OFFSET

S. Neil Fujita
The History behind
The God Father”
Milton Glaser
“All about Design Ethics”
Ubuntu
“African Philosophy”
 I got what you need.

2 O F F S E T
Table of Content
Ubuntu
By Sonal Panse. Pag. 4

Kytoto Design
2008 Declaration Pag 6.

Milton Glaser
Pag. 8

S. Neil Fujita
Pag.10

Celebration of Integrity & Design

Pag. 14

Integrity and Invention

By Paul Rand
Pag. 16

Artist of the Month

Andy Warhol
Pag. 22

Editor Publisher
Patricia Campos Lorenzo Castillo

Deputy Editor Associate Publisher

Claudia Torre ELizabeth Castillo

Editorial Director, TheAtlantic.com Associate Integrated Marketing

Bob Cohn Andreina Castillo

Deputy Managing Editor Digital Advertising Manager

Isabel Astorga Ana Montes de Oca

Art Director Integrated Advertising Sales

Guiliana Sanchez Pedro Juarez

Senior Editors
Kyara Castillo
Javier Motta

O F F S E T 3
 UBUNTU By Sonal Panse

African Philosophy:

Ubuntu, a Bantu word, defines what it means to be truly

human. We affirm our humanity when we acknowledge
that of others.

Yesterday, I saw a photograph on Yahoo News of

young Israeli girls writing messages on war missiles. I
assume, given that these same missiles were intended
for Lebanon, that the messages weren’t of peace and
prosperity for the Lebanese. But I wonder if these girls
completely understood the implications of the missiles
– that, when launched, they will, in all likelihood, kill or
maim other little girls, who just happen to be Lebanese.
Empathy seems to be in pretty short order these days, so
probably it won’t even matter to them. Equally appalling is
that these sentiments are perhaps as, if not more, rabidly
reflected in the opposite camp. Spreading hate as adults
is vile enough, but to teach it to your own children is
unforgivable.

Perhaps half the troubles in this world would be over if

parents gave up saying, I don’t want you to talk, play or
associate in any way with them, I won’t allow you to get to
know them, I don’t want you to like them, because, get
this straight, they are not like us - they are gooks or kikes
or hajis or huns or niggers and so on – everything except
people like us. The emphasis being on ‘Not like us and
therefore a whole lot less worthy of inhabiting this planet
than we are.’

“
Perhaps the world would be a more peaceful place if
more emphasis was placed instead on teaching respect,
decency, and tolerance, on teaching Ubuntu. “
A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable,
warm and generous, willing to share.

4 O F F S E T
What is Ubuntu? Social Aspect of Ubuntu:

The word ‘Ubuntu’ originates from one of the Bantu Still, as they say, the good points outweigh the
dialects of Africa, and is pronounced as uu-Boon-too. shortcomings.

It is a traditional African philosophy that offers us an Given the vast racial, cultural, religious, educational,
understanding of ourselves in relation with the world. and socio-economic differences apparent not just in
According to Ubuntu, there exists a common bond South-African society but the world over currently, the
between us all and it is through this bond, through concept of Ubuntu is really rather relevant. It is far too
our interaction with our fellow human beings, that easy to go into the ‘us and them’ mode. It is far too
we discover our own human qualities. Or as the easy to fall into the trap of judging a different people
Zulus would say, “Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu”, by our standards or by sticking to certain established
which means that a person is a person through stereotypical notions. If you instead regard someone
other persons. We affirm our humanity when we as a fellow human being, all individual quirks and
acknowledge that of others. differences taken into account, there is perhaps a
greater chance of achieving understanding.
The South African Nobel Laureate Archbishop
Desmond Tutu describes Ubuntu as: And, achieving understanding is important and
necessary, because, like it or not, we are all
“It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the interconnected. What hurts you could one day come
fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably around and hurt me. What benefits me, if I’m not too
bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. selfish about it, could make a crucial difference in your
It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about life. And knowing you could bring a world of meaning
compassion. A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, and interest in mine.
hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share.
Such people are open and available to others,
willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not
feel threatened that others are able and good, for
they have a proper self-assurance that comes from
knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They
know that they are diminished when others are
humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed,
diminished when others are treated as if they were
less than who they are.
The quality of Ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling
them to survive and emerge still human despite all
efforts to dehumanize them.”

