Type designer Ed Benguiat died October 15th at the age of 92. He is credited with the design of more than 600 typefaces. Along with Milton Glaser who died at the end of June at a similar ripe old age of 91, the two world-renowned designers represent the archetype of the Mad Men era, sassy New York design genius that inspired me to become a designer as I was growing up in the seventies. Both were life-long New Yorkers who built reputations through their own inimitable style, precision and talent through collaboration with some of the most important designers, type foundries and publishers of the last century. Their influence on the popular culture might not be immense, but it was iconic. Anyone who recognizes the I (heart) New York slogan or the Dylan poster with the black silhouette and curly rainbow hair knows Milton Glaser.
While Benguiat might be the lesser-known of the two, he holds a place in the heart of any type buff who revered the International Typeface Corporation and the products of the typographers who created fonts for them. Along with Herb Lubalin, Benguiat defined the look of typography throughout my formative years.
As a pre-digital designer, I remember my delight at owning and browsing the photo-lettering books produced by Phils Photo, a shop that specialized in creating headline type photoimaged from reels of typefaces and delivered ready for paste-up. Many of these faces came from Photo-Lettering, Inc., where Benguiat produced more than 500 meticulously hand-drawn and inked fonts. Phototype took these masters and made the film reels that were then used to set type repro for headlines.
His redrawing of the font Souvenir has become as synonymous for typophiles with the seventies as Meta by Erik Spiekermann was as the go-to font of the nineties. His eponymous font Benguiat is still so resonant of the period that it was used as the titles for Netflix’s hit Stranger Things. Maybe it is just type-geek me but watching the show and seeing the titles immediately sent me back into time.
It is often said that meeting your idols can be the most disappointing thing. Having briefly spent some time with both (although a few years apart) that was not my impression at all. They both showed a love of craft, history—and humility for their place in it. And they were both very funny and self-deprecating and encouraging to a young designer. —Rob Sugar
