Louis Danziger

In 1998, Danziger was awarded the AIGA Gold Medal for "standards of excellence over a lifetime of work." Danziger retired from design work in the early 1970s, to work as a consultant and educator. He has held faculty positions with ArtCenter, Chouinard, CalArts and Harvard University.

• Name — Louis Danziger • Born — 17 November 1923 • Birthplace — Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. • Education — Evander Childs High School, Art Center School, New School • Known for — Graphic design, advertising, teaching • Awards — 1998 AIGA Gold Medal, many others

Louis Danziger was born on November 17, 1923, in Brooklyn, and raised in The Bronx, New York. At age eleven, Danziger was enrolled in courses in art and poster design run by the Federal Art Project: "Their art classes turned me into a designer," Danziger later said. He began to browse the German design magazine Gebrauchsgraphik, which was available at the Fordham Public Library, and which he later credited with piquing his interest in typography, and with establishing his high visual standards. As an art major at Evander Childs High School, Danziger received a free student membership to the Museum of Modern Art: as a consequence Danziger was exposed to the modern-art movements of Futurism, Constructivism, and Dadaism, and studied the work of Picasso, Matisse, and Klee. Danziger prepared for a career as a commercial artist. As a teenager, he worked as an apprentice at United Litho Company and silkscreen shop S&K. He also worked as a stage designer at Berkshire Country Club in the Catskill Mountains, and as an assistant to the art director at Delehanty Institute. After high school, Danziger served in the Army in the South Pacific (New Guinea, the Admiralties, the Philippines, and Japan), where he was a Staff Sergeant and worked as a radio operator and communication chief, from 1943 through 1945. He turned 100 on November 17, 2023.

Danziger returned to Los Angeles in late 1948, where he studied architecture briefly at the California School of Art, under Raphael Soriano. He began an independent practice, offering graphic design, advertising, and consulting services, in Los Angeles in 1949. Prolific and efficient in his work, Danziger created thousands of works of design over the next three decades, including advertising, book covers, magazines and catalogs, packaging, logos, album covers, and exhibition design. His client base grew from small local entities to large national corporations and organizations. His clients included charitable and cultural institutions (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Skirball Museum, International Design Conference at Aspen, Eleanor Roosevelt Institute for Cancer Research), educational institutions (UCLA), and many commercial enterprises (Flax Artist's Materials, Container Corporation of America, Kwikset Locks, Gelvetex, Vivitar, Clinton Laboratories, TRW, Dreyfus Company, and others). Among Danziger's better-known works: • Print ad for General Lighting Company (1949) • Logo and identity program for Flax Artist's Materials (1952) • House campaign for Dreyfus Advertising Agency (1956) • Print ad for Container Corporation of America (1958) • Print ads and packaging for Clinton Laboratories (1959-1963) • Posters for Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)'s Exhibition of New York School Painters (1965) and Exhibition of American Painting (1966) • Catalogs for several Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) shows, most notably: New York School (1965), Exhibition of Japanese Art Treasures (1965), Art & Technology (1971), and The Avant Garde in Russia (1980) • Advertising campaigns and packaging for Mamiya/Sekor (1966) • Catalog cover, UCLA Extension (1990) Danziger largely retired from studio work in 1972, although for several years after he served as a corporate design consultant for Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO); he also consulted for Microsoft, LACMA, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and others. In 1995, Danziger donated his collection of visual work and related documents to the Design Archives of Rochester Institute of Technology, where it can be accessed by students, design scholars, and historians.

By and large, Danziger worked alone, managing his firm largely without design assistants or professional collaborators. He noted that he preferred to do fewer projects, but to retain more control over production of each piece. With few exceptions, his work incorporated his own photography. Nevertheless, Danziger was closely connected with a group of designers from various disciplines who were active in Southern California from the 1950s to the 1970s, including Charles and Ray Eames, and the 'Design Group' (a group that consisted primarily of Alvin Lustig's students, which was active from 1948 to the early 1970s). These designers were not Danziger's direct collaborators; however, they met frequently, had common interests and preoccupations, and were cooperative and mutually influential. Danziger was something of an intellectual leader of this group: he was later described by his contemporary, graphic designer Deborah Sussman, as "a guru to everyone (in this confederation of designers)." Designer Saul Bass said that Danziger "shaped Los Angeles design activity into an intellectual dialogue and was a major inspiration." In 1949, Danziger joined a loosely affiliated, short-lived group called the Society of Contemporary Designers, which also included Saul Bass, Alvin Lustig, Jerome Gould, and John Follis, and which included graphic, product, and exhibition designers. Danziger was described by Bass as "a critical link in the communal support system." Danziger also enjoyed a close friendship and informal collaboration with graphic designer Paul Rand, and with Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer. Danziger collaborated with architect Frank Gehry on the Danziger House and Studio (1965), a studio/residence which Danziger and his wife occupied until 1995. This project was one of the first of Gehry's projects to receive widespread attention.

After his discharge from the Army, and eager to escape cold weather, Danziger moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the ArtCenter School on the G.I. Bill. At Art Center, Danziger encountered the first of two teachers who would be particularly influential: graphic designer Alvin Lustig. "I didn't like school at all, because it was very rigid at that time. But one day I heard this voice coming out of a classroom talking about social structure, religion, and the broadest implications of design. So I stuck my nose in the door and saw that it was Lustig. From then on I sat in on every class," said Danziger. From Lustig, Danziger learned how graphic design connected to the worlds of art, music, and literature, and that design could have social and cultural importance: "(Lustig) made me feel, naively, that I could move the earth by putting pencil to paper." Danziger left school less than two years later, and began to work as a freelance graphic designer. Discouraged by the scarcity of opportunities available in Los Angeles at the time, Danziger returned to New York City; while working at Esquire, he enrolled in the famous 'Graphic Journalism' evening class of graphic designer Alexey Brodovitch, at The New School for Social Research. Danziger was encouraged by Brodovitch's enthusiasm for Danziger's portfolio of work, and was inspired by Brodovitch's insistence on originality and authenticity, and his view of design as a simple, joyful activity: "(Brodovitch taught that) design needs no justification other than the pleasure of the act itself," said Danziger. Danziger has spoken frequently about the twin influences of Lustig and Brodovitch, each very different from the other in style, focus, and temperament: "One said 'night,' and the other said 'day.'" Danziger observed that the differences between these two teachers helped him to resist the impulse to imitate either, and instead compelled him to develop his independent style and voice: "I always felt that it was the contradictions between my two masters that allowed me to form my own point of view." Though noted for his intellectualism, Danziger describes himself primarily as an auto-didact: "(Reading) constituted the major part of my design education." He has cited as formative texts Buckminster Fuller's 'Nine Chains to the Moon,' György Kepes' 'Language of Vision,' Louis Sullivan's 'Kindergarten Chats,' and Paul Rand's 'Thoughts on Design.' Rand's writing in particular imprinted on Danziger the importance of identifying a solution to each design problem that connected closely to the visual language and conceptual territory of the subject matter, and the power of visual metaphors as a tool of communication.

Danziger is credited with influencing several generations of contemporary American advertising art directors and graphic designers, both through his work and through his teaching. In addition, Danziger's influence extended outside the United States. In 1957, when traveling to Italy to study the work of Italian designers, Danziger discovered that many Italian designers knew and admired his work already: graphic designer Massimo Vignelli said that it was the work of Danziger and Saul Bass that inspired him to come to the United States.