Religious Aspect of Ubuntu:

For many Africans, while they may belong to different

societies and have different traditions and rituals,
Ubuntu usually has a strong religious meaning. In
general, the African belief is that your ancestors
continue to exist amongst the living in the form of
spirits and they are your link to the Divine Spirit. If you
are in distress or need, you approach your ancestors’
spirits and it is they who will intercede on your behalf
with God. Therefore it is important to not only venerate
your ancestors, but to, eventually, yourself become
an ancestor worthy of veneration. For this, you agree
to respect your community’s rules, you undergo
initiation to establish formal ties with both the current
community members and those that have passed on,
and you ensure harmony by adhering to the Ubuntu
principles in the course of your life.

O F F S E T 5
 Declaration
Kyoto
2008
AIGA endorses the principles of designers’ global
responsibility for building sustainable, human-
centered, creative societies documented in the Kyoto
Design Declaration, a statement of commitment
by the members of Cumulus, the International
Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design
and Media..
The Kyoto Design Declaration states the following:
Proposing new values and new
ways of thinking
All the people of the world now live in global and
interdependent systems for living. We continue
to enhance the quality of our lives by creating
environments, products and services utilizing design.
Design is a means of creating social, cultural,
industrial and economic values by merging
humanities, science, technology and the arts.
It is a human-centered process of innovation that
contributes to our development by proposing
new values, new ways of thinking, of living and
adapting to change.
6 O F F S E T
An era of human-centered
development
A paradigm shift from technology-driven development
to human-centered development is under way.
The focus is shifting from materialistic and visible
values to those, which are mental, intellectual and,
possibly, less material. An era of “cultural productivity”
has commenced, where the importance attributed
to modes of life, values and symbols may be
greater than that attributed to physical products.
Design thinking stands steadfastly at the center of
this continuum. Simultaneously, this development
highlights the importance of cultural traditions and the
need to extend and revitalize them.
The imperative for designers to
assume new roles
Global development, and an awareness of the
growth of related ecological and social problems are
posing new demands and offering new opportunities
for design, design education and design research.
Design is challenged to redefine itself and designers
must assume new roles and commit themselves to
developing solutions leading to a sustainable future. 
“
All the people of the world now
live in global and interdependent
“ responsibility
systems for living.
Seeking collaboration in
forwarding the ideals of
sustainable development
The members of Cumulus, representing a global
community of design educators and researchers,
undertake the initiative, outlined in this, the Kyoto
Design Declaration, to commit themselves to the
ideals of sustainable development. Furthermore,
the members of Cumulus have agreed to seek
collaboration with educational and cultural institutions,
companies, governments and government agencies,
design and other professional associations and NGOs
to promote the ideals of, and share their knowledge
about, sustainable development.
“ This protocol was written by Yrjö Sotamaa, rector of the
University of Art and Design Helsinki TAIK since 1986,
and founder and past president of Cumulus.
From education to global
In order to fulfill its declared mission to contribute
to sustainable social, environmental, cultural and
economic development for current and future
generations and to contribute to an environment
and culture that makes harmonious and healthy
life possible, the Cumulus members make this
declaration. Members will commit themselves
to accepting their part in the further education of
our youth within a value system where each of
us recognizes our global responsibility to build
sustainable, human-centered, creative societies.
The power to make fundamental
improvements to our world
Human-centered design thinking, when rooted in
universal and sustainable principles, has the power
to fundamentally improve our world. It can deliver
economic, ecological, social and cultural benefits to all
people, improve our quality of life and create optimism
about the future and individual and shared happiness.
Implementation
The signatories of this Declaration agree to submit
annually a Sustainability Report to Cumulus Secretariat
