet the complex information needs arising with the development of the automobile and airplane.
Thus with today’s industrial development and the concurrent higher standards of industry, corresponding advances must be made in the standards of industrial information itself. The need is not only for more factual information, but for better presentation, with the visual clarity and precision gained through new design techniques. Fundamentally, this means the development of design patterns capable of transmitting a flow of information.”
According to Steven Heller: "Over forty years after its publication, CATALOG DESIGN PROGRESS remains the archetype for functional design. It is a textbook for how designers can organize and prioritize information in a digital environment . . . "
". . . Ladislav Sutnar was a progenitor of the current practice of information graphics, the lighter of a torch that is carried today by Edward Tufte and Richard Saul Wurman, among others. For a wide range of American businesses, Sutnar developed graphic systems that clarified vast amounts of complex information, transforming business data into digestible units. He was the man responsible for putting the parentheses around American telephone area-code numbers when they were first introduced."
"As impersonal as the area-code design might appear, the parentheses were actually among Sutnar's signature devices, one of many he used to distinguish and highlight information. As the art director, from 1941 to 1960, of F.W. Dodge's Sweet's Catalog Service, America's leading distributor and producer of trade and manufacturing catalogues, Sutnar developed various typographic and iconographic navigational devices that allowed users to efficiently traverse seas of data. His icons are analogous to the friendly computer symbols used today."
"He made Constructivism playful and used geometry to create the dynamics of organization," says Noel Martin, who was a member of Sutnar's small circle of friends in the late 1950s."
"One of his favorite comments was: "Without efficient typography, the jet plane pilot cannot read his instrument panel fast enough to survive. [So] new means had to come to meet the quickening tempo of industry. Graphic design was forced to develop higher standards of performance to speed up the transmission of information. [And] the watchword of today is 'faster, faster'; produce faster, distribute faster, communicate faster." excerpt © 2004 AIGA