The New Classics succeeded where other popular literary series,
including the Modern Library and Everyman’s Library, had failed. Each
New Classics jacket had its own character, yet Lustig maintained unity
through formal consistency. However, at no time did his style overpower
the book. Lustig’s jacket designs for New Directions demanded
contemplation; they were not quick-fix visual stimulants.
Lustig was a form-giver, not a novelty maker. The style he chose
for the New Classics was a logical solution to the specific design problem.
The New Classics did not become his signature style any more than his
earlier typecase compositions did, for within the framework of modernism
Lustig varied his approach, using the marketplace as his laboratory. “I have
heard people speak of the ‘Lustig Style,’” wrote Laughlin in Print, “but not
one of them has been able to tell me, in fifty words or five hundred what it
was. Because each time, with each new book, there was a new creation. The
only repetitions were those imposed by the physical media.”
Lustig’s design appeared revolutionary (and so unacceptable)
to the guardians of tradition entrenched at the AIGA and other book-
dominated graphic organizations, but he was not the radical that critics
feared. He stressed the formal aspects of a problem, and in matters of
formal practice he was devout to a fault. In “Contemporary Book Design”
(Design Quarterly,No.31. 1954) he wrote, “The factors that produce quality
are the same in the traditional and in the contemporary book. Wherein,
then lies difference? Perhaps the single most distinguishing factor in the
approach of the contemporary designer is his willingness to let the problem
act upon him freely and without preconceived notions of the forms it
should take.”
Lorca: Three Tragediesexemplified Lustig’s versatility and was,
moreover, one of many covers for New Directions that tested the
effectiveness of inexpensive black-and-white printing as it pushed the
boundaries of accepted modern design. For with this and other photo-
illustrations (done in collaboration with photographers because he did not
take the photographs himself ), Lustig customized the modern visual
language to fit his preferences. Of course, he was not alone. Paul Rand
produced art-based book jackets, but Lustig’s distinction, wrote Laughlin in
Print, “lay in the intensity and the purity with which he dedicated his
genius to his idea vision.” While the others may have been graphic
problem-solvers, Lustig was a visual poet whose work was rooted as much
in emotion as in form.
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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