informing of the actions they have taken to implement
this Declaration. The reports will be published on the
Cumulus website and through this they are available
to all interested parties.
“
O F F S E T 7
 Milton Glaser on
D
esign Less Better recently had
the opportunity to talk to one of
our favorite designers.
Milton Glaser, about our favorite
topic, design ethics.
Design Less Better was very grateful for the
opportunity to sit down with Milton Glaser
recently and talk about his views on design
ethics. This interview was originally posted over
the course of three days. You are currently
reading the second of three.
DLB: Truth-telling and hypocrisy are obviously
important to you. In fact, famously, your Road
to Hell test gives designers a way to establish
their level of discomfort with bending the truth.
It helps designers figure out what they’re willing
to do for a job. On that note, can you tell us
about a time when you turned down or gave
up a job for ethical reasons?
MG: All moral questions are sensitive to the
context in which they arise. I can’t recall a
specific idea I gave up, but I will say that it is
a single overriding element in my life to do my
best to avoid lying to people, misrepresenting
things to people, or doing things that I think
would have bad consequences. But as
you know it is not easy to determine the
consequences of any act. As the Buddhists
say, “good yields bad, bad yields good”.
It is not a simplistic series of catchphrases
that we want to be concerned with. You
have to take people’s intentions into account.
Experience often shows that things that you
think will be helpful to someone turn out to be
harmful to them, and things you think will injure
them turn out to strengthen them.
So we cannot diminish the complexity of these
issues nor do we want to make it simplistic.
But I do know that I feel better when I benefit
the people I communicate with and I’m deeply
8 O F F S E T
embarrassed and feel awkward and inauthentic
when the work I do ends up hurting people
in any way.
I can’t talk about individual cases of course,
although I’m constantly turning down work that I
think is harmful. But so much is harmful that it’s
easy to leave yourself without a basis for your
economic life, and that, of course, is the conflict
that everybody faces. Everything is a matter of
degrees and not absolutes. I will say that as a
general principle, I attempt to be truthful and not
do harm. How that works on individual cases is
very often a complex story.
DLB: In several of your AIGA talks, you
have been a very staunch advocate of the
importance of ethical thinking for designers. But,
outside of a few isolated instances, there does
not seem to be a great deal of professional
concern about this issue. Do you find that
designers seem resistant to talking about
ethics, and if so, why do you think that is?
MG: Well, I think it’s difficult to talk about ethics.
In part, it’s difficult because designers are very
often pressed into situations where ethical
considerations are in conflict with financial
needs. If you’re earning $300,000 a year and
you’ve got two kids in school, leaving BP would
be a very difficult decision. And everybody in life
— except for saints and maybe those who are
more obsessive than anyone I know — has to
compromise in order to balance the elements of
their life, and has to arrive at conclusions which
don’t hurt them too much ethically, financially,
personally and so on.
Buddhists say, “good yields bad,
bad yields good”.
n Design Ethics
It’s very difficult to put yourself in a position where
you’re telling someone else to be more virtuous, to
be better or more ethical or as ethical as you are. I
hate that crap. I hate the kind of ethical baloney that
people talk about in their presentation, and then it
turns out that they don’t live their life that way. And it’s
not something you want to check on in others. All I
can say is that you have to determine in your life when
you’re willing to lie and what you’re willing to lie for. It is
not a question of absolute decisions. Every decision is
relative to everything else that is in your life at the time.
But one of the terrible dangers of ethical discussions
is that they soon shift to posing and then it’s like
listening to politicians on television. Where does all that
preening and posing and posturing come from? The
idea of appearing ethical seems to be something that
is attractive to people but then when you penetrate
the appearance and get to the actual reality of what’s
going on, it turns out frequently to be something very
different. So I hate to put myself in the position, among
others, of saying “I’m an ethical person you should be
more like me” because I recognize that everyone is
compromised in their lives.

