Quentin Fiore (February 12, 1920 – April 13, 2019) was a graphic designer, who worked mostly in books.

Early life and education

Quentin Fiore was born on February 12, 1920, in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York to Antonino, a tailor, and Bice (née Bononi) Fiore and was raised in Brooklyn. Fiore was a self-taught designer. His visual education came from a short period of painting and drawing classes in New York in the late 1930s at the Art Students League of New York with George Grosz and, later, Hans Hoffmann. Fiore later studied at the "

New Bauhaus Institute of Design (ID) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design. History The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is a school of design ...

" in

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. He was a conscientious objector during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

along with two of his four brothers. They were assigned to camps around the country fighting forest fires and rescuing lost or injured skiers. After the war in 1946, Fiore married Jeanne DeWolfe Raseman.

Career

In the late 1940s, Fiore turned to graphic design and worked as an art director for Christian Dior and Bonwit Teller, later moving on to more corporate work for Ford Foundation, Bell Laboratories and RCA in the 1950s. Fiore is noted especially by his designs of the 1960s, where he mixed text and images, different sizes of type and other unconventional devices to create dynamic pages that reflected the tumultuous spirit of the time. In the words of critic Steven Heller, Fiore was "as anarchic as possible while still working within the constraints of bookmaking".Heller, Steven. ''Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design''. Allworth Press, 1997 Of particular interest are his collaborations with

media theorist Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...

Marshall McLuhan, such as ''

The Medium is the Massage ''The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects'' is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, with coordination by Jerome Agel. It was published by Bantam Books in 1967 and became a bestse ...

'' (1967). Initiated by Fiore, ''The Medium is the Masage'' didn't have a manuscript but was an amalgamation of McLuhan's previous works 1962 ''Gutenberg Galaxy'' and 1964 ''Understanding Media'' in an attempt to popularize McLuhan. The book has been described as the seed from which the idea that "consciousness can be affected by the knowing collision of verbal and visual information" sprouted. The style Fiore implemented in the book is a kinetic interpretation of the philosophy so that the complex ideas could be understandable to a visual audience. The typography within was at all different angles, superimposed on images, and meant to be read in a mirror. The book received mixed reviews with its disregard of typographic rules, while others thought "it promoted illiteracy, encouraged drug use, it corrupted the morals of the American youth." The initial print run by Bantam consisted of 5,000 paperback copies, with a hardbound edition from Random House. The book was wildly successful with subsequent print runs and translations in German, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Italian. Worldwide circulation was close to a million and McLuhan's largest-selling publication. The style was pushed further in ''DO IT!: Scenarios of the Revolution'' (1970), the controversial

yippie The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on ...

manifesto by social activist

Jerry Rubin Jerry Clyde Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman. He is known for being one of the ...

. Rubin collected most of the material for the book, working with Fiore when he was available and was later described as an important political statement. In 1968 ''The Medium is the Massage'' was made into an LP ( Columbia, CS 9501, CL 2701), combining readings of excerpts of the book with musical samples and original musical accompaniments. In 1999, a remastered version was released in CD format by SME Japan. He died in

North Canaan, Connecticut North Canaan is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 3,211 at the 2020 census. The town center is still called "Canaan", being the main town center of the old town of Canaan prior to North Canaan splitting ...

, on April 13, 2019, at the age of 99.

Selected works

* '' The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects'', with Marshall McLuhan (1967) *'' War and Peace in the Global Village'', with Marshall McLuhan (1968) *''DO IT!: Scenarios of the Revolution'', by Jerry Rubin, introduction by

Eldridge Cleaver Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...

(1970) *''I Seem to Be a Verb'', with

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing mo ...

(1970) * ''Impressions of Lenin'', by

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* ''The Making of Kubrick's 2001''

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiore, Quentin 1920 births American graphic designers Illinois Institute of Technology alumni 2019 deaths American people of Italian descent American conscientious objectors