R. Roger Remington

Apart from a general interest in art history and design I mostly picked up this book because it just so happens that my niece's profession is graphic arts management and so I wanted some more background. What I especially appreciated was that I got some names to associate with the evolution of the discipline. Discipline is the appropriate term as when I asked my niece to describe her master's thesis my question was whether she was writing theory of marketing, or of aesthetic theory, and the show more response was basically "yes." show less

R. Roger Remington’s Lester Beall: Space, Time & Content examines the manner in which Beall used photomontage to shake off what he perceived as “the gimmicky nature of designs stimulated by the free-market capitalism of the time” (pg. 11). Photomontage drew upon the work of Dadaists, cubists, and, in film, Sergei Eisenstein (pg. 14). In designing posters for the Rural Electrification Administration in the 1930s, Beall further eschewed capitalist advertising trends and evoked the style show more of the Russian Constructivists (pg. 17). Beall further developed his style while revolutionizing the advertising industry in works for Scope magazine, that dramatically promoted pharmaceutical products (pgs. 25-26). This publication, the first of RIT’s Graphic Design Archives Chapbook Series, uses the unique format to offer a close-reading of Beall’s work for scholars of graphic design. In its focus, it builds upon the work Roland Marchand began in his 1986 work, Advertising the American Dream. show less