Purity of Aim

This concise overview of the work of designer Alvin Lustig (1915-55) focuses on his book covers, vehicles for his bold graphic experimentation.

Here is a colorful and well-researched representation of Alvin Lustig's book cover designs that were created primarily for New Directions Books and Noonday Press, among others. Lustig used the book cover as a vehicle of his bold graphic experimentation that was enhanced by a lifelong collaboration with James Laughlin, founder and publisher of New Directions Books. Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger cite many passages from these letters of correspondence betweenLustig and Laughlin which include a range of topics from the early 1940s up to Lustig's untimely death in 1955.

As a modern designer, Lustig's interests spanned many fields: architectural, industrial and interior design which served as an expression of his deeply held convictions. For him, the designer was not a single-minded specialist, but an integrator of many art forms-and simultaneously, as he saw it, a spokesman for social change.

NED DREW teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and is also the director of The Design Consortium, a student/teacher run design studio that focuses on non-profit, community-based projects.
Paul Sternberger is an Associate Professor of Art History at Rutgers University-Newark. He is co-author with colleague Ned Drew of By It's Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design.