Early 20th Century -- Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. He is a controversial figure, with his well-known religious views and subject matter generally viewed as being at odds with his sexual behavior, including his erotic art as well as his sexual abuse of children and of an animal. The Arts and Crafts movement was an international movement in the decorative and fine arts that flourished between 1880 and 1910.
Gill was named Royal Designer for Industry, the highest British award for designers, by the Royal Society of Arts. He also became a founder-member of the newly established Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry.
Fiona MacCarthy wrote a biography of the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill in 1989 that dropped a small bomb on the art world.
Gill was one of the most respected artists of the 20th Century. His statue Prospero and Ariel adorns the BBC's Broadcasting House and the Creation of Adam is in the lobby of the Palais des Nations, now the European HQ of the United Nations in Geneva.
But MacCarthy's book revealed that he regularly had sex with two of his daughters, his sisters and even the family dog. These encounters he recorded in his diary.
Mid 20th Century - Wim Crouwel
a Dutch graphic designer, type designer, andtypographer. Between 1947 and 1949, he studied Fine Arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen, the Netherlands. In addition, he studied typography at what is now the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.
In 1963, he was one of the founders of the design studio Total Design (currently named Total Identity). From 1964 onwards, Crouwel was responsible for the design of the posters, catalogues and exhibitions of theStedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1967 he designed the typeface New Alphabet, a design that embraces the limitations of the cathode ray tube technology used by early data display screens and phototypesetting equipment, thus only containing horizontal and vertical strokes. Other typefaces from his hand are Fodor andGridnik. In 1970 he designed the Dutch pavilion for Expo '70 (Osaka, Japan). Later, Crouwel designed the Number Postage Stamps for the Dutch PTT, well known in the Netherlands during its circulation from 1976-2002.
Crouwel's graphic work is especially well known for the use of grid-based layouts and typography that is rooted in theInternational Typographic Style.
Late 20th Century - 21 Century - David Carson
An American graphic designer, art director and surfer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.
david carson is best known for his innovative magazine design, and his experimental typography. the art director for Ray Gun, carson was perhaps the most influential graphic designer of the nineties. in particular, his widely-imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge" era. carson became interested in a new school of typography and photography-based graphic design and is largely responsible for popularizing the style; he inspired many young designers of the 1990's.
Carson was hired by publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett to design Ray Gun, an alternative music and lifestyle magazine that debuted in 1992.
In one issue, he notoriously used Dingbat, a font containing only symbols, as the font for what he considered a rather dull interview with Bryan Ferry.(However, the whole text was published in a legible font at the back of the same issue of Ray Gun, complete with a repeat of the asterisk motif).
Ray Gun made Carson well known and attracted new admirers to his work. In this period, he was featured in publications such as The New York Times(May 1994) and Newsweek (1996).