“ I feel better when I benefit the people I

communicate with and I’m deeply embarrassed
and feel awkward and inauthentic when the work
I do ends up hurting people in any way.
“

O F F S E T 9

S. NEIL FUJITA
by Steven Heller
S. Neil Fujita, best known for his covers for CBS
Records, which introduced abstract art to jazz
packaging, and his book jackets for In Cold Blood
and The Godfather, died on Saturday, October
23*. He was 89.
His other lasting designs include the Today Show
logo, the Shubert Theaters logo and the graphic
typeface for Billboard Magazine. Schooled in
painting, Fujita began his career as a graphic
designer in Philadelphia at N. W. Ayer, then moved
to New York and became the head of the art
department for Columbia Records.
At Columbia he designed album covers with
commissioned artwork by Ben Shahn, Andy
Warhol and Roy DeCarava. His bold typography
was modernist in tone, yet not dogmatically linked
to the Swiss or another current school.
His own abstract paintings covered Dave
Brubeck’s Time Out and
Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um.
Following a three year stint at Columbia, he
launched his own design firm, Ruder, Finn and
Fujita, with clients that included the FAA, Norton
Simon, General Mills and General Foods. In 1968
he wrote Aim for a Job in Graphic Design/Art
(Richards Rosen Press), a fount of professional
intelligence for an emerging field. It is a slice of lost
graphic design history if only for the fact that he
introduced graphic design to high school students,
in part through the voices of women and African-
American designers who were not usually heard in
those days.
10 O F F S E T
“ “he introduced graphic design to high
school students, in part through the voices
of women and African-American designers
who were not usually heard in those days”
“
1921–2010
Sadamitsu Neil Fujita was born on May 16, 1921 in
Kauai, Hawaii. He grew up on a sugar plantation in
Waimea, where his father worked as a blacksmith.
He moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 and
studied at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts).
Fujita’s studies were interrupted by World War II,
during which he was forced into an internment
camp in Wyoming. Like other interned Japanese
Americans, he volunteered for service in the all-
Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team, serving
in Italy and France. He also served with G-2
intelligence as a translator in the Pacific.
In the mid-1990s he returned to painting, creating
portraits of the people around Southold, Long
Island, where he lived until his death. This project
eventually became “Seeing Is Feeling: American
Faces in the North Fork,” which was exhibited at
the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport in 1999.
A solo show of recent paintings was held in late
2009 at the Sirens’ Song gallery in Greenport.
During his last years he also completed a memoir,
Mouth of Reddish Water (Ruder Finn Press).
In 2007 I interviewed Fujita for AIGA’s Voice journal,
to put his voice on the design historical record. By
way of commemoration, here are excerpts from
that original interview.
“ I wanted to learn how
records were made,
the whole process.”

