1. Walter Allner Collection Overview
2. Hans J. Barschel Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
3. Saul Bass Collection Overview
4. Lester Beall Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
5. Alexey Brodovitch Collection Overview
6. Will Burtin Collection Overview or Website and Detailed Finding Guide
7. Tom Carnese Collection Overview
8. Chermayeff and Geismar Collection Overview
9. Louis Danziger Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
10. Estelle Ellis Collection Overview
11. Mary Faulconer Collection Overview
12. George Giusti Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
13. William Golden Collection Overview
14. Rob Roy Kelly Collection Overview
15. Leo Lionni Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
16. Alvin Lustig Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
17. Joyce Morrow Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
18. Cipe Pineles Collection Overview
19. Paul Rand Collection Overview
20. Alex Steinweiss Collection Overview
21. Ladislav Sutnar Collection Overview or Detailed Finding Guide
22. Ceil Smith Thayer Collection Overview
23. Bradbury Thompson Collection Overview
24. Fred Troller Collection Overview
25. George Tscherny Collection Overview
26. Massimo and Lella Vignelli Overview

The Graphic Design Archives at RIT document and preserve the work of significant American graphic designers active from the 1920s to the 1950s. In addition, selected contemporary designers working in the modernist traditions are also included. The first collections came to RIT in 1984 through the vision of RIT Professor Roger Remington and have grown to include the works of twenty-five designers and typographers, including:

Walter Allner, Hans J. Barschel, Saul Bass, Lester Beall, Alexey Brodovitch, Will Burtin, Tom Carnese, Chermayeff and Geismar, Louis Danziger, Estelle Ellis, Mary Faulconer, George Giusti, William Golden, Rob Roy Kelly, Leo Lionni, Alvin Lustig, Joyce Morrow, Cipe Pineles, Paul Rand, Alex Steinweiss, Ladislav Sutnar, Ceil Smith Thayer, Bradbury Thompson, Fred Troller, and Massimo and Lella Vignelli.

The Graphic Design Archives are under the administrative care of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection and complement its extensive holdings in graphic communications history and printing technology. While many of the GDA collections represent the complete surviving work of a particular designer, some are smaller sample collections that document a portion of a designer’s career. Broadly summarized, the collections contain original source materials documenting the designers’ working lives, and include such unique items as original artwork, sketchbooks, sculptures, architectural models, reliefs, and printed samples (tear sheets, proofs and sample issues of publications). In addition, many of the archives includes photographs and slides, as well as audio tapes and film. Numerous scholars use the collections, including faculty or curators from such prominent institutions as Brigham Young University; the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague; North Carolina State University; Rochester Institute of Technology; Rutgers University: and Yale University. In addition, the Graphic Design Archives contain significant visual artifacts which have been borrowed for exhibitions at national and international museums including the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; London Design Museum; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and the Museum Folkswang, Essen.

1. Walter Allner Collection
Walter Allner (1909-2006 ), designer, typographer and painter was trained at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers, Vasily Kandisky and Joost Schmidt. He worked for Graphis Paris from 1945 to 1948 and emigrated to the United States in 1949 where he worked for several corporate clients. He was an influential art director at Fortune RIT’s Walter Allner Collection contains a sampling of his work, primarily magazine covers for Fortune and Packaging Digest and was donated by Mr. Allner himself. magazine from 1963 to 1974.

2. Hans J. Barschel Collection
Hans Barschel (1912-1998) designer, illustrator and educator was trained in Berlin under the tutelage of the well-known book designer, George Salter, and emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1937. His commissions included designs for book jackets, advertisements, magazine covers and illustrations, and posters. His clients included United Airlines, New York Central Railroad, Steel, Fortune magazine, Town and CountryHans J. Barschel Collection: Catalog and Finding Guide. magazine, Harry Abrams’s Book of the Month Club, CIBA Geigy Pharmaceuticals, Standard Oil of New Jersey, the United Nations, and many others. Barschel also taught for over twenty years from 1954 to 1976 with the School of Art and Design at RIT. This extensive collection was donated by Hans Barschel from 1991 to 1994 and was further supplemented by a gift from his estate in 1998.

