in design magazines he found in the Topeka library. From the outset he had
a curiously modernist bent (curious because conservative middle America
was not a conducive environment for modern thinking).
Westvaco Inspirationswas a compendium of what Thompson
believed to be the best of contemporary practice.Inspirationsreported on
the prevailing ethos, aesthetic, and philosophy of graphic design. But it was
more. Thompson promoted his vision, which wed the European modern
spirit to a respect for classical heritage. “My early interest in type came
from the humanist typographers,” explained Thompson, “the classic types
of Europe from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Later,
Vanity Fair[art directed by M. F. Agha] influenced me in the use of sans-
serif type—especially Futura.” His appreciation for unadorned layout
further evolved from studying the behemoth fashion magazines of the
1930 s, while his graphic adventurism came from an intimate knowledge of
printing and its potential. Thompson was never inhibited by low-budget
constraints nor primitive technologies. His belief in the rightness of form
was less about ideological purity than an interest in the most effective
means to communicate information.
Thompson liberally borrowed from all arts—painting and
sculpture, photography and drawing, realistic and abstract—to prove the
limitless possibilities of the design process. One of his most well-known
designs, an Inspirationsspread titled “Kerr-choo-oo,” presents type that is
not read as a word but as sound. Although inspired by Apollinaire’s
Calligrammesand F. T. Marinetti’s Parole in Liberta,it was decidedly
American in its wit.
Inspirationsbrought classical, modern, and eclectic sensibilities
together in the form of a manifesto, not the rabble-rousing kind that
emanated from futurism or dada, but a soft-spoken kind—which
characterized Thompson to a T—that sought to teach rather than preach.
Thompson was not radical, but modern in the catholic sense: anything was
possible within his aesthetic parameters; anything was doable as long as
quality was the goal. Thompson’s experiments were, moreover, rooted in
terra firma—the real world.Inspirationswas a progressive’s introduction to
new ideas about graphic forms and their applications in the marketplace,
not the clouds. Everything presented in the publication (including his
convention-busting Monalphabet) was appropriate within the convention
of visual communications.
The qualities that made Inspirationsunique were rooted in its
conventional production. The constraints of letterpress printing and hot
metal composition stymied creative activity, but Thompson maximized the
limitations, pushed the boundaries, and tested the resilience of design. One
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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