Heller: Neil, I’ve long admired your work. You’ve
had a long career, and much of it was involved
with the record industry. To start, how did you
become a graphic designer?
Fujita: I went to an art school in Los Angeles,
Chouinard. I had studied painting, design,
illustration, color theory, all the phases of art, but
I concentrated on drawing and painting—the
basics. While I was still in school I got married,
then after I graduated my wife and I moved to
New York. I wanted to look for a job in graphic
art because I knew that I had to make a living
and that painting wasn’t going to do it.
After spending a couple of months in New York
I met Bill Golden, the art director of CBS. He
looked at my portfolio and he asked me, “Neil,
what do you want to do? “ I said that I didn’t
know yet but that I was looking for a job at N.W.
Ayer because one of my teachers had put
a word in to Charles Coiner. I went down to
Philadelphia and Coiner looked at my portfolio
and offered me a job but it wasn’t because
of my commercial work, it was because of
my paintings! I worked at Ayer for around
three years, and while I was there I got a
gold medal from the Art Directors Club
for designing an ad for the Container
Corporation of America.
That must have gotten people talking because
shortly after I left Ayer I got a call from Bill Golden
who says he is recommending me to run the
art department at Columbia Records. He said
that I would be starting from the ground up by
building an internal graphic design staff. He also
said, “Neil, if do this you’ll be taking work and
income away from the two studios that have
been working with us for many years, so you’re
going to meet up with a lot of crap.
First of all, you’re Japanese and you’re going to
be called all sorts of names, from nip to jap and
everything else. Do you still want to do it?”
“ “You’re Japanese and you’re going to be
called all sorts of names, from nip to jap and
everything else. Do you still want to do it?”
Heller: After Alex Steinweiss established the
“idea” of album cover art, you certainly took it to
the next level of “art.” Did you go into Columbia
with an aesthetic goal or plan on how to make
this genre modern?
Fujita: When I got to Columbia there was the
beginning of some idea of album cover art
but it was still just type and maybe a photo
of the artist and some shapes arranged in an
interesting way. That was the first concept of
album cover art. Actually the first examples
of album art that I can remember were on
children’s records, because they might have
included a painting or something else to
illustrate the idea. But I think that I was the first
to use painters, photographers and illustrators
to do artwork on album covers. As for the
second part of the question, no, in fact I didn’t
go right into designing jackets. In fact when
I got to Columbia I actually spent the first
couple of months visiting the record factory in
Connecticut because I wanted to learn how
records were made, the whole process.
Heller: Many of your covers were done for
jazz albums. Was there a difference in your
approach from jazz to other forms of music?
Fujita: Jazz called for abstraction, a certain
kind of stylization, using modern painters.
Classical was different, we might have used
more photography for those records. I would
hire a photographer like Dan Weiner and
send him to a Glenn Gould recording session
because it was in the sessions that you could
really catch the raw spirit of the performance.
I’d look at the contact sheet, and if I saw one
that really clicked with what I knew about the
musician or conductor I’d say,
“That’s it!” Leonard Bernstein was going to do a
jazz recording and I told him, since we’re doing
a jazz album, don’t be afraid to dress casually,
even in a T-shirt”. His reply was, “I’m not afraid
of anything!” It wasn’t modern painting but it
was a modern approach.
“
Heller: Your work is decidedly modern, so
who were your influences? Did you look to the
generation before (e.g., Rand), or were the
“monumental” modernist painters your guide?
Fujita: When I was going to art school I liked
the work of Paul Rand, but also Tomayo, Klee,
Picasso, Braque.
Heller: You left Columbia in 1957. Why?
Steinweiss once told me that he just couldn’t
keep up with the changes in the industry. Did
you feel rock and roll changed the ground rules
of design?
Fujita: I left in ’57 because I wanted to be
something other than just a record designer,
and that’s what I told Goddard Lieberson.
I said that if I could sing or play the piano or
any instrument I might consider staying but
I couldn’t do any of those things, so I left to
go on my own.
The New York designers’ clique at the time
spread the rumor that I had been canned, but
that wasn’t true. After leaving I had my own
studio with a partner who came with me from
Columbia. I was on my own for less than a year
when I got a call from Lieberson, wanting me
to return. The guy who replaced me wasn’t
working out so I went back to Columbia for
another couple of years but I told them that it
would just be temporary.
This time the New York designers’ clique took
a different approach: They spread the rumor
that I was responsible for canning the guy that
replaced me, which again wasn’t true.