3. Saul Bass Collection
Saul Bass (1920-1996) played an important role in the development of movie graphics and corporate identity campaigns, and maintained important collaborations with Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock. His corporate identity programs include work for United Airlines, Quaker Oats and AT &T, among others. The Saul Bass collection is a sampling of his work, primarily posters, donated by his business partner, Herb Yager in 2004.

4. Lester Beall Collection
Lester Beall (1903-1969) was a key contributor to the modern movement in American graphic design. This collection provides exhaustive documentation of the life and work of this important pioneer, who is perhaps best known for his poster designs for the Rural Electrification Administration (1937-1941). Beall also designed for many other clients, including the International Paper Company and Connecticut General Life Company. The Lester Beall Collection was donated by Beall’s children Joanna Beall Westermann and Lester Beall Jr. in 1984. The collection was organized and processed with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Lester Thomas Beall, 1903-1965: Papers, ca. 1911-1984.

5. Alexey Brodovitch Collection
Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) was a pioneering art director, whose twenty-five-year tenure at Harper’s Bazaar makes him a key figure in editorial design history. The collection is particularly rich in portraits of Brodovitch himself by photographers who worked with him including Richard Avedon and Arnold Newman along with many others. In addition, the collection includes audio tapes of classes in his home-based design laboratory. The Brodovitch collection has been assembled from the gifts of several donors: The Documents of American Design (1992), Harvey Lloyd (1992-1993) and Dotty Attie (1993).

6. Will Burtin Collection
Will Burtin (1908-1972) was one of the foremost information designers of the twentieth century. After emigrating to the United States from Germany, Burtin became art director for Fortune magazine. Burtin established his own design firm in New York in 1949, with clients including Union Carbide, Eastman Kodak, the Smithsonian Institution, and Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. Through the design of Scope, the Upjohn firm’s journal for physicians, as well as his award-winning exhibitions, Burtin made important advances in making scientific knowledge more accessible. The Will Burtin Archive is currently the largest collection in the GDA and was donated by Carol Burtin Fripp in 2000. In July 2005, the Getty Foundation awarded RIT a grant to process and organize the collection.

7. Tom Carnese Collection
Tom Carnese (1939-) was born in the Bronx and went on to enjoy a prolific career in New York as a graphic artist and creative letterform designer. He formed a notable partnership in 1969 with Herb Lubalin and Ernie Smith, prepared logos and lettering for many corporate identity programs, and designed Avant Garde, one of the quintessential typefaces of the 20th century. In 1980, he founded Carnese Computer Typography, and later, the type design agency World Typeface Centre, Inc. In 2004, he donated a substantial archive of correspondence, sketches, pen-and-ink drawings, layouts, type designs and mechanicals.

8. Chermayeff and Geismar Collection
Ivan Chermayeff (1932-) and Tom Geismar (1931-) formed a collaborative design practice in 1957 with Robert Brownjohn. Chermayeff and Geismar Inc., are renowned for their corporate identity campaigns for Mobil, Chase Manhattan Bank, Xerox and the Public Broadcasting System along with numerous others. Donated in 2005, the Chermayeff and Geismar Collection is a small sampling, primarily posters, of their larger oeuvre.

