Benguiat Portrait
Typographer Biography: Edward Benguiat
Edward Benguiat, born on October 27, 1927, is a designer who has created many well known typographical designs. Born in Brooklyn, New York, his father worked at Bloomingdale’s as a display director and at the age of 9, began to learn the tools of the trade from his father. Before WWII, he began an interest in music and percussion will led to a love of Jazz. He enlisted in the Army during WWII and afterwords started his music career and gained popularity as a Progressive Jazz Musician. Edward later would say how graphic design and typography is comparable to the rhythm of music composition (Halperin, 2000). With his strong music background, he then used his GI Bill and enrolled into the Workshop School of Advertising Art. He became Paul Standards’ understudy. Edward would go on to have a successful career as a Designer and Art Director. He partnered with Ed Ronthaler and created Photo-lettering Inc.
Career Highlights
In 1953 he was an associate director of Esquire magazine. In 1962 he would go on to start is own New York design studio. Edward has been very influential in the typography world. He helped establish the international type face association, the first independent licensing company for type designers which aimed to market type design to the industry. This led to a growth in the type industry in the 1960’s. His first ITC Project was Souvenir. Condensed, and many more. Ed continues to create typefaces for ITC, including the recent Edwardian.
Ed created or re-designed many well known logos including Esquire, Mcalls, The New York Times, and The San Diego Tribune, among many others. He is still very active and design, and having been a prolific designer since the 1960’s he has seen the change and growth in the design industry. He has said that “Too many people think that they’ve got a Mac and they can draw a logo or a typeface. You have to learn to draw first. The computer won’t do it for you” (Halperin, 2000)
Edward received the Gold Medal of excellence from the New York Type Directors Club as well as the Frederick W. Goudy award. He currently does lectures around the world and since 1962, has been an instructor at The School of Visual Arts.
Typography
Edward is credited with the creation of over 600 typefaces (Strizver, 2006) He created the typefaces Tiffany, Benguiat, Benguiat Gothic, Korinna, Panache, Modern No. 216, Bookman, Caslon No. 225, Barcelona, and Avante Garde. ITC Souvenir is based on Souvenir by Morris Fuller Fenton which was originally a single weight typeface, Ed added additional weights and italics . It was redrawn by Benguiat in 1967 for the Photo-lettering Corporation. ITC Benguiat is a decorative serif typeface released in 1978 and is based the typefaces of the Art Nouveau period. He continues to work on typefaces for ITC and his more recent font is Edwardian Script.
References
Strizver, I. (2006). Type rules!: The designer’s guide to professional typography (2nd ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Font Designer – Edward Benguiat. (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://www.linotype.com/1515/edwardbenguiat.html
Halperin, E. (2000, January 1). Edward Benguiat. Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/edward-benguiat/
ITC Benguiat. (2015, January 1). Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITC_Benguiat
Souvenir (typeface). (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souvenir_(typeface)
Ed Benguiat. (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Benguiat
\
Dominique Designs 