Walter Allner

Walter Allner died last Friday aged 97. His incredible career reads like a history of Modernist graphic design. He trained at the Bauhaus under Albers, Kandinsky and Klee. He worked alongside Otto Neurath, Piet Zwart and A.M. Cassandre. He founded the International Poster Annual, started his own company and freelanced for Johnson & Johnson, I.B.M. and Life magazine. Allner’s most notable contributions are the 79 covers of Fortune magazine where he was the Art Director from 1962 to 1974. It’s hard to find examples of his work online but you can usually spot his Fortune covers – they are all signed “Allner”.

Also, he may have been the first person to try this:

This spirit was evident with other comparably ambitious Fortune covers, notably one in which he arranged for dozens of windows on 20 floors of the Time & Life building in New York to be illuminated at night to spell out 500. To create this huge temporary electric sign he had to persuade everyone in the offices — many not employed by Time Inc. — to cooperate. After a rainstorm thwarted his initial attempt, the project was eventually photographed from a nearby hotel.

(from The New York Times, with thanks to Steven Heller)

David Rainbird
Posted on Tuesday, 25th of July 2006 Permalink Comment (0)