9. Louis Danziger Collection
Louis Danziger (1923-) studied at the Federal Art Project classes in New York from 1938 to 1941 and then served in the US Army through 1945. Following his military service, he studied with Alvin Lustig and Alexey Brodovitch. In 1949, Danziger established an independent freelance graphic design business in Los Angeles. He enjoyed success through his long-time associations with such prominent companies as the Container Corporation of America, The Dreyfus Company, Gelvatex, Vivitar, Clinton Laboratories, Atlantic Richfield Company and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. The collection contains representative work from 1949 to 1989 and was donated in 1995 by Mr. Danziger. Detailed Finding Guide

10. Estelle Ellis Collection
Estelle Ellis (1920-) a creative marketing pioneer, helped launched Seventeen along with Helen Valentine, as editor and Cipe Pineles, as art director. Ms. Ellis has advised numerous magazines, corporations, universities and other institutions on how to position themselves demographically and economically as well as reach their primary audiences. She has worked for Seventeen, Charm, House and Garden, and a number of other Condé Nast publications and with such companies as Kimberly Clark. The principal Estelle Ellis Collection (1944-1994) is at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History. RIT’s Ellis collection consists of promotional brochures that Ms. Ellis had collected as reference material over the years and was given by Ms. Ellis in 2005.

11. Mary Faulconer Collection
Mary Faulconer studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art where she taught in the Design Laboratory of the Museum School. She has, in addition, served as Art Director of Mademoiselle Magazine and Harpers Bazaar. Her free lance illustration work has appeared in Fortune, House and Garden, Life, Look, Seventeen, Town and Country and Vogue magazines. She also designed the 1978 Rose Stamp for the United States Postal Service. Mary Faulconer donated this representative sample collection of her work, including scrapbooks related to Brodovitch, in 2003.

12. George Giusti Collection
George Giusti (1908-1990) trained in Milan, and emigrated to the United States in 1939. Giusti had a twelve-year design association with Geigy Pharmaceuticals. In addition he produced several important cover designs for books, record covers and magazines including Time, Fortune and Holiday. The Giusti collection was donated to RIT by the designer's wife, Margot Joachimsthal Reiche Giusti in 1993. In 2005, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded RIT a grant to process and organize the collection. One byproduct of this grant is the Finding Aid to the collection in PDF form and can be found by clicking here George Giusti 1908-1990 Papers ca. 1941-1988.

13. William Golden Collection
William Golden (1911-1959) was the influential art director for the Columbia Broadcasting System. He created the corporate identity and classic CBS “eye” mark during his tenure as creative director of advertising and sales promotion. The William Golden collection came to RIT in 1991 on deposit from Tom Golden.

14. Rob Roy Kelly Collection

Rob Roy Kelly (1924-2004) enjoyed high regard as a design educator and historian. His pedagogical practices and theories have played a key role in graphic design education. Kelly also served as the first William A. Kern Professor of Communications at Rochester Institute of Technology from 1974 to 1975. The preliminary gift from the family includes copies of lectures and essays and scrapbooks of Kelly’s many interests and collecting habits.The collection was given in late 2003 just prior to Kelly’s passing and is expected to grow with additions made in the future by the Kelly family.

15. Leo Lionni Collection
Leo Lionni (1910-1999) worked as a graphic designer, art director, painter and illustrator and began his design career in Italy. After emigrating to the United States in 1939, he was art director at N.W. Ayer Advertising and later worked as the art director of Fortune following Will Burtin. In addition, he was Olivetti’s design director and was co-editor of Print magazine. The Lionni sample collection was given to RIT in 1997. Detailed Finding Guide

16. Alvin Lustig Collection
Alvin Lustig (1915-1955) trained at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles and also briefly studied with Frank Lloyd Wright. His career highlights include numerous book jackets for New Directions and Noonday Press. The Alvin Lustig Collection was donated to RIT in 1986 by his widow, Elaine Lustig Cohen. Alvin Lustig, 1915-1955: Papers, ca. 1925-1984.

17. Joyce Morrow Collection
Joyce Morrow’s (1917-) distinguished administrative career during which she developed close associations with the leading graphic designers of the period 1940-1970. In 1953, Morrow was appointed executive director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts in New York, a post which she held for over fifteen years. The Joyce Morrow Archive consists of correspondence, photographs, ephemera and publications which she had received and collected during her career. Of special interest is a group of sketches, paintings, letters and poems by Mehemed Fehmy Agha (1896-1978), a close personal friend who was a vital force in the history of American graphic design.The collection was given by Ms. Morrow in 1989. Joyce Knoedler Morrow: Papers,1930-1973.

