Alvin Eisenman (June 18, 1921 – September 3, 2013) was an American

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

and educator throughout the last half of the 20th century. He was most notable for founding and heading the

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

's graduate program in

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

beginning in 1951 — the first graduate program in graphic design in the United States. He remained the director of that program until his retirement in 1990, at which point he was succeeded by

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (born 1940) is an American graphic designer, artist and educator whose work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles and user participation in graphic design. In 1990 she became the director of th ...

. Eisenman continued to teach in the program through the 1990s.

Biography

Raised in rural

DuBois, Pennsylvania DuBois ( ) is a city and the most populous community in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, United States. DuBois is located approximately northeast of Pittsburgh. The population was 7,510 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the ...

, Eisenman did his undergraduate work in graphic arts at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. After World War II, Eisenman took a position as a designer for the

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

Book Company. By 1950, Eisenman was in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

, first in the role as a designer for the Yale Press and soon becoming a leader in establishing a graduate program for graphic design at Yale. For the early program, Eisenman drew faculty from the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

in London (as part of a faculty exchange system) and recruited liberal arts graduates from Yale,

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

. The Yale graphic design program in the 1950s was successful in bringing together established and upcoming designers such as

Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ...

Herbert Matter Herbert Matter (April 25, 1907 – May 8, 1984) was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of photomontage in commercial art. Matter's innovative and experimental work helped shape the vocabulary of 20 ...

Armin Hofmann Armin Hofmann ( HonRDI) (29 June 1920 – 18 December 2020) was a Swiss graphic designer. He began his career in 1947 as a teacher at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel School of Art and Crafts at the age of twenty-six. Hofmann followed Emil Ru ...

Bradbury Thompson J. Bradbury Thompson (March 25, 1911 – November 1, 1995) was an American graphic designer and art director known for his work designing magazines and postage stamps. Early life and education J. Bradbury Thompson was born on March 25, 1911 in To ...

Wolfgang Weingart Wolfgang Weingart (6 February 1941 – 12 July 2021) was an internationally known graphic designer and typographer. His work was categorized as Swiss typography and he was credited as "the father" of New Wave or Swiss Punk typography. Childho ...

Lorraine Ferguson Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gra ...

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, ...

, Alan Fletcherbr>
Lester Beall and

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

br>
Eisenman is interviewed in the 2010 film ''The Visual Language of Herbert Matter'' discussing Matter at Yale. From 1960 to 1963, Eisenman was also head of the

American Institute of Graphic Arts The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity. T ...

. He was awarded the

AIGA The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity ...

medal in 1990.

References

* "Graphic Design celebrates 50th birthday," ''

Yale Daily News The ''Yale Daily News'' is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878. It is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. The ''Yale Daily News'' has consis ...

'', March 29, 2001

* “The Yale Legacy” by Anne Ghory-Goodma

* "Thoughts on Paul Rand" by Henry Steine

American graphic designers People from DuBois, Pennsylvania 2013 deaths 1921 births Yale School of Art faculty Artists from Connecticut Dartmouth College alumni {{graphic-designer-stub AIGA medalists