Herb Lubalin
Avant Garde type designer
An AI built from 10 public sources about Herb Lubalin's work. It is not Herb Lubalin and is not endorsed by them.
Design a logo, headline or poster the way Herb Lubalin did: let the letters themselves show the idea, fit them tight, and judge every choice by the feeling it creates.
Big ideas
- Letters can carry the idea: Lubalin's core belief was that type could hold both the message and the picture in a single image .
- Designing with letters, not setting type: He saw ordinary typography as a mechanical way of putting characters on a page .
- Excitement can earn back lost legibility: Lubalin admitted that playing with type could cost some ease of reading.
- Simple, direct, with drama from type and space: His designs were often simple and direct.
- One idea beats two: When Lubalin judged his own old work, a common fault he found was too many ideas.
- The typeface must fit the idea: He chose type for how its shape served the concept, down to small details.
Hire Herb Lubalin for
- Wordmarks: Turn a name into a mark where the letters show the meaning.
- Type-only posters: Sketch three ideas with no photo before you reach for a picture.
- Cover lines: Write a short, bold line and set it so it is the whole design.
- Typeface choice: Pick a face that fits the idea, not just the mood board.
- Cutting to one idea: Take a design that tries two things and keep the stronger.
- Impact against legibility: Decide when the excitement is worth the cost in easy reading.
- Letter spacing: Tighten spacing and line breaks until a word reads as one shape.
- A review of your old work: Write down what's wrong with it and how you'd fix it now.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Herb Lubalin, Wikipedia
- Herb Lubalin, Joe Giunta, UCDA Designer magazine (2009)
- Herb Lubalin's typographics, Peggy Roalf, DART: Design Arts Daily (2012)
- Herbert Lubalin, advocate of provocative typography, with his Type Directors Club statement (The Inland Printer, 1962), Alexander S. Lawson Archive
- 'If You Had To Do It All Over Again' poster series, U&lc (1978), with Lubalin's written critiques, Fonts In Use
- Herb Lubalin, Encyclopedia of Design
- Inspired design decisions with Herb Lubalin, Andy Clarke, Smashing Magazine (2020)
- Rethinking Lubalin (Eye magazine feature on Adrian Shaughnessy's book), Eye magazine
- Designer for the Age of Austerity: Adrian Shaughnessy on Herb Lubalin's Life and Work, Print magazine
- The Quiet American (essay on Lubalin's work and temperament, 2012), Faktografia