The simple fact is that I just didn’t want to be
known as someone that designed record
covers. I wanted to do other things, like learn
how to write.
O F F S E T 11
 “ The simple fact is that I just didn’t want to be known as
someone that designed record covers.
I wanted to do other things, like learn how to write.
Heller: You also did your fair share of book covers
and jackets. What was it like when you did them?
Did you have to navigate through a lot of marketing
interference, or did you have a free reign?
Fujita: I didn’t have marketing people making
suggestions but I did do a lot of reading. And
there may have been more direct contact with the
authors than there is today (but I’m not sure about
that). I liked working with authors because it’s usually
the author that sells the book. That’s why I always
wanted to have the author’s name as big as the
title. I did Updike’s Pigeon Feathers for Random
House and I got a call from Bob Scudellari—Updike
had sent him a note that said, “Why don’t you get
that Japanese designer and try him out again?” I
did three or four covers for him after that. I showed
Truman Capote my ideas for In Cold Blood. I
thought of a red hatpin that I stuck into the title of
the book to suggest death or something like that,
but he didn’t like the color. “It can’t be red, because
it wasn’t a new death, it didn’t just happen,” so I
changed the color to purple and added a black
border to suggest something more funereal.
Capote loved that.
Heller: Once you started your own studio, did your
approach change?
Fujita: I wanted to learn more about words—I
wanted to learn how to write, so I went to Columbia
University at night to study English literature and
writing. After I left Columbia Records, I had my
own studio across from MoMA. I had a couple of
big corporate clients, but I was also doing a lot of
work for book publishers. One day I got a call from
David Finn of Ruder and Finn. He was interested
12 O F F S E T
in the concept of merging graphic design with
public relations, and Joyce Morrow of AIGA had
recommended me. The idea was to form my own
company that would be a subsidiary of Ruder and
Finn. That was when I started Ruder, Finn and Fujita.
One of the first assignments that I found myself
involved in was working with a group of designers
in Israel to conceptualize, package and distribute
Israeli products for export.
This was the kind of total synthesis of commerce,
communication and design that I was really
interested in learning about and developing. I did this
kind of work for clients like the FAA, Norton Simon,
Bristol-Meyers, General Mills, General Foods, a lot
of annual reports. I did this for about 10 years before
changing the company to Fujita Design. I kept the
same office but I had my own clients.
Heller: Didn’t you design the logo for the
Godfather films?
Fujita: Yes, I did the logo. I designed the book
jacket for Putnam in 1969. By taking the G and
extending it to the D, I created a house for god. The
way the word was designed was part of the logo
and so was the type design. So when Paramount
Pictures does a film version or Random House,
which bought out the book from Putnam, does
another Godfather book, I still get a design credit.
In fact before the first Godfather film opened in New
York I saw a huge billboard going up on Times
Square with my design on it. I actually got them to
stop work on it until we were able to come to an
agreement.
Heller: How do you feel about the evolution of
design practice since you started and today?
“ It wasn’t modern painting but it
was a modern approach.
“
Fujita: My father was blacksmith. He had his anvil
and hammer. One morning he went to his shop
and someone had replaced his anvil and hammer
with a welder’s torch. I am fortunate to have worked
in that period before the computer when we had
to search for solutions with our own hands. When I
did Updike’s covers the computer as a graphic art
tool was not even in existence. I didn’t just design
the type for those book jackets; I drew it with my
quill pen, using India inks and dyes. It’s tough for
designers today that have to use the computer.
About the Author: Steven Heller, co-chair of the
Designer as Author MFA and co-founder of the
MFA in Design Criticism at School of Visual Arts,
is the author of Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant
Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century
(Phaidon Press), Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian
State (Phaidon Press) and most recently Design
Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and
Lessons Learned (Allworth Press).
He is also the co-author of New Vintage Type
(Thames & Hudson), Becoming a Digital Designer
(John Wiley & Co.),
Teaching Motion Design
(Allworth Press) and more.
www.hellerbooks.com
“
O F F S E T 13
 Celebration Of
Vintage &
Retro Design
Retro and vintage designs are often
considered as being outdated, looking old,
unattractive and dull. That’s not true. Although
compared to modern design, retro is mostly a
completely different realm, it has a large variety
of benefits modern graphic designers often
tend to overlook. And that’s a pity. Because
we, as designers, can learn a lot from it.