18. Cipe Pineles Collection
Cipe Pineles (1908-1991) was one of the most prominent designers of the twentieth century and one of the first female art directors to work at a major magazine. She served in that capacity at Glamour, Seventeen and Charm. The Cipe Pineles collection came to RIT in 1991 and was deposited by Cipe Pineles’s two adopted children: Tom Golden and Carol Burtin Fripp.

19. Paul Rand Collection
Paul Rand’s (1914-1996) is an important figure in American graphic design history whose design work and educational writings are cornerstones of the discipline. He is best known for his corporate identity work he did for IBM, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, NeXT, United Parcel Service and ABC television among many others. His complete archive is located in the Department of Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. RIT owns a fine sample collection, primarily posters, that was given to RIT by Marion Rand in 2001.

20. Alex Steinweiss Collection
Alex Steinweiss (1917-) played a seminal role in record cover design as the art director for Columbia Records as well as other record companies, London, Decca and A & R records. He also worked for clients including National Distillery, Schenley Distributors, as well as Print and Fortune. Alex Steinweiss gave this sample collection to RIT Libraries in 2005.

21. Ladislav Sutnar Collection
The Ladislav Sutnar Collection numbers approximately 215 items dating from 1940 to 1970 documenting the work of Sutnar (1897-1976), a pioneer of information design. The collection includes printed samples of Sutnar's periodical covers, advertisements, catalogs, books, displays, and posters. Approximately 50 items in the collection were part of a travelling exhibition developed by the Cincinnati Art Museum and funded by the Champion Paper Company. The exhibition display panels were donated to RIT by the Champion Paper Company in 1968 and transferred to the Special Collections in July 1991. The majority of items were obtained from the collection of Noel Martin. The collection was sorted and re-housed by Pei-Ying Wu in July and August 1996. Ms. Wu also created a folder-level finding guide for the collection which is available in its entirety as a PDF file by clicking here: Ladislav Sutnar Collection: Finding Guide.

22. Ceil Smith Thayer Collection
Ceil Smith Thayer (1900-1988) worked in the New York metropolitan area designing for a variety of fashion and retail companies. The collection was donated in 1995 from Bob Fleck, owner of Oak Knoll Books.

23. Bradbury Thompson Collection
Bradbury Thompson (1911-1996) was a seminal American graphic designer and art director. From 1938 to 1962, Thompson was designer and editor of Westvaco Inspirations, the arts journal of the West Viriginia Pulp and Paper Company. He produced the American Classic book series for Westvaco and designed the Washburn College Bible, one of the towering typographic works of the 20th century. He also worked as art director at several magazines and designed numerous US postage stamps. The representative sample archive was given by Dodge Thompson in 2000.

24. Fred Troller Collection
Fred Troller (1930-2002) was a distinguished American graphic designer and educator who emigrated from Switzerland. He worked for Geigy Chemical Corporation and later established his own design studio in New York working for clients such as Exxon, General Electric, IBM and American Airlines among others. He also designed book jackets for Doubleday. The Troller Archive was donated by Beatrice Troller in 2005.

25. George Tscherny Collection
The George Tscherny (1924-) collection is a sample collection containing framed work for 166 pieces tracing the evolution of George Tscherny's career. Highlights includes examples of his poster design as well as many other printed pieces. The Tscherny collection was dontaed by George Tscherny in December 2006.

26. Massimo and Lella Vignelli Collection
The current collection is composed of graphic design, book design, posters, and printed materials designed by Massimo and Lella Vignelli. The work was originally donated for an exhibition in the RIT’s Bevier Gallery in 2002 concurrent with the celebration of Massimo's Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree, and Lella's Presidential Medallion awarded by RIT and has been supplemented over the past years with a choice selection of new material.