Nostalgic designs arise feelings, awake

memories and better manage to involve broad
range of readers even although they don’t
really realize it. Furthermore, retro can look
cool and offer readers or visitors something
they haven’t expected at all. So why not try to
impress them with some impressive vintage
art for a change?

Below you’ll find the celebration of retro and

vintage design — ads, illustrations, book

“
covers, pins and posters from 1920-1980s.
The images weren’t necessarily created in the
mid of 20th century.

Vintage is living today which is why this post

also features artists and designers who
make use of the vintage and retro style in
“
Please notice: if after reading this post
you’ll experience some need for buying
ice cream, chewing gum or eating
their works. sausages, it’s not our fault.

14 O F F S E T
O F F S E T 15
 Integrity &
Invention
by Paul Rand

16 O F F S E T
 “ The artist’s sense of
worth depends on his
feeling of integrity.
Courage and Creativity
Like that of the spawning salmon, the
artist’s life is a never-ending upstream
battle. To function creatively the artist
must have the courage to fight for what
he believes.
Courage in the face of a danger that has
no element of high adventure in it-just the
cold, hard possibility of losing his job. Yet
the courage of his convictions is, along
with his talent, his only source of strength.
Frank Lloyd Wright put it this way:
I’ll work as I’ll think as I am 
No thought
of fashion or sham 
Nor for fortune the
jade 
Serve vile Gods of trade 
My thought
as beseemeth a man’
The businessman will never respect the
professional who does not believe in what
he does. The businessman under these
circumstances can only ‘use’ the artist for
his own ends. And why not, if the artist
himself has no ends?
In asking the artist to have courage, we
must ask the same of industry.
The impetus to conform, so
widespread today, will, if not checked,
kill all forms of creativity, scientific and
technological included.
“
Business has a strong tendency to wait
for a few brave pioneers to produce
or underwrite original work, then rush
to climb on the bandwagon. The
bandwagon, of course, may not even be
going in the right direction. The attention
and admiration evoked by the high calibre
of XYZ’s advertising have induced many
an advertiser to say ‘Let’s do something
like XYZ’ without considering that it might
not be at all suited to his needs. Specific
problems require specific visual solutions.
But both XYZ’s and ABC’s advertising
and products can be made to fulfil
their functions and also be aesthetically
gratifying. Both can express respect
for and concern with the broadest
interests of the consumer. Against the
outstanding achievements in design
by some companies, there stands the
great Artistic Integrity.
17
O F F S E T
 “ Courage in the face of a danger that has no
element of high adventure in it-just the cold, hard
Artistic Integrity
There are those who believe that the role the designer
must play is fixed and determined by the socio-
economic climate; that he must discover his functional
niche and fit himself into it. It seems to me that this
ready-made image ignores the part the artist can
play in creating this climate. Whether as advertising
tycoons, missile builders, public or private citizens, we
are all human beings, and to endure we must, first of
all, be for ourselves.
It is only when man is not accepted as the centre
of human concern that it becomes feasible to
create a system of production which values profit
out of proportion to responsible public service, or
to design ads in which the only aesthetic criteria are
the use of fashionable illustrations and ‘in’ type faces.
The commercial artist (designer) who wants to be
more than a mere stylist and who wishes to avoid
being overwhelmed by the demands of clients, the
idiosyncrasies of public taste, and the ambiguities of
consumer research surveys must become clear as
to what his cultural contribution should be. In all these
areas he must try to distinguish the real from the
imaginary, the sincere from the pretentious, and the
objective from the biased.
If the commercial artist has both talent and a
commitment to aesthetic values, he will automatically
try to make the product of graphic design both
pleasing and visually stimulating to the user or the
viewer. By stimulating I mean that this work will add
something to the spectator’s experience.
The artist must believe his work is an aesthetic
statement, but he must also understand his general
role in society. It is this role that justifies his spending
the client’s money and his risking other people’s
jobs. And it entitles him to make mistakes. He adds
something to the world. He gives it new ways of
feeling and of thinking. He opens doors to new
experience. He provides new alternatives as solutions
to old problems.
18 O F F S E T
possibility of losing his job
“
There is nothing wrong with selling, even with
‘hard’ selling, but selling which misrepresents,
condescends, relies on sheer gullibility or stupidity is
wrong. Morally, it is very difficult for an artist to do a
direct and creative job if dishonest claims are being
made for the product he is asked to advertise, or if,
as an industrial designer, he is supposed to exercise
mere stylistic ingenuity to give an old product a new
appearance. The artist’s sense of worth depends on
his feeling of integrity. If this is destroyed, he will no
longer be able to function creatively.
Art and Communication
The lament of the graphic designer that he is not
permitted to do good work because good work is
neither wanted nor understood by his employers
is universal. It is indeed very often true. But if the
artist honestly evaluates his work he will frequently
find that the ‘good work’ the businessman has
rejected is really not so ‘good’. Many times when
the ‘square’ client says ‘it’s too far out’, he may be
unconsciously reacting to inappropriate symbolism,
obscure interpretation of an idea, poor typography,
an inadequate display of his product, or simply
bad communication. In a new edition of my book
THOUGHTS ON DESIGN, this problem was alluded
to as follows:
Graphic design-
Which fulfils aesthetic needs, 
complies with
the laws of form 
and the exigencies of two-
dimensional space; 
which speaks in semiotics,
sans-serifs, 
and geometries; 
which abstracts,
transforms, translates, 
rotates, dilates, repeats,
mirrors, 
groups, and regroups- 
is not good
design 
if it is irrelevant.
 “ “The roots of each one of them are in
platitude; the roots of every effective
stage play are in platitude.”
“
Graphic design
Which evokes the symmetria of Vitruvius, 
the
dynamic symmetry of Hambidge, 
the asymmetry
of Mondrian; 
which is a good gestalt; 
which is
generated by intuition or by computer, 
by invention or
by a system or coordinates- 
is not good design 
if it
does not co-operate 
as an instrument 
in the service
of communication.
Originality and Subject-Matter
Ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting.
As H. L. Mencken says of Shaw’s plays, “The roots of
each one of them are in platitude; the roots of every
effective stage play are in platitude.” And when he asks
why Shaw is able to ‘kick up such a pother’, he answers,
“For the simplest of reasons. Because he practises with
great zest and skill the fine art of exhibiting the obvious
in unexpected and terrifying lights.” From Impressionism
to Pop, the commonplace and the comic strip have
become the ingredients for the artist’s cauldron. What
Cezanne did with apples, Picasso with guitars, Leger with
machines, Schwitters with rubbish, and Duchamp with
urinals makes it clear that revelation does not depend
upon grandiose concepts. In 1947 I wrote what I still
hold to be true, ‘The problem of the artist is to make the
commonplace uncommonplace.
If artistic quality depended on exalted subject-matter,
the commercial artist, as well as the advertising agency
and advertiser, would be in a bad way. For years
I have worked with light bulb manufacturers, cigar
makers, distillers, etc., whose products visually are
not in themselves unusual. A light bulb is almost as
commonplace as an apple, but if I fail to make a package
or an advertisement for light bulbs that is lively and original,
it will not be the light bulb that is at fault.
20 O F F S E T
The ‘Corporate Image’
In this, the speed generation, practically any corporation,
large or small, can have its ‘image’ made to order.
A vast army of image makers have made a business out
of art large enough almost to rival the businesses they
help to portray.
Much has been touted about the virtues of corporate
identification programmes. Because the corporate
image so often conveys the impression that it is all-
encompassing, it leaves little doubt in the mind of the
onlooker that the image he sees represents a company
which is really in the swim, that it’s the best, the first, and
the most. However, being with it is not always being for it.
It seems to me that a company can more easily be
recognized for what it really believes not by its ‘made to
order image’ (its trade mark, logotype, letterhead), nor
by the number of avant-garde prints or Mies van der
Rohe chairs which embellish its offices, but by its more
mundane, day-to-day activities: its house organs, counter
displays, trade advertisements, packaging and products.
Unless it consistently represents the aims and beliefs as
well as the total production and activities of a company, a
corporate image is at best mere window dressing, and at
worst deception.
Things can be made and marketed without our
considering their moral or aesthetic aspects; ads can
convince without pleasing or heightening the spectator’s
visual awareness, products can work regardless of their
appearance. But should they? The world of business
could function without benefit of art-but should it?
I think not, if only for the simple reason that the world
would be a poorer place if it did.
O F F S E T 21
 Artist of the Month

Andy
Warhol
H
e was born in August 6, 1928, was an American
artist who was a leading figure in the visual art
movement known as pop art. His works explore the
relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and
advertisement that flourished by the 1960s.

After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol

became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The
Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is
the largest museum in the United States of America dedicated to
a single artist.

Warhol’s art encompassed many forms of media, including hand

drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening,
sculpture, film, and music. He was also a pioneer in computer-
generated art using Amiga computers that were introduced
in 1984, two years before his death. He founded Interview
Magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The
Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He
is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the
gay liberation movement. His studio, The Factory, was a famous
gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals,
drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood
celebrities, and wealthy patrons.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective

exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined
the widely used expression “15 minutes of fame”. Many of his
creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest
price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963
canvas titled Eight Elvises.

The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The

Economist, which described Warhol as the “bellwether of the
art market”.Warhol’s works include some of the most expensive
paintings ever sold. He died in February 22, 1987.

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24 O F F S E T